Peter Bradshaw, considering the news that Kevin Spacey is acting again (albeit in a small European film): “Could this be Hollywood’s hot new thing – uncancel culture? The phenomenon whereby famous men once rendered unemployable in show business due to a #MeToo campaign, but with no actual criminal conviction, sidle back into the limelight, testing the reaction, playing grandmother’s footsteps with social-media outrage?” – The Guardian
Could Museums Become Like Libraries?
That is, welcoming to all, free, and more a central part of public life? There’s a little problem with this idea, which former Queens Museum president and executive director Laura Raicovich pitches in a new book about politics and museums. “Museums lack ‘public spirit’ because museums are capitalist institutions,” unlike public libraries. – The Nation
Okay, Public Radio: ‘Our Culture Of Host Hero Worship Creates Monsters, And It Is Long Past Time To Break This Cycle’
In the wake of Bob Garfield’s firing from On the Media for what he’s described as “anger mismanagement,” Celeste Headlee — who endured mistreatment on and off the air as co-host of The Takeaway with the now-disgraced John Hockenberry — writes, “There is no such thing as a host who is ‘too big to fail.’ Executives in the past have made a devil’s bargain, [sacrificing] psychological safety and well-being for the majority for the comfort of some powerful individuals. … Enough.” – Current
30 Years Ago, SoundScan Completely Upended The Pop Music Business
“On May 25, 1991 — 30 years ago Tuesday — Billboard … started counting album sales with scanners and computers and whatnot, and not just calling up record stores one at a time and asking them for their individual counts, often a manual and semi-accurate and flagrantly corrupt process. … Virtually overnight, SoundScan changed the rules on who got to be a mega, mega superstar, and the domino effect — in terms of magazine covers, TV bookings, arena tours, and the other spoils of media attention and music-industry adulation — was tremendous.” – The Ringer
Yeccch! Advertisers Try To Muscle In To Streaming Services
To get more advertisers to move their dollars to streaming, the TV executives are working furiously to gather all the streaming fans for the same advertising experience. It’s not going to be easy. – Variety
Medieval Village In Italy Emerges From Waters That Swallowed It Up 70 Years Ago
“In 1950, the Italian village of Curon was flooded to merge two adjacent lakes and make room for an electric plant. Since then, the only evidence of the town’s existence has been a lone 14th-century church steeple that rises, somewhat hauntingly, from the center of the man-made body of water, Lake Resia. Until recently, that is. The state began to drain the reservoir for repairs on a nearby hydroelectric plant last month, slowly revealing the abandoned town underneath.” – Artnet
Why Does Social Media Make Us Feel Bad? There’s Science For That!
Concerns around social media have become mainstream, but researchers have yet to elucidate the specific cognitive mechanisms that explain the toll it takes on our psychological wellbeing. New advances in computational neuroscience, however, are poised to shed light on this matter. – Aeon
Why Is Spotify Getting Into Virtual Concerts Just As In-Person Performances Are Coming Back?
The demand for remote performances is presumably waning, which is why it’s weird that Spotify just entered the virtual concert business and thinks people will pay $15 for prerecorded shows you can only watch once at a dictated time. – Mic
Still Ticking: The Mousetrap, Running For 67 Years In London, Gets Set To Resume After Its COVID Pause
For 427 days, an old wooden board inside the foyer of St Martin’s Theatre in London was stuck on the number 28,199. It had ticked upwards every night for 67 years, logging the number of performances of the longest -running play in the world. But on March 16, 2020, The Mousetrap paused for breath. This seemingly immovable object met an unstoppable force: the coronavirus pandemic. – The Stage
Finalists To Fill Trafalgar’s Fourth Plinth
Mayor Sadiq Khan said it was the “most international line-up” of artists. The landmark has been home to a rolling commission of artworks since 1998. The plinth was built in 1841 but remained empty due to a lack of funds. – BBC
Forgotten Archive Of Brontë Family Manuscripts Headed To Auction
“The collection was put together by Arthur Bell Nicholls, the widower of Charlotte, who of the six Brontë children lived the longest, dying in 1855 at the age of 38. Nicholls sold the majority of the surviving Brontë manuscripts in 1895 to the notorious bibliophile and literary forger Thomas James Wise. The collectors and brothers Alfred and William Law … then acquired some of the family’s heirlooms from Wise … The Law brothers’ library at Honresfield House disappeared from public view when their nephew and heir Alfred Law died in 1939, and was inaccessible even to academics.” – The Guardian
Performance Artist And Director Robbie McCauley Dead At 78
“[Her] résumé included reimagining classic American plays through diverse casting and a stint in the ensemble of Ntozake Shange’s groundbreaking 1976 Broadway show, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. But she was best known for shows she wrote and performed at venues like the Kitchen in Manhattan and Franklin Furnace in Brooklyn, in which she used her family and personal stories to confront universal issues.” – The New York Times
NFT Of One Of YouTube’s Most-Viewed Videos Of All Times Is Sold For Beaucoup Bucks
Sunday’s spending spree means the mysterious anonymous bidder will become the owner of the Charlie Bit My Finger clip. But it also gives them a chance to create some follow-up content. The auction page says the NFT winner will be given the opportunity to “recreate a hilarious modern-day rendition of the classic clip” that will feature “the original stars, Harry and Charlie”. – BBC
This Island, A COVID Success Story, Had Kept Its Stages Running Right Through The Pandemic — Until Now
“A recent surge in cases — Taiwan’s worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic — has brought a halt to cultural life on the island, forcing performing arts centers, concert halls and museums to shutter just as they are coming back to life in the rest of the world. Performers from Taiwan and abroad have been caught in the middle, grappling with lost income and an avalanche of canceled engagements.” – The New York Times
Largest Queer Theatre In L.A. Fires Director For Sexual Misconduct
Michael A. Shepperd, artistic director of Celebration Theatre, has been terminated following an internal investigation of allegations that he groped and propositioned an actor backstage during the company’s 2019 production of The Producers. Shepperd, describing Celebration Theatre as “a queer safe space” where flirting and physical affection were common, maintains that any and all contact between him and his accuser was consensual. – Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
‘Let The People Pee Without Missing A Note!’ — Maybe Doing Two-Hour Operas With No Intermission Isn’t Such A Good Idea
For its first post-pandemic performances this fall, Lyric Opera of Chicago — based, it seems, on feedback from potential audience members and official guidelines last year — decided to keep all performances under two-and-a-half hours and eliminate intermission. When he reported this, writes Chris Jones, “my mailbox immediately filled up with one burning question from Chicago’s opera fans: When do I pee?” – Yahoo! (Chicago Tribune)
Federal Court OKs Alan Dershowitz’s Libel Suit Against CNN
Representing Trump during his first impeachment trial, Dershowitz ended his answer to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz by saying, “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest, … and if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.” During coverage that evening, CNN political analyst Paul Begala said, “The Dershowitz Doctrine would make presidents immune from every criminal act, so long as they could plausibly claim they did it to boost their re-election effort.” Dershowitz says this was a misleading statement of his views that has damaged his scholarly reputation, and he is suing for $300 million. – The Hollywood Reporter
Anna Halprin, Pioneer Of Postmodern Dance, Dead At 100
“Before Halprin, American dance was cast in [Martha] Graham’s regal mold, presented formally onstage, and performed by highly trained bodies that acted out the choreographer’s vision in a rarefied movement language. Halprin’s rebellion was to declare that any movement, performed with presence and intention, could be a dance, and anybody could be a dancer.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Biden Sets Aside Tradition, Fires Four Members Of The US Commission Of Fine Arts
On Monday, the Biden administration sent letters to architect Steven Spandle, landscape architect Perry Guillot, sculptor Chas Fagan and commission chairman Justin Shubow asking that they resign by 6 p.m. that day or face termination. None of the four resigned. – Washington Post
Survey: Boards Of LA’s Arts Organizations Don’t Reflect The Demographics Of The Region
While nearly 74% of L.A. County is nonwhite, only 19.5% of the museum board members identified as nonwhite. – Los Angeles Times
Eugene Robinson: The Power Of DC’s Black Lives Matter Plaza’s Yellow Letters
“The fight for justice has produced many unforgettable images over the past year — former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck; multiracial throngs of protesters filling the streets of cities around the world; Floyd’s face projected on the graffiti-marred statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond; Chauvin being led away in handcuffs after being convicted of murder. For me, though, the most truly indelible was of Rep. John Lewis, a great hero of the civil rights movement who was dying of pancreatic cancer, standing on Black Lives Matter Plaza and looking down at the giant letters, seemingly lost in thought.” – Washington Post