“New novels from Don DeLillo and Martin Amis, two of the remaining dons of the literary scene of the 1980s, are out within a week of each other, like some last blast of “Remember when?” just before the 2020 election further propels us into a new realm of reality. Amis has written a novel so interested in Amis that its cover — a black-and-white portrait of, you guessed it, Amis — feels less like a postmodern joke and more like a warning sign. DeLillo, whose work is usually our national harbinger of future calamities, has written a disaster thriller that forgets to thrill.” – New York Magazine
How “The Lion King” Became A $9 Billion Blockbuster On Stage
“The musical, estimated at $20 million—at the time, likely the most expensive in Broadway history—opened at the Palace Theatre. The critics dismissed it as a theme park show. The Broadway crowd snubbed it too, giving the 1994 Tony for best musical to Stephen Sondheim’s short-lived Passion. But the family audience flocked to it. It became a blockbuster.” – Vanity Fair
Ed Benguiat, Titan of Typefaces, Dead at 92
“He became one of the go-to designers of the second half of the last century, especially in matters of typography. His hand was behind more than 600 typefaces, several of which bear his name.” – The New York Times
August Book Sales Down 30 Percent
Sales fell to $754 million compared to $1.09 billion in August 2019. The steep August drop put an end to a brief rally during which the rate of decline in bookstore sales had been slowing. – Publishers Weekly
Google Now Lets You Search For A Song By Singing It
The update, a new feature called ‘Hum to Search’, was announced at Google’s Search On event and is available from today. It allows you to search for a piece of music which either has no lyrics, or whose lyrics you can’t remember. – Classic FM
When Even Socially-Distanced Dance Is Shut Down
KDH, an Austin, TX dance group “planned to present ‘At a Distance’ for free over the course of couple of weekends. The show would be pop-up style — informal, free and no seating would be offered. In fact, the dancers would move slowly down the lake to discourage any crowding along the lakeside. Kathy Dunn Hamrick didn’t publicize the plans widely, just a few social media posts. However, somehow, just days before the first the city’s Office of Special Events got wind of the performance plans. Stephen Pruitt and Hamrick were told they could not stage their show.” – Sight Lines
The Photographer Who Took Original ‘Fatima’ Photo Says She’s Hurt By British Government’s Campaign
Photographer Krys Alex, on the subject, young dancer Desire’e Kelley: ““I immediately thought about Desire’e and how her face was just plastered all over social media and the internet, different news articles, and memes were created, and she had no clue. All of that really hurt me.” – Classic FM
How The Church Of England Bought Into Beyonce’s All The Single Ladies And Justin Timberlake’s Sexyback
Wait a second, those royalties are going to whom? Well: “The church is one of hundreds of investors in a company called Hipgnosis, which, for the past three years, has been hungrily snapping up the rights to thousands of hit songs.” – BBC
Ruth Kluger, Author Of A Haunting Holocaust Memoir, 88
Kluger’s Still Alive redefined the genre. Her work “spared no one with its blunt and haunting narrative — not her cultured neighbors who stopped suppressing their latent anti-Semitism when Germany annexed Austria; not her adult relatives who she believed should have foreseen the ‘final solution’ for European Jews and fled the continent with their families; not her liberators who swiftly wearied of hearing about the Holocaust; not even her tormented self.” – The New York Times
The Real-Life, Self-Educated British Fossil Hunter Behind A New Movie
Mary Anning risked her life in fossil hunts, never gaining the recognition nor certainly the rewards that rich men in Britain won. She “was three things you didn’t want to be in 19th-century Britain – she was female, working class and poor.” – BBC
The Writers Guild Wants Agencies To Resolve Their Conflicts Of Interest Now
The standoff about packaging has lasted 18 months, and the writers’ union wants it to end. The negotiating committee wrote, “CAA and WME enter these negotiations more deeply conflicted than any of the other agencies. … But that does not give them the right to come out on the other side of this process still conflicted.” – Los Angeles Times
Rhonda Fleming, A Princess In King Arthur’s Court And A Gambler At The O.K. Corral, 97
Fleming, like Maureen O’Hara, “was sometimes referred to as the Queen of Technicolor; both actresses had glamorous red hair, green eyes and fair skin. But in later years, she looked back on that as a drawback.” She worked in film, on Broadway, and on TV until, as she said, she just decided to work less. – The New York Times
Heidi Schreck, Playwright Of ‘What The Constitution Means To Me,’ Interviews One Of Its Inspirations, Norman Lear
Schreck met Lear backstage at an oratory contest when she was 15, and he had just given a speech called “The Constitution and Me.” Lear, who’s 98: “It’s hard to believe, as we talk now, that people aren’t gathering to go to the theater. That we’re living in a time where all of that is out of our lives for the time being. It hurts me.” – Los Angeles Times
Seriously, Though, Will Moviegoing Survive?
With Netflix and Disney controlling so much content, and with both companies now indifferent to movie theatres, things are looking grim. “What if the pandemic, rather than representing a temporary disruption in audience habits and industry revenues, turns out to be an extinction-level event for moviegoing?” – The New York Times
The Return Of The Prime Minister
As the Danish series Borgen returns to filming after seven years away, thanks to Netflix’s deep pockets, many people are finding the series on the streaming service for the first time. Its star is Sidse Babbett Knudsen, but she wasn’t eager to return to the role. “It’s taken them – what? Eight years? I mean, we talked about it once in a while. I met with Adam [Price, the creator of Borgen] and we both agreed that we had a really nice run, but let’s just stop there … Unless a good idea comes up.” Apparently, it was a very good idea. – The Guardian (UK)
With Her First New Video In 25 Years, Artist Howardena Pindell Reclaims Her Childhood
Pindell’s video Free, White, and 21 remains a commentary on the pervasive whiteness of second-wave feminism, but her new Rope/Fire/Water has more to say about the traumas of childhood experiences of racism. And the artist is, finally, getting some of her due. – The New York Times
Setting Statue-Toppling In Context
The UK has its first Black woman history professor Her take: “I was very surprised by the whole movement. It was coming from young people taking matters into their own hands. But I also understand that this conversation has been going for decades and it looked as if we’d exhausted all other avenues.” – The Guardian (UK)
A Hungarian Banker’s Art Collection Was Looted By The Nazis, And His Heirs Are Still Trying To Get It Back
The claims are 75 years old, and much of the collection disappeared into the maw of the post-War Soviet Union. The remainder is mostly in Hungary. Hungary’s lawyer says “Hungary owns the artworks at issue through lawful purchase, gift, and the uniform application of property laws.” – The New York Times
The Lebanese Stained Glass Artist Who’s Trying To Rebuild After The Massive Beirut Explosion
Maya Husseini had celebrated her birthday and was feeling pretty good about her future as a retired artist when the explosion at a port in Beirut ripped the city, and her work, to shreds. “‘Thirty years of my professional life were gone,’ she said in an interview after the blast in her workshop near Beirut. ‘Dust!'” – The New York Times
The Small Arts Organizations That Missed Out On Britain’s Government Funding
One jazz venue: “Our club has £52 left in our business account for the future. … Without change I fear that the future of the arts in this country, especially for those less well off, will be in jeopardy.” – The Guardian (UK)