The idea that novelists are modern-day Cassandras – “speaking always truths, never grasped as true” – may sound positively esoteric. – The Guardian
Louis Menand Takes On O. Henry
In New York, he began producing at an astonishing rate. He contracted to write a story a week for the Sunday World, and he continued to write for magazines. In 1904 alone, he published sixty-six stories. – The New Yorker
Sudden Move: Oregon Ballet Theatre Ousts Artistic Director
“I was informed on Wednesday of this week that the board has decided to go a different direction in the AD role and that my resignation was required by [the end of the day]. This was an unexpected development.” – Oregon Arts Watch
In Praise Of The Meritocracy
Meritocracy, for all its flaws, may well be, like the democracy it has sometimes served, better than the alternatives. At the very least, we should be cautious about consigning it to the dustbin of history too soon. – Literary Review
Why Big Video Game Companies Keep Imploding
Dysfunction is baked into the video game production process, as it currently exists. The big-budget games industry is dominated by a few large companies, the publishers. – The New Republic
Brussels Museum Backpedals A Bit From Plan Called Both Sexist And Nepotistic
The board of Kanal-Centre-Pompidou had decided to name a woman artistic director – and then added a male co-director. Nearly 800 European art dignitaries didn’t buy it. “‘Internationally renowned and appreciated, Kasia Redzisz has been selected by the jury for this job,’ the open letter said. ‘She is a competent and experienced woman and there is not the slightest doubt that she would not be perfectly capable of doing this job on her own. Teaming her up with an older man is an offensive act of sexism and a blatant insult to her expertise and capacities.'” – ArtNet
Liverpool Is About To Be Stripped Of Its UNESCO Status
And Boris Johnson doesn’t care at all. In fact, he’s putting another monument – that’s right, unbelievably, Stonehenge!? – at risk as well. – The Guardian (UK)
Every Piece Of Italian Music In The New Pixar Movie Luca, Explained
The plot calls for a lot of music: “Teenage Luca lives underwater with his fish-finned family, but when he steps out of the water and into an Italian fishing village, he becomes a human boy in the very recognizable 1960s, a time period fixed by the pop music that is frequently blaring from tiny portable radios.” – Slate
Are You More A Movie Person Than A Sports Person?
Movies about the Olympics can scratch an every-few-years cultural itch without your having to watch the actual competition. – Today
Writer Brandon Taylor On His Summer Reading Goals
This year, it’s all Freud. Why? The author of Real Life and Filthy Animals: “At the start of the year I read a lot of American mid-century critics, people like Lionel Trilling and Alfred Kazin. They kept talking about Freud. I realized I should read Freud because he’s had such an impact on contemporary literature. It had immediate dividends. I read the new Rachel Cusk novel, Second Place, and it was really Freudian to me.” – MSN (Boston Globe)
The Orwell Prizes Go To Up-To-The-Moment Political Books
Ali Smith won for her Summer, the concluding novel in her seasonal quartet – and one that encompasses Brexit, Australian wildfires, COVID-19, and the murder of George Floyd. She cited Orwell’s combination of political writing and art as an inspiration. “The place where these two things meet can’t not be a place of humane – and inhumane – revelation.” – The Guardian (UK)
France’s New Privately Funded Arts Complex
Arles is famous for Van Gogh and for its Roman ruins. Now there’s a new show in town: Luma. “The center doesn’t fit neatly into given ideas about museums, art collections or cultural hubs. … Luma doesn’t have a predictable program of exhibitions, artist residencies or performance pieces.” But it does have a Frank Gehry building, and a lot of aspirations. – The New York Times
The Pandemic Silenced These Instruments
And the virus killed two of the three “marimba healers” of Los Angeles, men who restored the old, cracked, broken marimbas of the area’s Guatemalan community. And “in addition to taking a devastating toll on the Central American community, the pandemic shut down indoor dining at Guatemalan restaurants where marimbistas would ply their trade.” Now, with vaccines, things are starting to change – and the instrument needs its one remaining healer. – Los Angeles Times
The Choreographers And Dancers Of TikTok Go On Strike
At least, the Black choreographers and dancers do – following the lead of dancer Erick Lewis, who posted a massively viral video saying, “This app would be nothing without Black people.” And yes, the loosely organized “strike” is having a pretty big impact on TikTok’s numbers. – Washington Post
The French Impressionists Had No Idea They Were Painting Masterpieces-To-Be
Of course they didn’t, even if some of them believed their work deserved that rating. “It’s easy to forget that for most of them at the time, their work was a risk – to create art in the way they felt was right, they needed to make personal and financial sacrifices.” – The Guardian (UK)
Richard Altuna, Who Designed Upwardly Mobile Shopping Experiences, And Starbucks, 70
The world of brick-and-mortar stores would look very different without Altuna, who “designed the prototypes for a certain kind of store, one that infused shoppers with a sense of — there’s no other way to put this — bourgeoise well-being.” – NPR
Summer Is A Scam
But there are a few ways to fix it. – The New York Times
No Mass Outbreaks From The UK’s Test Events
Great, 58,000 people and only 28 positives – but at the time of the test events, “virus levels were low and testing before and after events was also low, making conclusions difficult.” – BBC
The Longstanding, Fascist Focused, Whitewashing Of Rome
Rome was hardly white, whether in architecture or demographics. But historically, Europeans and white Americans – and especially Mussolini and his followers – have thought, and represented in art, otherwise. Why it matters today: “Cultural practitioners have an unprecedented chance to help the wider public engage with an idea of Rome that’s more diverse, realistic and interesting than the monochrome fantasy that has dominated our recent past. As white supremacists storm the centres of Western governance, this is not just a niche issue.” – Aeon
Alone In Rome, Before The Tourists Return
Italy was the first to lock down, and one of the hardest lockdowns. “Now most of Italy is in a ‘white zone,’ and museums can operate at their full summer schedule. Still, on a Saturday, I counted four other visitors to the most anticipated show of the year in Rome: ‘The Torlonia Marbles: Collecting Masterpieces,’ at the Capitoline, showcasing a collection of Greek and Roman sculpture unseen for decades.” – The New York Times
By The Bay, Bhangra Meets Bollywood And Struts It On YouTube
“Today, artists like [Northern California girl Manpreet]Toor, 31, are changing the way that bhangra and other Indian dance genres are seen, creating dances meant to be consumed online in productions that resemble professional music videos. … [This] reflects a new wave of Indian diaspora dance, a wave that has been enabled by platforms like YouTube and TikTok, and intensified during the pandemic with live performance on pause.” – The New York Times
John Cage, Harry Hay And LA’s Pioneering Place In Gay Rights
Gay Angelenos like to remind their counterparts to the north and east that L.A. played a crucial, perhaps decisive, role in gay-rights history. Five men sat together on the hillside in the late afternoon, imagining a world in which they did not have to hide. – The New Yorker
Can Writers Make Money From NFTs, Too? Some Are Trying
“It’s hard to make sense of what the NFT creative landscape might mean for otherwise underpaid writers. At once, it’s a place for writers to experiment with form, publish and earn money directly and instantly without any traditional publishing gatekeepers. It’s also a brand-new subculture with no reliable routes to financial success or readership, cut off from a larger writing market and culture that doesn’t understand it, raising knotty questions about what elements of writing are truly valuable to readers. For some, it’s exciting. But it’s also chaos.” – Literary Hub
Pompidou Centre Plucks Head Of Picasso Museum As Its Next Leader
Laurent Le Bon, 52, faces a challenging term. The Paris museum is scheduled to close from 2023 to 2027 for renovations to deal with its antiquated heating and cooling system, escalators that frequently break down and asbestos in the structure that needs to be removed. – The New York Times