There aren’t many readings at bookstores these days, so what are authors doing instead? Live-streamed appearances for which attendees buy the book to get a ticket and a #ParkAndRead drive-in book launch. – Publishers Weekly
Man Convicted Of Trying To Steal Magna Carta From Salisbury Cathedral
In October 2018, Mark Royden, 47, went equipped with a claw hammer, gloves and safety goggles, tampered with a CCTV camera and set off a fire alarm to cause a distraction before smashing the document’s protective case. – The Guardian
How Music Lessons Have Adapted Online
“It was a novelty for a week or two,” said Catherine Keen. “But it was really tough on the kids. They were on their computers all day with their home classes. And then to have to come to an online voice lesson was really hard. Some of them did well. But others . . . “ She doesn’t go into specifics. But clearly, some of her students were struggling. – Movers & Makers
Maybe The People Who Signed The Harper’s Letter Have Forgotten About The Real Danger To Free Speech
Tom Scocca: “The promoters of the letter cast themselves as persecuted heroes, putting their names on the line to defend an embattled conception of liberty. The people putting themselves in front of police lines have a more expansive vision of what freedom means, and what risks they’re prepared to take for it.” – Slate
Those Viral Videos Of People Melting Down Because They Have To Wear Masks? They’re Performances — Bad Ones
Dan Kois: “What are these displays? Whatever they are, they are not authentic expressions of rage. … Rather than citizens pushed too far by onerous mask policies — finally sent over the edge — the people in the videos are recognizably acting, delivering tiny one-person shows. Perhaps they’ve rehearsed these lines in their head for weeks, cooped up at home, seething about the news. … And here, in the grocery store, finally granted an audience — the lights bright and the cameras running — they seize their moment to act. And they’re bad actors.” – Slate
Did #PublishingPaidMe Uncover A Real Problem Of Underpaying Black Authors?
“PW reached out to dozens of literary agents, authors, and editors to ask. While all the editors contacted declined to respond, many agents and authors were willing to speak on the condition of anonymity and had differing views on whether there’s a problem and how dire it is.” – Publishers Weekly
Venice Completes First Test Of €6 Billion Flood-Blocking System
“The huge yellow floodgates immediately started to work after being activated on Friday, rising simultaneously to separate the Venetian lagoon from the sea. More tests will be carried out over the coming months and the barrier will not be fully functional until the end of 2021.” – The Guardian
Hundreds Sign Open Letter Calling For Accountability At The Banff Centre
The Banff Centre shut down suddenly as the COVID crisis began and has canceled most of its residencies and programs. Much of the growth of the Banff Centre in recent decades has come through a combination of revenue streams that, until recently, was unlike any other arts institution in Canada. This, says Banff CEO janice Price, made the center particularly vulnerable. – Canadian Art
Newark’s Arts Institutions Shut Down. Its Artists, However…
Newark’s artists have applied their imagination to both cope with the time and seize its possibilities. Many have been documenting public and personal lives, and some have contributed their skills to activist campaigns. Their output is now coming into view in multiple forms, including exhibitions — online and getting ready for in-person reopening — as well as zines, posters, and resources such as a citywide artists’ database. – The New York Times
In Dealing With Deeply Problematic Statues, The U.S. Could Take Some Cues From India
Why consume museum resources to honor settler colonialism or racism? India and former satellite states of the Soviet Union offer a different path. “In these places, no effort is made to preserve old statues. They’re just left to fade away. In India, the colonial monuments are fundamentally neutered in public, left to erode in a long-neglected park. In, say, Estonia, Soviet monuments are dumped to the side and kept largely out of view.” – The Boston Globe
Theatre Artists Of Color Don’t Want To Be Treated As Tokens Now Or Ever Again
The group “We See You, White American Theater” released a 29-page letter of demands that “would amount to a sweeping restructuring of the theater ecosystem in America.” Indeed, they say, it’s time for everything from ending contracts with the stagehands’ union until that union diversifies to the idea that BIPOC be “the majority of writers, directors and designers onstage for the foreseeable future.” – The New York Times
Why Is UC San Francisco About To Destroy Artwork Depicting An African American Midwife Hero?
Well, you know, new medical research buildings. “University spokespeople claim that UC San Francisco is unable to cover the costs of removing and preserving the murals, estimated at $8 million. If the price of saving 10 frescoes is prohibitive, one wonders where the university will find the funds for its proposed 1.5 million-square-foot expansion project. Perhaps the university could start by dipping into its nearly $4-billion endowment.” – Los Angeles Times
Nielsen Reverses Course About Measuring Who’s Watching TV
They weren’t going to include bars, airports, hotel lobbies, and other public places for a while – because, after all, what kinds of numbers are in those places now? Then the studio ad execs got involved. – Variety
The Hagia Sophia Is Now Formally Not A Museum, But A Mosque
Mere minutes after “a Turkish court announced that it had revoked Hagia Sophia’s status as a museum, which for the last 80 years had made it a monument of relative harmony and a symbol of the secularism that was part of the foundation of the modern Turkish state,” Turkey’s President Erdogan declared it a mosque again. – The New York Times
The National Book Award Ceremony Bows To The Virus
The 2020 version of the ceremony, scheduled for November 18, will now be online. The executive director: “As a country, and within the literary community, we have all experienced a shift in reality.” – Los Angeles Times
A Korean American Artist Is Physically Attacked In New York
Kate Bae was on her way to her temporary job at the Census Bureau, near Bryant Park in Manhattan, when a man walked up to her and punched her in the face. The artist says she’s almost used to harassment (though of course not physical attacks) at this point: “Bae, a Korean American, says that she has been routinely harassed in the streets of New York in the past few months.” – Hyperallergic
Phoebe Robinson’s Path From Podcaster To TV Show Host To Publishing Mogul
OK, “mogul” might be stretching it. But Robinson, author of You Can’t Touch my Hair and Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay, has a deal with Penguin Random House for her own imprint, Tiny Reparations Books. She says now is a good time. “I think the publishing industry is hearing — I think they are more receptive to the sort of critique that’s being presented to them, and they’re more willing to make those changes. … And I think it is up to people like me to make sure those changes keep happening.” – Los Angeles Times
Yes, Houston Ballet, We’re Feeling The ‘Dancing With Myself’ Video
We’re all tired of the Netflix queue and staring out the window at life not being lived on our streets. So the smart, well-edited, fun video set to the Billy Idol classic song Dancing with Myself is just the safe dance party that we needed, six months into this pandemic, and counting. – Dance Magazine
Philippine Lawmakers Refuse To License A Broadcaster That Criticizes The Government
This is, in case it’s not clear, a dictatorial move. “The results of the vote — slammed by critics as an assault on press freedom — could potentially keep the radio, TV and internet giant from broadcasting until the end of Duterte’s term in 2022.” – Yahoo News
Marga Richter, Composer With A Career Spanning Eight Decades, 93
Richter was “a prolific composer whose determination to be heard in a male-dominated field once led her to rent Merkin Concert Hall to stage a program of her own works” – and she wrote nearly 200 in a career spanning back to the 1940s. – The New York Times
The Star Of The First Chicken Run Was Told She’s Too Old For The Sequel
Julia Sawalha, who played Ginger in the 2000 film, writes, “Last week, I was informed out of the blue, via email, through my agent that I would not be cast as Ginger in the Chicken Run sequel. The reason they gave is that my voice now sounds ‘too old’ and they want a younger actress to reprise the role.” – The Guardian (UK)
Brooklyn’s Greenlight Bookstore Acknowledges Black Staff And Customers Haven’t Been Treated Well
“Co-owners Rebecca Fitting and Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo acknowledged that Black customers and employees have felt unwelcome and disrespected, that poor training had led to racial profiling in their stores, and that the company had not succeeded in creating an anti-racist space.” They say they’ll do better, including talking with the neighbors about gentrification without getting defensive. – LitHub
MoMA Education Workers Speak Out About Contract Cuts
“What they have is the bare minimum, the scaffold of an education department,” says Shellyne Rodriguez, an educator whose contract was cancelled in March. “If you don’t have educators, you don’t have a department. It’s like closing a school but the principal still shows up every day.” – The Art Newspaper
Return To College? It’s A Con
Most dispassionate observers now recognize that return-to-campus plans are, as Juliana Gray wrote in McSweeney’s, cooked up by your university’s “Vice President for Magical Thinking.” – Inside Higher Ed
How COVID Is Impacting The Commercial Music Business
Nielsen Music/MRC Data says activity on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music began 2020 up 20.4% over 2019 — then ratcheted back to an increase of only 13.8% between March 13 and July 2 as listeners spent far less time in the car or at the gym. – Los Angeles Times