Chances are the current pandemic has them considering whether a creative life is possible – feasible, affordable, open to someone like themselves – at the very moment when that world began cancelling, shuttering, and laying off the teaching artists who was the first person to say to them “Yes, absolutely, poetry (or choreography or set design) could be yours.” – Creative Generation
GE Moore Was A Superstar Philosopher In His Day. Why Did He Disappear?
The Bloomsbury Group revered him. But today he is pretty much forgotten. So why do some who achieve fame endure but others – some of the biggest – fade from history? – Prospect
A New Non-Toxic, Natural Blue Pigment Made From (Of All Things) Beets
“No matter how much people enjoy looking at it, blue is a difficult color to harness from nature. … Plants seldom produce blue hues. When they do, their pigments rarely remain stable after extraction.” (There’s indigo, of course, but any friction on the fabric causes it to fade.) Molecular chemist Erick Leite Bastos writes about how he and colleagues found a way to derive the pigment he named BeetBlue from the red root vegetable. – The Conversation
Even More Jobs And Money Lost: Whitney Museum Lays Off 76 Employees
“Projecting a shortfall in revenue of at least $7 million by the end of this fiscal year, New York City’s Whitney Museum has laid off 76 staff members. In an email sent Thursday afternoon, museum director Adam Weinberg told staff that all of the affected employees have been at the Whitney for two years or less and would receive five to six weeks’ pay dating from the museum’s closure.” – Hyperallergic
Safety, Solvency, Service
These past few weeks, a whole world of arts organizations have been searching for, revisiting, or assembling-on-the-fly their emergency readiness plans as the pandemic turns that world upside down. Many are finding that “pandemic” wasn’t among the expected disasters in their plans, so they’re diving into action as best they can. – Andrew Taylor
Joy in the afternoon
This is, first of all, an expression of profound gratitude for the innumerable messages of sympathy I have received. I thought you might like to read about Hilary’s last good day. – Terry Teachout
Margaret Atwood Says We Are All In The ‘Better Than Nothing’ Era Now
The writer prompted the National Arts Center of Canada to launch virtual book tours for authors with new books out during the pandemic shutdown. Authors are “‘really pinched,’ Atwood said in an interview the day before she launched the authors’ series. ‘People are scrambling around, improvising and trying to get the word out there.'” – The New York Times
Why The Limitations Of Our Homebound Lives Work For Online Choreography And Dance
“You’re a pony; you’re a firecracker; you’re a shape-shifter; you’re using your bookshelf as a stabilizer for butt wiggling. Given humanity’s terminal uncertainty now, I feel particularly malleable to existential suggestions. You romp to all corners available to you. There’s no more space after that.” – The Cut
If Books Are Proving Too Long For A Pandemic Attention Span, Try Poetry
Why not? It’s National Poetry Month, after all, and poems can refocus the mind, bringing it gently back to focus. You might even try memorizing a poem or two. – The Atlantic
Actor Turned Biographer Patricia Bosworth Has Died At 86
Bosworth, who was part of the Actors Studio with Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroes, gave up acting to write instead – and write she did, about Diane Arbus, Jane Fonda, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, and herself. – The New York Times
How Dancers In The U.K. Are Pulling Together In The Face Of Uncertainty And Fear
The dancers, especially the freelancers, are facing terrible losses of income and camaraderie, not to mention fitness opportunities. “Self-training isn’t anything new to dancers, but in the absence of daily classes or a trip to the gym, that chance to continue to train alongside others, even virtually, has offered a vital form of connection during a time of sudden change; a reminder that we’re not in this alone.” – The Stage (UK)
The End Of The Art World (As We Know It)
Via this year’s deeply reimagined Sydney Biennale, now called NIRIN: “The impact of COVID-19 is both a significant challenge and a threshold for new beginnings. An international art world that has called persistently for radical socioeconomic change is now faced with just that in large measure, albeit in ways that it is not in a position to readily absorb.” – Hyperallergic
Online Dance Parties Are The New Clubs, Workouts, And Social Life
Dance classes, “clubbing” from home, and other dance-related videos (and Instagram Stories, Zooms, etc.) are keeping loneliness at bay as nearly everyone has orders to shelter in place. Some are very much like in-person life: “Attendees often dress up for a night out, even if their corner of the party is located in their living rooms. A bouncer will eject party-goers who don’t follow the rules. Attendees can even make a donation via PayPal, an approximation of a cover charge that organizers use to pay the DJs and drag artists who perform each night.” – Globe and Mail (Canada)
Agatha Christie Is (Still) The Best-Selling Novelist Of All Time
Sure, Shakespeare and the Bible outsell Agatha Christie, but otherwise, she’s the tops. “Agatha Christie’s novels have sold more than one billion copies in the English language and another billion internationally.” Thirty percent of USians who like to read started their mystery reading with an Agatha Christie book. And then there’s Mousetrap. – Literary Hub
Chinese Film Industry Restarts, If Slowly
Given strict health controls by the production teams, including quarantines for the entire film crew, “studios have reopened in Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao and Xi’an, and TV series such as Legend of Fei and Like a Flowing River have resumed production. High-profile film shoots, including Zhang Yimou’s Impasse, are also reported to have begun filming again.” – The Guardian (UK)
MoMA Has Canceled All Educator Contracts, Saying It May Not Need Educators For Years
The email was grim, and employees who had done all of the prep work for April tours aren’t being paid for that work. On the other side of things for educators – though not for 76 other staff members who were laid off – “MoMA’s email to educators came only days before New York City’s Whitney Museum sent its own freelance education staff a hopeful message: it hopes to launch a new online teaching initiative that could keep them employed.” – Hyperallergic
Boston’s Principal Ballerina In Canceled Carmen Says ‘It Feels Like The Stage Was Pulled Out From Under Us’
Lia Cirio: “For a few days I was really in wallowing mode, just watching Netflix and not being very active. But then my mom sent me a quote on Instagram that said ‘Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems,’ and that inspired me to do something to help me cope. … I created some shirts to sell, and the profits benefit the Greater Boston Food Bank and the Boston Artists Relief Fund that they just set up. The design is just something simple— [they say] ‘Art heals, wash your hands.'” – Boston Magazine
How Are Bookstores Surviving, If They Are At All?
Here’s what’s going on with some bookstores in Los Angeles. The Ripped Bodice in Culver City, which has a big Twitter following, offered a “care package” deal. Co-owner Leah Koch: “‘Those have been so popular. We put them up before we closed to foot traffic. Within 48 hours, we had 230 orders,’ Koch says, adding that the store now has a waitlist for the care package service and, as of this writing, there were 700 people on the waitlist.” Other bookstores? It’s not great news. – The Hollywood Reporter
After The Kennedy Center Laid Off Many Of Its Employees, Congress May Ask For That $25 Million Back
But much of the money is earmarked already, and may benefit furloughed employees: “About $7.5 million of the bailout will cover six months of benefits — pension, social security and health care — for all employees, including those furloughed. The center continues to negotiate with its insurance company to fund health-care benefits after May 31. Another $1.75 million is for future artists’ contracts and fees.” But both Republicans and Democrats have some issues with the way this has shaken out. – The Washington Post
Chiura Obata’s Career Was Interrupted By Internment During WWII. Now A Retrospective Of His Work Has Been Stilled By The Virus
“Suddenly he was in a drab, dehumanizing place, first a stable in California, then the barracks of Topaz, Utah, where he spent most of his time in internment. It was bleak, hot, arid and dusty, and he missed green things, trees and gardens. He moved quickly to establish an art school, both at Tanforan and later Topaz. And when he represented the camp at Topaz, the sense of displacement became dreamlike, even surreal, a luminous landscape that looked just a bit scorched, with a few dark buildings in the midground standing in for the enormity of what was happening there.” – Washington Post
How Dance Helps Me Think And Thinking Helps Me Dance
For most of my career, dancing and academic research were two separate but equally weighted spheres. However, over the years, I have become more and more aware that many people viewed dance as a less valuable way of thinking and working. Dance, in their minds, was a purely emotive activity consisting of uncritical, spontaneous movement or a purely athletic endeavour whose sole purpose is to defy our body’s physical limits. Part of the reason why this view of dance persists, I think, stems from a deeply rooted prejudice against embodied vocations. – Aeon
SXSW Will Put Its Film Festival Online Streaming For Ten Days
SXSW announced Thursday that it’s partnering with Amazon Prime Video to stream as much of its movie line-up as possible for a 10-day period in the U.S. It will be free to viewers with or without an Amazon Prime membership. – CBS Austin
Arts Freelancers Are At Particular Risk Right Now
Everyone includes musicians, visual artists, designers, dancers and other freelancers who are part of Washington’s vibrant arts economy. They are musicians with no tour dates. Art handlers with postponed exhibitions. Actors, dancers and designers booked for upcoming productions that are now in limbo. – Washington Post
Simon Woods Chosen As League Of American Orchestras Next Leader
Mr. Woods’s previous position ended just as the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s season was about to begin last year. After building a reputation for innovation during his run as president of the Seattle Symphony from 2011 to 2017, he arrived in Los Angeles to follow Deborah Borda, who decamped to New York after a long, inspired run in California. – The New York Times
Bill Withers, 81
Withers broke out nationally with “Ain’t No Sunshine,” which he also wrote and reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. Fueled by a melancholic groove and soulful vocal, it won the Grammy for Bests R&B son\g and launched a relatively brief but memorable career. – Deadline