“The band played while the Titanic sank — I don’t happen to believe that the Titanic is sinking at the moment. We’ll get through this but we must not get through this having entirely annihilated the arts world. There is no future of humanity if that happens.” – Charlotte Observer
Minnesota Orchestra And Engineers Study Aerosols From Wind Instruments, And There’s Hopeful News
“The risk of the instruments projecting virus-carrying aerosols horizontally into the crowd wasn’t as bad as feared. … Among the 10 instruments they analyzed, [Univ. of Minnesota] researchers found that the trumpet, oboe and bass trombone generated the most aerosols, while the tuba was less hazardous than someone talking or breathing.” – Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Knowledge Under Attack
Richard Ovenden’s thesis is that books can be destroyed literally, as they were by the Nazis, or symbolically, when their contents are either made unavailable or systematically robbed of their authority. As he states, in an era of fake news and “alternative facts”, it is hard not to conclude that “the truth itself is under attack”. – The Critic
China Is Now Officially The World’s Most Lucrative Movie Market
“Movie ticket sales in China for 2020 climbed to $1.988 billion on Sunday, surpassing North America’s total of $1.937 billion. … Analysts have long predicted that the world’s most populous country would one day top the global charts. But the results still represent a historic sea change: North America has been the global box office’s center of gravity since the dawn of the motion picture business.” – The Hollywood Reporter
A Critics’ List: Books To Read About Theatre
For now, if we can’t be inside the theatre, at least we can be all about it in our reading and our thinking. – Aisle Say
The Formerly A Bit Secretive, Now All Up On YouTube World Of Diary Hunters
Diaries come from estate sales and garage sales, from where they get bought and sold on eBay or elsewhere online. Some buyers read them as a series on their YouTube channels; others collect them for more altruistic reasons. “Although the trend is undeniably voyeuristic, many collectors have a grander purpose. Polly North is the 41-year-old director of the Great Diary Project. Since 2007, she has rescued more than 10,000 of them.” – The Observer (UK)
Turner Winner Rachel Whiteread Urges Creative Young People Not To Give Up
The artist says that she’s been gaining comfort from doodling in her journal, not to mention new drawings and sculpture. But, in opposition to the offensive retraining advertisements the British government tried to put out a couple of weeks ago, she says that for young artists, “It is important they don’t give up on their dreams, and they follow through with what they have trained for.” – The Observer (UK)
The Great British Baking Show Still Somehow Makes Us Feel Good About Humanity
After all of these seasons, a switch from the BBC, the loss of the great Mary Berry (not to mention presenters Mel and Sue), and a barrage of other baking shows, how does the Great British Baking Show still do it? “To watch The Great British Baking Show is to believe that the average guy and gal can do remarkable things, that good nature is compatible with excellence, that high achievement will be recognized, that honest feedback can lead to improvement, that there are things to life beyond work. It is to believe that spectacular creativity can actually be scrumptious.” – The Atlantic
The Serious, Mysterious Autograph Collector
A jeweler started collecting autographs when he was a teenager. Eight presidents, many famous writers, Thomas Edison, and Sarah Bernhardt later, Lafayette Cornwell’s book was full – and a mystery. “How Cornwell organized the signatures in the book is as unclear as how he obtained so many.” – The New York Times
Hamilton Music Arranger Alex Lacamoire Breaks Down His Process
Music arranging is a science, and art, and an ability to stand back and respect the composer when the composer wants something different. Or: “Those are arrangement decisions, looking at how the song feels, looking at what key it’s in and looking at the what we call the routine of the song, you know, is it three courses, is it two courses? Do you end the song with a big bang for applause, or do you melt away and disintegrate a little bit to a quiet whisper? Those kinds of decisions are what arranging truly is.” – Slate
The Playwright Who Is So Ready For Her Trump/Comey Play To Be Irrelevant
Anne Washburn thought Shipwreck, which she wrote in 2017, wouldn’t be relevant for long. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case; the themes of the Trump administration have been shockingly consistent. But she’s ready never to have to think about the play again. “If Trump is not president in January, I think we won’t want to think about him again for a long time.” – The New York Times
A French Teacher Who Showed His Class Cartoons Of The Prophet Mohammed Was Beheaded
The history teacher’s lesson “was related to the ongoing trial over the 2015 attack at the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which came under fire for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Islamist extremists killed 12 people, and 14 defendants stand accused of giving the gunmen logistical support.” Protests in support of the teacher erupted across France over the weekend. – NPR
How Is French Cinema Coping With Covid?
Director François Ozon: “I believe in cinemas. If you look at French attendance figures, they’re 50% down from last year but that’s because there are no American films – whereas French films are maybe only 20% down. There’s a lot going on in French cinema at the moment – a lot of variety, a lot of debate, commercial films, auteur films, some very strong personalities, it’s pretty healthy. And there are a lot of film shoots happening in France right now – everyone’s making the most of it, in case there’s another lockdown.” – The Observer (UK)