“While best known for his observant, insightful and often hilarious magazine stories about the real Texas — its people and places — [in GQ, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and especially Texas Monthly], Reid authored such works as Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards and The Bullet Meant for Me, his moving account of being shot and almost killed by a robber in Mexico City in 1998.” – The Dallas Morning News
Europe’s First Drive-In And Bike-In Opera
The cars get, let’s say, preferential treatment at the new La Bohème. “The unintended genius of English National Opera’s modern-day, 90-minute staging of Puccini’s opera is to spread the class politics from stage to audience.” – The Guardian (UK)
When The Met Fired James Levine, They Cited Sexual Misconduct, And Paid Him 3.5 Million Dollars
The size of the previously undisclosed settlement “casts doubt on the strength of the company’s case had it gone to trial. Mr. Levine’s contract, which had been amended over the years but was essentially based on agreements struck decades ago, lacked a morals clause.” – The New York Times
What It’s Like To Watch The Opening Concert Of The Seattle Symphony As A Drive-In
Melinda Bargreen talks about the journey: “Music presenters often overuse the phrase ‘a concert like no other, but for once, that was exactly what we got: a Symphony concert recorded earlier in the week in Benaroya Hall, watched on the park’s big drive-in screens, and streamed through a dedicated FM channel into the car radios. There’s never been an opening night like this one.” – Seattle Times
Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland Wins Big At Toronto Film Fest
Nomadland also won the Golden Lion in Venice, making it the first (and, so far, only) film to win both the Lion and the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. “In a plea to the audiences who had watched Nomadland remotely and at a drive-in screening, [the director] added, ‘Please, please keep going because we cannot do this without you. We’re so grateful and we hope we’ll see you all down the road.'” – Variety
U.S. Movie Theatres See Outlook Not Improving Much At All
Three-quarters of the country’s movie theatres are open on at least a limited basis; new movies are coming out weekly … and … that’s a no from audiences. “Americans are not going back in significant numbers in the COVID-[19] era.” – Portland Press-Herald (AP)
Yvonne Rainer And Radical Dance
Rainer, avant-garde choreographer and filmmaker, has a new book out. “A book about dance is a book, but it is also a mirror. And when a choreographer puts a mirror up to her work, angling to see it with new clarity, she often encounters her own reflection: her image and the mythologies of that image, her layered and conflicting legacies, the ways in which she has moved through the world — or appeared to.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
The Future Of Theatre
There are many ideas. Many hopes. Stephanie Ybarra of Baltimore’s Center Stage: “We will rely less on the stuff of the stage and more on the physical bodies of the performers and the words they speak or sing and the movement of those bodies.” – NPR
The Infinite Supply Of Misinformation Is On Its Way
Actually, it’s already here: “We found a sprawling web of nonexistent authors turning Russian-government talking points into thousands of opinion pieces and placing them in sympathetic Western publications, with crowds of fake people discussing the same themes on Twitter.” – The Atlantic
The Fantastic Idea Of Having A Film Festival At Your Fingertips
And the realities, too. “That kind of convenience, of course, comes at a price, especially in an artistic medium that always works best when it achieves your wholehearted surrender. And by surrender I mean actively putting aside your convenience, putting aside your phone, your work, your tiredness, your phone, your competing thoughts, your other appointments, your phone. I saw some very fine TIFF movies this year, though even the best ones left me wondering how much better I’d have liked them if I’d seen them as they were meant to be seen, on an enormous glowing screen in a crowded (and coronavirus-free) theater.” – Los Angeles Times
How Chaotic Will Tonight’s Virtual Emmys Actually Be?
The Creative Arts Emmys wrapped with an awards snafu after five nights of awards, but Primetime Emmys are coming to the screen, or screens, on Sunday night. Picture 130 video feeds at once, many of them operated remotely or by the nominees. “It’s honestly pretty nifty, but it contains the potential for so, so much chaos.” – Vox
While TikTok Makes A Deal, A Judge Keeps WeChat Around, For Now
Early Sunday morning, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco said in an order that the Commerce Department’s prohibitions against the popular Chinese messaging app “burden substantially more speech than is necessary to serve the government’s significant interest in national security, especially given the lack of substitute channels for communication.” – Reuters
Royal Academy Claims It Needs To Sell A Michelangelo To Fund 150 Jobs
Should the Royal Academy sell the “Taddei Tondo,” nickname for Michelangelo’s The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John? “The 515-year-old sculpture had been given to the London gallery in 1829 following the death of its owner, Lady Margaret Beaumont, as an inspiration to students in the academy’s schools.” The debate is contentious. – The Observer (UK)
The Fading Upright Pre-WWI Pianos Of Australia
In Darwin, people are leaving them on the curb as they clean out their houses before “cyclone season,” but in Hobart, the older ones are more common, and perhaps slightly more tunable. A piano tuner says, “Unless it’s a Steinway it’s not worth fixing.” – ABC (Australia)