“He believed, he once wrote, that a mind ‘still inhabiting the flesh’ could reach another mind at great remove. There was an inciting incident in the spring of 1875 (before Twain’s red hair went gray), which he recollected as ‘the oddest thing that ever happened to me.'” – The Paris Review
Should Critics Be Reviewing Movies Showing In Theaters While COVID Is Still Rampant?
Richard Lawson: “If the reason for my hesitancy to go to a restaurant or, when New York theaters are open, go see a movie is safety, then is it a bit, I don’t know, morally compromised to review a movie that is coming out, thus offering a tacit encouragement for people to go watch the thing, out where it’s still dangerous?” – Vanity Fair
The Nonprofit That Sends Books To Young Prisoners — And Pushes To Abolish Prisons
“We do not think we should exist, because we do not believe prisons should exist,” says a member of Liberation Library, founded in 2015 in Chicago and serving incarcerated young people in Illinois, “but as long as they do, we will continue sending books to young people inside.” – Vogue
Ani DiFranco’s Plan To Give Prisoners A Voice
The Prison Music Project, which is a political and creative effort, is focused on centering the voices [and] stories of people who get entangled in the justice system, people who experience racial oppression and poverty and class oppression. – Shondaland
Sales Of America’s All-Time Bestselling Book Are Down, But Reading Of That Book Is Up
“More Americans are buying Bibles they read less — if ever — and reading Bibles they didn’t buy because they’re dipping into verses here and there online …, according to the findings in the 10th annual State of the Bible study from the American Bible Society and the Barna Group. And the report’s co-author … points optimistically to soaring use of digital apps and audio Bibles.” – Publishers Weekly
A Cultural History Of Chairs
In the centuries prior to western industrialisation, stools or benches were common household furnishings, but chairs were special-occasion objects, usually the exclusive property of the wealthy and powerful. The era of mass manufacturing in the 19th century, and the rapid social and economic changes that came with it, brought chairs into daily life for the first time. Industrial jobs, with their repetitive tasks, required a seated posture, and the high demand for chairs that this created in turn made them available and affordable to middle-class people in Europe and the US. – The Guardian
A Need For Boldness In Rethinking The Arts
We should be deeply skeptical of Trumpian fantasies of business-as-usual on the horizon. There is evidence that the pandemic, when it comes to attending live entertainment events, is changing consumer habits. The lockdown is strengthening two old choke holds on live theater’s existence — convenience and price point. – ArtsFuse
Drop Local Content Quotas For Australian TV Networks And Industry Will Be Wrecked, Say Producers
Current licensing rules for free-to-air commercial TV broadcasters in Australia require a set number of hours of original, locally produced drama, nonfiction/news and children’s programming each year. Those broadcasters are lobbying the conservative national government to eliminate those rules entirely, but even their “fallback” position, accepting a “simplified” quota system, would see spending on Australian programming fall by half and the loss of up to 4,600 jobs, says Screen Producers Australia. – The Guardian
Actors With Disabilities Are Finally Starting To Break Through
“If a successful cultural transformation can be defined as the moment when you can finally stop counting heads, the first sign of that may be when you realize that at least there are heads to count.” Reporter Mark Harris meets with a crop of young performers landing roles and awards — but who still, always, find they have to educate producers, colleagues, and audiences. – T — The New York Times Style Magazine
Sean Connery At 90 (Yes, 90)
Connery nonetheless celebrates his advance on a tenth decade as an avatar of old-fashioned masculinity. His role as James Bond — hating the Beatles at the height of the their success — helped position those attitudes within inverted commas. He went from playing grumpy young men to grumpy old men. He became the most famous Scot in the world. Peter Jackson tried to lure him into the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Fans have wondered if he might return to Indiana Jones. But Connery isn’t playing. – Irish Times
Why Don’t Orchestras Improvise?
“There’s a language there, and the language comes out of so many years of study. And the idea that the orchestra can’t move a couple of paces in a certain direction toward what they would do, even as they move many paces to use orchestral notation — to try to codify things in a language that these players appreciate and are familiar with — I find that dynamic odd. Because this is the music of today.” – The New York Times
Nearly 12 Million Videos Removed From YouTube In Two Months
Of the removed videos, 3.8 million were taken down for child safety reasons, 3.2 million for spam or scams, 1.7 million for nudity or sexual content, 1.2 million for violence and 900,000 for the promotion of violence. – CNET
DC Fan Dome Sets The Gold Standard (So Far) For Virtual Events
Virtual conventions are long. People are watching at home, in their rooms, instead of in giant ballrooms packed with other excited fans. Trying to bring some of that convention energy to people digitally is immensely difficult, but what FanDome proved is that figuring out pacing and giving audiences something to actually look at in place of Zoom call screens they’re already exhausted by goes a long way. – The Verge
Reopening Theatres Will Fail If They Can’t Get Insurance
According to producer Edward Snape, the current situation “will stop work happening in the first place”, because producers will not be able to proceed with planned projects uninsured. “Without it, we don’t restart”, he added. – The Stage
Miami City Ballet Cancels Previously Announced 2020-21 Season
“The organization plans to celebrate its 35th anniversary … with a reimagined season of new commissioned digital works, outdoor performances and online premieres of some of the company’s most memorable performances.” – Miami Today
Online Learning Is Changing Our Brains. We Need To Understand How
“To skim to inform” is the new norm for reading. What goes missing are deep reading processes which require a quality of attention increasingly at risk in a culture and on a medium in which constant distraction bifurcates our attention. These processes include connecting background knowledge to new information, making analogies, drawing inferences, examining truth value, passing over into the perspectives of others (expanding empathy and knowledge), and integrating everything into critical analysis. Deep reading is our species’ bridge to insight and novel thought. – The Guardian
Istvan Rabovsky, First Big Ballet Star To Defect From Soviet Bloc, Dead At 90
“Trained in Hungary and the Soviet Union, Mr. Rabovsky and [his wife Nora] Kovach created a sensation with their technical virtuosity and an energetic style virtually unknown to Western audiences until the Bolshoi Ballet appeared in London and New York in 1956 and 1959.” – The New York Times
How To Bring L.A. Back From Disease, Dissension, And Unrest? Build Concert Halls, Says Mark Swed
“On the surface, that no doubt sounds idiotic — economically, socially and in just about every other way,” writes the L.A. Times classical music critic. “It’s not. It is the simplest, surest, most affordable means of turning this town around. Better still, we’re already nearly there. So please, bear with me.” – Los Angeles Times
‘Manipulative, Offensive, And Cheap’: Whitney Museum Cancels Show Of Black Artists’ Work After Artists Cry Foul
“The Whitney Museum of American Art on Tuesday canceled an upcoming exhibition after artists of color objected to the institution’s having obtained their work through discounted sales largely meant to benefit racial justice charities. They have accused the museum of trying to capitalize on their work without properly compensating them.” – The New York Times
Lost 13th-Century Portions Of Westminster Abbey Rediscovered
“Built in the 1250s as part of Henry III’s rebuilding efforts, the L-shaped structure” — called the Great Sacristy — “housed sacred items, including chalices, altar linens and vestments. … Medieval clergy members may have also gathered in the sacristy to prepare for processions into the main church.” – Smithsonian Magazine
Actors’ Equity OKs Three Indoor Productions, The First Since COVID Lockdown
“All three theaters are nonprofits in New England, where virus cases are low. The region has already been home to the first two outdoor productions featuring union actors during the pandemic. … Among the shows planned is a seven-actor version of Little Shop of Horrors; the theater is still figuring out how to stage a sadistic dental exam and several encounters with a man-eating plant, but is pledging to limit physical contact between actors (and yes, that means Audrey and Seymour will not kiss).” – The New York Times
Writer Gail Sheehy, 83
Gail Sheehy, a lively participant in New York’s literary scene and a practitioner of creative nonfiction, studied anthropology with Margaret Mead. She applied those skills to explore the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s and to gain psychological insights into the newsmakers she profiled — among them Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev and both Presidents Bush. – The New York Times