Maybe the pressure of being mysterious was getting to superstar Frank Ocean, or maybe … well, who knows, with Ocean? But “with Ocean’s mask slipping, it is worth wondering how audience perceptions towards him might shift. From the off, Ocean felt like a pre-social-media artist, with a privacy that forced listeners to focus on the intricacies of his music rather than the life of the man behind it, adding to his enigma and giving rise to one of music’s most dedicated fanbases.” – The Guardian (UK)
A Trailblazing Director Continues Her Quest To Lead (And Pull Others Up With Her)
Leigh Silverman, one of few women (still!) directing on Broadway, assembled an all-woman creative team this year. At a panel, this happened: “Making history ‘was an accident,’ the moderator ventured. Said Silverman, with a hint of incredulity in her voice, ‘It wasn’t an accident, because I meant to do it. The accident is the patriarchy, not the design team.'” – American Theatre
Susan Hiller, Artist Of Neglected Memories, Has Died At 78
The British artist’s “video, audio and photographic installations ingeniously explored extinct languages, alien abductions, girls with psychic powers and the Holocaust.” – The New York Times
If You’ve Got Writers’ Block, Try Designing Your Characters’ Living Spaces
One novelist, who calls herself a Planner (as opposed to a Pantser), says, “What characters do when I let them loose on the page is often unexpected, but I never regret having nailed down what they see out their window as they lie down to sleep.” – LitHub
The Academy Decides To Include All Five Nominated Songs In The Oscars After All
Yeah, that backlash was pretty fierce. – Los Angeles Times
A Violinist Has Questions About The Supposed East-West Divide
Lebanese violinist Layale Chaker isn’t too pleased about some of the choices forced upon her and her classmates as they grew up. “‘From the beginning you chose your path, Western or Arab,’ Ms. Chaker, 28, said recently at her apartment in Brooklyn. ‘I never questioned it.'” Now she has both questions and answers. – The New York Times
Does Ireland Have A Cultural Inferiority Complex?
“We can’t have it both ways. We can’t keep saying we’re a wonderfully endowed cultural nation and boast about our artists and our poets and our writers and everything on the one hand, and then turn around and say we’re not good enough.” – Irish Times
How Story-Sharing Platform Wattpad Became A Hollywood Player
Beyond its handful of higher-profile productions, including a feature film coming this spring, Wattpad estimates that nearly 1,000 of its stories have been turned intotraditional books, TV shows, films and other digital content. It’s partnered with NBCUniversal, SYFY, CW Seed and others around the world to develop film and television projects, and last week it announced that it’s launching its own publishing imprint, Wattpad Books. – Los Angeles Times
Doomsday Art – Culture And Our Threat Of Apocalypse
If every age has its version of apocalypse, the soft tragedy of our own is that it can no longer be safely situated in the future. Our end-times, instead, lurk among us, furtive and fierce and all too present-tensed, waiting, watching, lingering, biding—understanding, far better than we allow ourselves to, how little it takes to turn the good place into the bad. – The Atlantic
Still Life In San Francisco Officially Authenticated As Van Gogh
Still Life with Fruit and Chestnuts, in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco since 1960, has been de- and re-authenticated more than once; it had been labeled as possibly by Van Gogh and had not been consistently on display. Now the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has determined that the painting is genuine Vincent, dating from 1886. — The Art Newspaper
This Is *Not* The Vehicle You’d Expect For Garth Drabinsky’s Comeback
With his company, Livent, Drabinsky was one of Broadway’s powerhouse producers in the 1990s (Ragtime, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Show Boat, Fosse, Parade). Then he got busted for financial fraud and did time in a Canadian prison. Now he’s back — at, of all places, Berkeley Rep, with Paradise Square, a sort-of Stephen Foster jukebox musical about Irish- and African-Americans in Civil War-era Manhattan. — The New York Times