“Most publishers contacted by PW said they are deferring making any concrete plans about tours until authors feel comfortable going back on the road and booksellers and librarians feel comfortable hosting in-store events.” – Publishers Weekly
New California Bill Could Save LA’s 99-Seat Theatres
Enter SB 805, which is up for a hearing by the California Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee on April 26. If passed, the bill would greenlight low-cost payroll and paymaster services for small nonprofit performing arts organizations that make $1.4 million a year or less. It would also create a fund to award grants so that these theaters could hire and pay employees at least the minimum wage. – Variety
Profusion of Confusion: Unraveling the Tangled Tale of “Salvator Mundi” (& my theory on why he’s a no-show)
The only thing that’s certain about the fate of this elusive painting is that the story about why it hasn’t publicly surfaced since it was sold more than three years ago for $450 million keeps on changing. – Lee Rosenbaum
Opera Super-Fan Leaves Behind 200,000 Autographs
Lois Kirschenbaum was a switchboard operator from Flatbush, Brooklyn, who became perhaps New York’s biggest and longest-standing opera buff — and an obsessive autograph collector. For over half a century, she spent about 300 nights a year at the Met and other musical and dance performances. – The New York Times
American TV Watchers Flee Cable
Five years ago, 63% of Americans mostly watched television through cable and satellite. Today, that percentage has dropped to fewer than half of all Americans, while the percentage of those primarily watching television via a streaming service on the internet has jumped 17 percentage points, from 20% in 2016 to 37% today. – CBS News
Al Young, Former Poet Laureate Of California, 81
Young was an acclaimed poet, but he also wrote novels – and always, always, worked jazz into his readings and his life. And along with music, he had his voice. “Writing a poem, Mr. Young believed, was only part of the process. Reading it live — something he did with a compelling, resonant voice — was the other.” – The New York Times
Kathie Coblentz, Master New York Librarian, 73
She spoke or could read 13 languages, ran the New York Marathon, and was the third-longest serving employee of the NYPL, where she catalogued rare books for more than 50 years. She wrote books, edited books, and told those taking tours of the underground steel stacks that catalogers were “the most important workers in the library.” – The New York Times
When Lesbian Writers Made Paris The Center Of Modernist Thought
A biographer says of Natalie Barney and her wealthy, artistic circle: “They were destined, if you like, to break away. I think of modernism as this break from old ways of writing, old ways of seeing, and old ways of being. Of course, to be lesbian or to be gay, you have to break away because look at the patriarchal models, look at the Christian models. You can’t look at the Bible! I mean … leave it, move on. And they did move on in a really trailblazing way.” – Slate
Electronic Music’s Suppressed Innovators
Laurie Anderson: “It’s very interesting … that a lot of that early work in electronics was done by women. Some of them wanted to do nothing less than change the way people listened, which is telling. They wanted to think about how sound could recalibrate our body and mind.” – The Guardian (UK)
Behind The Scenes Of The Best Picture Nominees
What the directors say, including clips about how to make a dramatic scene more dramatic with whispers – and how to cast a “good guy” to make a point in a scene about a not very good guy at all. – The New York Times
The Two Types Of Post-Pandemic People
Who dominates in the (hoped-for, perhaps arriving) after-COVID era will affect theatre, music, dance, and other performing arts. Psychology professor Laurie Santos: “The pandemic has taught us that there are negotiable things that we can subtract from our schedules, … and some of those subtractions feel good.” – The Atlantic
Maine’s Attorney General Says Arts Robert Indiana’s Estate Overpaid Lawyers By Millions
The litigation after the artist’s death in 2018 has been extensive, but perhaps the fees were quite a bit more extensive than they should have been. “The attorney general’s office filed papers in Knox County Probate Court this week demanding that the executor of Indiana’s estate, James W. Brannan, a Maine lawyer, put back into the estate nearly half the money, $3.7 million, that he had paid out to seven law firms.” – The New York Times
The Detroit Symphony Gets A Letter From A Non-Fan Of Black Composers’ Music
And then DSO vice-president Erik Rönmark posted the letter to social media (with the patron’s, or former patron’s, name redacted). Response on social media was strong. The CEO of a tech company wrote: “You just won yourself a new patron at the $125 level. My company … would like to sponsor 4 new patrons at this same level, preferably people under 40 and/or BIPOC. How can we do this? Keep up the good work!!” – Classical FM
Eight Smithsonian Museums Are Getting Ready To Reopen
All of the eight reopened briefly in 2020, between July and October. Coronavirus surges in November closed them again. But many others in the Smithsonian portfolio have remained closed since March of 2020, and the schedule for those isn’t yet clear. – The New York Times
Art Peaked 30,000 Years Ago
Or so some believe. “The more you look at images from the walls of Lascaux and Chauvet, the more you realise art really has invented nothing since those days at the end of the ice age. It is hard to take in how comprehensively these ancient artists anticipated the future. It takes time to fully absorb this – say, a year in and occasionally out of lockdown.” – The Guardian (UK)
Which Actors Benefit From Oscar Nominations?
Well, what a surprise: “For white actors, Academy recognition quickly leads to starring roles, both in big-budget blockbusters and prestige dramas. For actors of color recognized by the Academy, landing those roles typically takes much more time—if they ever land them at all.” – Vice
‘Damn! This Is A Caravaggio! Where The Hell Did You Find It?’ (The Inside Story)
“It took all of six minutes for Massimo Pulini to realise that the small oil painting due to go under the hammer in Madrid earlier this month with a guide price of €1,500 ($1,800) could be worth millions. … Within two weeks, Spain’s culture ministry [acted] to impose an export ban. The painting was pulled from auction. Pulini, a painter himself as well as an authoritative art historian, told The Guardian about his identification of the painting and the ultimately doomed scramble to bring it back to Italy.” – The Guardian
The World’s Bravest Opera Boss Talks About The Challenges At His Latest House
Stéphane Lissner has been the superintendent/general director at the two most notoriously contentious companies in the world: La Scala and the Paris Opera. Now he’s at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, financially stabilized after years of crisis, with the brief of bringing back artistic glory. Here he talks about the ingenious ways he’s kept staffers working through the pandemic, the neglected Neapolitan operas he wants to revive, and why he’s much more sympathetic to the labor unions in Naples than the ones he battled in Paris. – Bachtrack