It is hard now to recapture the shock of 1962 when the iterations of Campbell’s soup went on display at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles (New York wasn’t interested). But the cumulative effect of their pristine forms, their tromp l’oeil construction, their obsessive reiteration (there were 32 prints, one for each flavour), luminous banality and, above all, their thereness, was to blast apart everything that we thought – and think – we know about art. – The Guardian
She was just a Miller’s daughter: ENO revives a middle-period Verdi
The English National Opera is having a tough old time, but the company is still capable of both daring and successful ventures, such as the new Luisa Miller, a Verdi rarity last staged in London in 1858. – Paul Levy
Turns Out It’s Not So Tough To Go From Tragedy To Comedy
Jane Alexander, the 80-year-old actress who has starred in Ibsen, Shakespeare, and Chekhov, and, not incidentally, who was head of the NEA during the (first) culture wars, is onstage again, “eliciting raucous laughter” this time. – The New York Times
Rio Carnival Taboo Broken: First Trans Woman To Lead Parade
Camila Prins says she first realized she wanted to be a woman at a Carnival party at age 11, when, like the other boys, she was allowed to dress like a girl as part of the burlesque festivities. Now, in the final minutes of Saturday, she became the first transgender woman to lead the drum section of a top samba school in either of the renowned Carnival parades put in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. – Washington Post (AP)
Remembering Tobi Tobias
Tobi was among the first group of writers I invited to blog on ArtsJournal. I had read her for years and appreciated her elegance, clarity and erudition. Though her judgments were crisp, they were never made lightly. She knew the art deeply and it informed her judgments. – Douglas McLennan
Is This Pliny The Elder’s Skull?
Over the last few years a pool of Italian biologists, anthropologists and geochemists conducted a series of forensic tests on the skull and accompanying lower mandible, which were unearthed 120 years ago on a shore not far from Pompeii. On Jan. 23 the scientists presented their findings at a conference in the museum. The skull, they concluded, squared with what was known about Pliny at his death, but the jawbone belonged to someone else. – The New York Times
How Did Emily Dickenson Escape?
Here’s why it matters that a new Dickenson series feels so modern, and why it matters that new scholarship refutes the old lies about the poet. “If the ‘real’ person of Dickinson is translated and refracted through a pop-cultural idiom of hip hop and teen genre fiction, so much of the ‘real’ nineteenth century—of women’s domestic labor, of anti-immigrant electoral politics, of anti-black racism, of compulsory heterosexuality—can simply be imported. Because here we are, still living it.” – The Boston Review
It’s Possible That Video Game Movies Will Now Take Over Hollywood
Sure, sure, Hollywood has tried it before – but, along with Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog is reaping big bucks. That means “video game movies are really having a moment.” – Sydney Morning Herald
Irish Literature Was Born When The Country Didn’t Even Belong To Itself
Indeed, Ireland didn’t even get its own national poet or fiction laureate until 1998 and 2015, respectively. “Laureateships, like prizes and bursaries, recognise a coherent tradition built over time and reinforce a robust faith in the value of Irish literature as a category. Irish literature is now a term with clear meanings and resonances, institutionalised as an aspect of Irish life. … But the apparent certainty with which we now use the term should not blind us to its long birth across centuries of conflict and change.” – The Irish Times
Johni Cerny, Chief Genealogist Who Helped Oprah, Bernie, And Others Find Their Roots On TV, Has Died At 76
Cerny, said Henry Louis Gates Jr., was “the proverbial dean of American genealogical research, … [whose work was] transforming raw data into narratives and metaphors about diversity and our common humanity.” Gates, the Harvard prof who hosts and produces Finding Your Roots on PBS, began working with Cerny in 2006, and their work on personal (and social) histories flowered from there. – The New York Times
Parasite Rode A Wave Of Korean Culture Across The World
K-Pop and K-Drama success wasn’t by accident. “The wave spread across Asia before reaching a global audience thanks to savvy social networking strategies and a steady stream of media with increasingly high production values.” – Los Angeles Times
Vine Started The Short Video Craze, And Then Died – But It May Be Back
Vine was introduced in 2012, bought by Twitter, and killed in 2016. But in its time, it “turned everyday people into stars on other platforms and beyond. Its musical whims warped the music industry. It cultivated memes that might have been dismissed as inside jokes if not for their tendency to flourish outside the app.” Can the app make a comeback in 2020, where TikTok rules the internet? – The New York Times
The Vibrant Electronic Music Of Video Game Soundtracks
They’re different from the quality of movie soundtracks, many of which don’t stand alone, and they’re “a marvelous untapped source of experimental instrumental electronica. … The context of gameplay encourages compositions that are melodically specific, sharp-edged, and hummable.” – Hyperallergic
Archaeologists Find A New Shrine In Rome, Perhaps To Romulus
The find is in the Roman Forum, where authorities revealed on Friday that they believe this may date to the 6th century B.C.E., 200 years after Romulus was said to have lived. That means it’s a memorial site, if indeed it is a site to Romulus. Also, oops: “It’s the second time the sarcophagus and cylindrical stone stub have been unearthed, but it’s only now that archaeologists are attributing an exciting significance to them.” – The Washington Post (AP)
The People Who Decide What Books Are Allowed In Prisons Censor Thousands
Of course, the officials say, books and article about how to strangle someone or how to escape handcuffs must be censored. But what about Angie Thomas’ young adult book The Hate U Give? What about The Bluest Eye or The Color Purple? (All have been banned in some prisons – some while Mein Kampf was allowed.) – NPR
How Autumn De Wilde Came To Direct A New ‘Emma’
Take one cane, add whiskey, then gather a “mood” pitch for movie financiers, decades of photography, years of moving pitching, and presto! A new Emma. Miranda July on the director: “If there were more female directors, Autumn’s story wouldn’t be such a rare and precious thing to us. … Basically a single mom who worked so hard and at this age is coming into her own. I think we all feel really tender because it’s a very powerful example.” – Los Angeles Times
Sure, Years Elapsed Between Book Two And Book Three, But Hilary Mantel Did *Not* Have Writer’s Block
Mantel says there are so many stories in the Cromwell trilogy that the books are like a pamphlet. But of course: “At a combined total of more than 2,000 pages – with [forthcoming book three] The Mirror & the Light accounting for nearly half of them – you couldn’t get much further from a pamphlet. ‘I’ve got quite amused at people suggesting I have writer’s block, you know. I’ve been like a factory!’ She also chafes at the suggestion that her latest book was delayed because she was reluctant to kill off Cromwell. ‘It’s not something I’ve ever said; it’s what people think I should have said. It’s this version in which the woman writer is sentimentally attached to her creation.'” – The Guardian (UK)
Technology Recreates The Sound Of 500-Year-Old Singing In The Hagia Sophia
This is a rather unbelievable story. “When [the two researchers] met, Pentcheva started telling Abel about the Hagia Sophia – how we couldn’t really understand the experience of worshipers there unless we could hear the music the way they did. And as she talked, Abel started to feel a prickling of excitement. They could recreate what that music would sound like. If only they could get in the Hagia Sophia and pop a balloon.” (Note: They did.) – NPR
The Subtitles Vs. Dubs Debate, Reignited By ‘Parasite’
How did we get here, with most U.S. audiences only seeing subtitles on non-English-language films and many other countries using excellent voice actors and technology for dubbing, and where are we going? (In other words, are the one-inch subtitle barricades about to fall?) – BBC