“The museum tells a chronological story of Black music starting in the 1600s through present day and framed around major cultural movements including the music and instruments brought by African slaves, the emergence of blues through the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement. … And while there are museums around the country that focus on certain aspects of Black music, this museum bills itself as the first of its kind to be all encompassing.” – AP
Paramount Battles Truman Capote Estate For Right To Remake ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’
“Paramount has a screenplay for a new movie, according to court papers. But Alan Schwartz, Trustee of the Truman Capote Literary Trust, has been shopping a television series, and has gotten seven-figure offers from multiple interested buyers. Early last year, both sides pursued settlement with the idea that Paramount would be involved in the TV production, but in May, negotiations were halted when Paramount chief Jim Gianopulos decided to opt for a feature instead. Now they’re fussing over decades-old deal work and trying to figure out who has power to commission a new version.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Why The California Attorney General Is Investigating The San Francisco Art Institute
The attorney general does not comment on ongoing audits, but Hyperallergic has acquired documents raising questions about board member self-interest and misuse of tax-exempt bonds that nonprofit attorneys interviewed by Hyperallergic say are within the office’s investigative scope. The documents shed light on the school’s debt-financed expansion into Fort Mason that jeopardized SFAI’s original campus on Chestnut Street and its prized Diego Rivera mural. – Hyperallergic
Indie Bookstores Invested In Online Sales… And It Has Paid Off
Their embrace of internet sales appears to have paid off, allowing them to meet surging demand spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement and the holiday shopping season, cementing the loyalty of longtime customers while reaching new ones, and succeeding in taking back dollars that were previously lost to online competitors. – Publishers Weekly
An ‘Intersectional Trainwreck’ — Alex Ross On ‘The Great Gay Jewish Poetry Brawl Of 1821’
“In the shouty Valhalla of pointlessly destructive literary feuds, a place of honor must go to the verbal duel between the poets Heinrich Heine and August von Platen, which amused and disgusted the German literary world in 1829. Two outsiders — a Jew and a homosexual — resorted to crude stereotypes as they attempted to eject each other from an establishment that might rather have dispensed with both of them.” – The New Yorker
Pianist Lara Downes Is Reviving The Work Of Black Composers And Reframing The History Of American Classical Music
Her project, called Rising Sun Music, “is a series of newly recorded works written by black composers — including many works that have never been recorded before — performed by Downes with guest artists. She plans to release one song per week to streaming platforms, with a new theme every month, beginning February 5.” – Smithsonian Magazine
Broadway’s Shutdown Has A Long Economic Reach
“By one count, Broadway is directly responsible for nearly 100,000 jobs in New York City alone and, as a leading attraction for people who travel to the city, it has an economic impact of nearly $15 billion.” (video plus transcript) – PBS NewsHour
Can a New LACMA Rise from the Rubble? Quaffing Michael Govan’s Kool-Aid
The doubts engendered in me by the shifting ground (related to the proximity to the La Brea Tar Pits) under the cranes being used for construction of LACMA’s new Geffen Galleries caused me to reflect back on Govan’s spotty track record for delivering on his ambitious, provocative proposals. – Lee Rosenbaum
Minnesota Orchestra Posts A Record Deficit
On Thursday morning, the orchestra released its operating results for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2020. The big news: a deficit of $11.7 million, the largest in its history. Last year’s deficit was $8.8 million, another record-breaker. No one who follows the orchestra has forgotten that the record-breaker before that, for 2012, was $6 million, enough to help lead to a lockout that lasted 15 months. – Minnpost
Young Poets Think Amanda Gorman Is Giving Them Cultural Cachet – And Access
One youth poet laureate: “She was given the platform to really pull people in and witness the magic of it, and I think that once you get that, you’re going to be hooked.” – BBC
How The Novel Became Women’s Work
At least in the 18th century. “Wherever they were writing, these women had dared to move out of the conventional female role of service and self-sacrifice to pursue their own needs and drives. Dogged by financial insecurity, ill health, and bad eyesight as a number of them were, it took a special kind of courage to defy the stifling social expectations of the time and to bear the often brutal discouragement they faced, usually in the family.” – LitHub
OK, Sure, Disease Is Not A Metaphor, But COVID-19’s Impact Sure Feels Fire-Like
Philip Kennicott: “Inflammation isn’t just an actual symptom of the disease. It seems to be part of its etiology, its moral and social origins and effects. Covid makes bad things worse; it inflames things.” – Washington Post
Montclair University Cultural Official Accused Of Verbal Abuse
“Emily Johnson, an Indigenous self-described dancemaker and choreographer published a letter she sent to the National Endowment for the Arts on Thursday detailing what she calls “abusive” experiences working with Jedediah Wheeler, executive director of Montclair State’s Office of Arts and Cultural Programming.” – Politico
Who, Or What Collective, Should Create 45’s Official Portrait?
One suggestion: 43, aka painter George W. Bush. – Hyperallergic
There’s A ‘Museum Of Comfort’ In Spain
Well, on Instagram, actually. Yes, another InstaMuseum. Did Spanish people invent something to make life easier, better, more comfortable? Into the “museum” it goes. Part of its goal: “We have to generate a narrative for Spanish design.” – El Pais
The Last Agency Holdout Agrees To A Deal With Writers Guild In Hollywood
Nearly two years after screenwriters fired their agents in a fight against agency actions that were costing TV writers quite a bit of money, the Writers’ Guild Union approved a new deal with WME. – Los Angeles Times
Sundance Went Virtual This Year, And That Worked OK
The last big film festival from 2020 had its virtual tryout this year. It wasn’t terrible, but, says one critic: “I’m usually whiny and cranky about Sundance. Why are we in the snow? Why January? I could see all you people in Los Angeles. But this year, I was so nostalgic for every bit of the experience. I wanted nothing more than to be packed into a crowded shuttle bus, talking to strangers about tiny movies. I was so craving everything Sundance stands for that I even tuned in to festival director Tabitha Jackson’s morning broadcasts, something I would never do if I was actually in Utah, just to get an inkling of that geeky film love I was missing.” – The New York Times
In Britain, Thousands Protest The Idea Of Closing To The Public A Library That Was Left To The Nation
The Wallace Collection “is in internal consultation” about closing the library and archive that was left to the country in 1897. Is that even legal? Will anyone notice during the pandemic? (More than 10,000 people certainly have noticed.) – The Guardian (UK)
Even The Met Is Considering Selling Some Art To Make Ends Meet
The Met’s director, Max Hollein: “Every museum in the U.S. is having these conversations. … For us not to discuss this now would be irresponsible.” – The New York Times
This Indian Comedian Was Thrown In Jail For Jokes He Hadn’t Told
This is not a democratic move: “The Muslim comic [was] thrown in a Madhya Pradesh jail on January 1, 2021 with four others on suspicion that he might make some jokes about Hinduism.” – Vice
Anne Feeney, Singer-Songwriter Whose Fiery ‘Have You Gone To Jail For Justice’ Inspired Peter Paul And Mary, 69
Peter Yarrow said Feeney was “joyous and fiery in her determination to use her music to elevate those who are most marginalised and to move towards greater justice in the land.” – The Guardian (UK)
Ballet Dancers, Getting Real (And Sometimes Really Funny) On TikTok
If Instagram is about selling your moves – and your clothing line, your toe shoe line, your skin care routine, etc. – then TikTok is about being yourself. Kind of. “Casual, confessional and playful, TikTok offers a release for ballet dancers, particularly students, who spend their days chasing impossible perfection. TikTok is a place to laugh about the impossibility, rather than obsess over perfection.” – The New York Times
Canadian Actor Christopher Plummer, 91
The actor went through a particularly fertile creative period in his golden years, receiving his first Academy Award at the age 82 for his heart-warming supporting turn as a widower who embraces his homosexuality in “Beginners.” The trophy made him the oldest-ever Oscar winner in an acting category. – Toronto Star
25 Years Ago A Luddite And A Techno-Utopian Bet On Whether Technology Would Destroy The World…
“History is full of civilizations that have collapsed, followed by people who have had other ways of living,” Kirkpatrick Sale said. “My optimism is based on the certainty that civilization will collapse.” – Wired