As students of history know, fashions ebb and flow; it’s increasingly clear that the historical novel is being embraced and reinvented. – The New York Times
Rem Koolhaas And Patrick Doan Re-imagine Maps Of Europe
National boundaries, it would seem, hold very little meaning at all. The squiggles hint at other political geographies, from the deeper past or some unimaginable future. – European Review of Books
Eight Parking Stalls For Every Car: Here’s How Cities Are Trying To Change That
We found that the Green Code is changing Buffalo’s urban form in ways that had been difficult, if not impossible, under former zoning rules. – Fast Company
New Yorker Unionization Effort Divides Writers
The unionization effort has created an uncomfortable moment for the writers at The New Yorker, who have the kind of jobs and influence every journalist wants but few attain. – The New York Times
Accusations Of Drug, Psychological, And Sexual Abuse Rock Maurice Béjart’s Dance Company
“Switzerland’s prestigious Béjart Ballet Lausanne company faces a probe as allegations of drug use, harassment and abuse of power raise the question why nothing apparently changed after an earlier investigation raised similar issues. … The Maurice Béjart Foundation announced the audit just a week after revealing that the affiliated Rudra Béjart ballet school had fired its director and stage manager and suspended all classes for a year due to ‘serious shortcomings’ in management.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Why I Turned Down A Queen’s Honor For Literature
Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire? Is this the title I’m asked to carry? I cannot think of anything I want less than to be a member of that empire. – The Guardian
A Major New Museum Rises In Orange County
The $93 million building by Morphosis Architects, the 80-personstudio founded by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne, was designed to be many things: the new home for a contemporary art museum — more than a decade in the works — that will nearly double exhibition space and raise the institution’s profile, for one. – Los Angeles Times
“In The Heights” Was Hyped As Summer’s First Hit. Opening Box Office Says Nope
The Warner Bros. musical generated a wane $11.4 million from 3,456 U.S. theaters in its first four days of release, below earlier expectations suggesting the feel-good film would reach $20 million. – Variety
In North Carolina, A New Statue Will Honor Formerly Hidden History
A few days ago, David Zucchino’s book on the 1898 Wilmington Massacre won a Pulitzer Prize. Now, a new statue is about to go up on the North Carolina-Wilmington campus, acknowledging and permanently memorializing the coup and massacre. The challenge for artist Dare Coulter: “‘How do you depict Black joy, resilience,”‘but also convey the horror of the massacre.” – Wilmington StarNews
Theatre In A Slowly Reopening Canada Worries It’s Being Left Behind
One Vancouver AD says that his colleagues are extremely burned out – and also worried about what’s coming. On the other hand, post-pandemic: “I don’t know that it’s the same art form anymore. And that’s interesting to me.” – CBC
Envisioning A Kinder, More Beautiful Apocalypse
Filmmaker Jim Mickle: “I started asking questions like, ‘What if you could make an apocalyptic story where you actually want to go to that world?’ What does that look like? And you start asking, ‘What happens if humans just disappear for 10 years and nature is suddenly allowed to thrive?’ It would probably be one of the most beautiful places you could go to.” – Slate
Jeanne-Claude And Christo Drew Up Plans In 1962 To Wrap The Arc De Triomphe
Now, their plans are becoming reality. According to Christo’s nephew, “A photo montage of how it would look was done but they never proposed actually doing it because they thought they would never get the necessary permission.” They’re both gone, but the permission has been given. – The Guardian (UK)
The Healing Power Of Queer Coming Of Age Stories
Books can be intensely powerful for some people, especially when the books do the work of repairing past pain. “‘So many queer people ‘have been through immense pain growing up in our adolescence,’ Dr. Matos told me. Attempts by the broader culture to ‘limit who we loved, what we desire, what we do with our bodies’ abound. In these stories, then, we get the chance to imagine what it might have been like to grow up in the world depicted on the page or screen instead.” – The New York Times
Ned Beatty, Prolific Actor Of Stage And Screen, 83
Beatty’s roles “captured the full spectrum of humanity — from sincerity to villainy, buffoonery to tragedy — and made him one of the most versatile performers of his generation.” Beatty: “My great joy is throwing curveballs. Being a star cuts down your effectiveness as an actor, because you become an identifiable part of a product and somewhat predictable. … But I like to surprise the audience, to do the unexpected.” – Washington Post
The Blogger Preserving Jewish Ballet
In college, Beatrice Waterhouse started wondering where she could find information about Jews in the ballet world. So she created a Tumblr site, “‘People of the Barre’ (which, yes, is a play on ‘people of the book’) and started using the blog to store tidbits she came across about Jews in ballet, mainly for her own reference.” – Forward
Quantum Computing Will Not Change Everything
Despite the hype, the reality is different – and to resist the hucksters, we need to understand why. – Wired
How Historical Fiction Became Literary Again
For decades, the literary world disdained historical fiction. “It has been seen as its own fusty fashion, relentlessly uncontemporary and easy to caricature, filled with mothballed characters who wear costumes rather than clothes, use words like ‘Prithee!’ while having modern-day thoughts, and occasionally encounter villains immediately recognizable by their yellow teeth or suspicious smell. What light could such novels possibly shed on the present day?” Ask Hilary Mantel. – The New York Times
What Hollywood Could Learn From The ‘Kim’s Convenience’ Scandal
The sitcom’s actors took to social media to say more about the series’ abrupt end – and the series itself. Their posts “threw into sharp relief the ongoing reluctance of producers and executives from Hollywood to Toronto to trust and empower Asian actors, writers and directors to tell their own stories — and as Yoon and Liu both pointed out, few of the writers for Kim’s Convenience were of Asian descent.” – Los Angeles Times