“When I began to explore Handel’s personal accounts at the Bank of England twenty years ago, I was often asked why. For me the answer was always ‘follow the money’. Handel’s financial records provide a unique window on his career, musical environments, income, and even his health.” – Bank Underground
Why Are There So Many Asian-American Hip-Hop Dance Crews? Community
“In many Asian countries, hip-hop rose to popularity as a form of self-expression and resistance, sometimes in the face of colonialism and oppressive regimes. … But the contemporary boom of Asian Americans in hip-hop seems born out of a different impulse — one of finding belonging and connecting with others who share your unique experience.” – Vice
Shelley Duvall’s Performance In ‘The Shining’ Was Actually Brilliant
“Many viewers — even some who love The Shining — find Duvall’s acting strangely cartoonish with its wild expressions of anxiety and fear. … Stephen King himself … was downright offended by how the picture depicted Wendy, who was more proactive and heroic in his novel.” After re-watching the film on a big screen, critic Bilge Ebiri found a greater respect for the key aspect of Duvall’s performance: “the fear of [an abused] wife who’s experienced her husband at his worst, and is terrified that she’ll experience it again.” – Vulture
Who’s The US’s Busiest Publisher Of Literature In Translation? Amazon
“Amazon Crossing, Amazon’s publishing imprint focused on literary translation, … has published more than 400 books, from 42 countries and in 26 languages … Crossing has also produced some of the bestselling titles to emerge from Amazon’s [entire] publishing platform, including The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch, which has reached more than 800,000 readers.” – Publishers Weekly
Discriminatingly Nondiscriminatory: MoMA Expands the Canon (But Leaves Out Native Americans)
Given the emphasis on increased diversity of representation for artists featured in the permanent collection — female artists, in particular, are more abundantly represented in the current hang and stand up to comparison with their more renowned male colleagues, and two special exhibitions reflect the museum’s increased attention to African-American artists — the apparent failure to include Native Americans in the new MoMA’s inaugural displays is beyond comprehension. – Lee Rosenbaum
Lauren Gunderson On Giving (And Getting) Voice In The Theatre
Becoming the first woman to top the list of most-produced playwrights (in the 2017-18 U.S. season) was a feat, and this year’s return to the No. 1 spot might be even more impressive. But the 37-year-old writer’s quiet rise to the top of her profession isn’t just a personal victory, because she has built her success on telling women’s stories — and providing more (and more challenging) roles to female actors. – Arizona Republic
Like It Or Not (Probably You Do Not), Kim Kardashian Represents America
She’s at the intersection of race, gender, and social media. “Kim’s particular fame derives from a cherished place in the American racial imagination that, combined with wealth, prevents contact with the deathly effects (and melancholic affects) of brownness in this country while reaping the exoticism of not-quite whiteness.” – Slate
The Chattanooga Symphony And Its Concertmaster Are At Serious Odds
Holly Mulcahy hasn’t performed with the orchestra since April because of a contract dispute – a dispute so intense that one board member has resigned over it. That board member, film composer George S. Clinton, said that the entire dispute had been “badly mishandled and allowed to deteriorate to the point that now the symphony has lost what I and many others consider to be one of its finest assets.” – Chattanooga Times Free Press
Is It Worth Waiting Two Hours In Line For A Few Minutes In A Kusama Infinity Mirrored Room?
Well: “That depends on how much you value your time — and what you expect of art in the age of Instagram. The smartphone, with its ever-finer cameras and ever-shinier screens, now shapes our experience of art as thoroughly as the church did in 14th-century Italy or the unadorned, white-cube galleries did for midcentury abstract painters.” – The New York Times
Shop Dogs, Custom Roasted Coffee, And Other Wild Things On Author Websites
You’d think authors would have things like, oh, the titles of their books, links to buy said books, maybe a list of book tour dates, press contacts, etc. Sure, sure, but there’s so much more. – The New York Times
Is Memoir Writing Selfish?
Michelle Tea, author of several memoirs and novels, says (in her new book called, er, Against Memoir) that it certainly is. “Examining the need to record her experiences in the title essay, she writes: ‘Personal narrative is a mental illness, but you don’t want to be well.’ She tells me how the compulsion to write is similar to the craving to drink.” – The Guardian (UK)
So They Hired Phoebe Waller-Bridge Of ‘Fleabag’ Fame To Help The James Bond Movies Out
Remember how Carrie Fisher (RIP, General) used to punch up scripts? It’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s time now. She’s the second woman – only the second – to get a writing credit on a Bond movie on the six-decade franchise. She says she wasn’t trying to fix the, shall we say, anti-feminist message of many early Bond films: “They were just looking for tweaks across a few of the characters and a few of the storylines.” – BBC
Gillian Jagger, Sculptor Who Used Trees And Animal Carcasses, Has Died At 88
Jagger used the natural world as inspiration, and her work related to Land Art, ecofeminism, and Post-Minimalism without aligning to any one specific movement. The artist “hit upon one of her signature methods while living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1960s. She began capturing direct impressions of the world around her by casting unlikely forms in plaster, like a cat that had been stoned to death by children and, most famously, manhole covers.” – The New York Times
Why Would The Oscars Reject A Nigerian Film For Its Language?
Because the language isn’t “foreign” enough – it’s English. The Academy is changing what the category is called – Best International Film instead of Best Foreign-Language Film – but it hasn’t changed the rules. “Lionheart, then, is ineligible for the Best International Film category, despite being an international movie shot in the most populous country in Africa.” – The Atlantic
Maria Perego, Who Created The Mouse Puppet Topo Gigio, Has Died At 95
Perego was an Italian puppeteer who came up with the 10-inch tall mouse puppet/marionette in the 1950s – and then the Ed Sullivan Show came calling, and calling, and calling. Of the puppet’s numerous appearances on the show, Perego said, “My puppet not only entered Americans’ households, I believe he also entered their hearts.” – The New York Times
Laid-Off Marciano Art Foundation Staffers Protest At The Museum’s Building In Los Angeles
The staffers walked a picket line in front of the former Scottish Rite Temple on Friday. “We’re here to work! We want to work!” they chanted, and “Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!” – Los Angeles Times
The Rise – And Importance – Of Asian American Dance Groups
In a lot of Asian countries, “hip-hop rose to popularity as a form of self-expression and resistance, sometimes in the face of colonialism and oppressive regimes.” But current Asian American hip hop groups are all about finding each other, and finding community. – Noisey
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency Is Now Old Enough To Drink Legally
Happy 21st, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. How the heck do you stay so funny over some exceedingly unfunny years? One editor interviews another to find out. – Inside Higher Ed
Preorder Your Books From Indie Bookstores
Here’s why you should do that: “Your interest in a title will indicate to booksellers that it’s worth checking out! Maybe they’ll read it. Maybe they’ll love it and give it table space up front and hand-sell it to everyone who walks in the door.” – Literary Hub
Sudden Closing Of LA’s Marciano Foundation Raises Questions About Private Arts Institutions
“We need to think about how we regulate these institutions. And maybe ask, why are they tax exempt to begin with? Are the benefits outweighing the costs to the public?” The Marciano situation has also highlighted issues of pay equity at museums, which frequently have a coterie of well-remunerated administrators at the top, followed by a much larger subset of poorly paid workers at the bottom, many part time. – Los Angeles Times
A ‘Riverdance’ Alum Who’s Now Trying To Strip Away Every Cliché Of Irish Dance
Colin Dunne doesn’t wear the Celtic-ized costumes or hold his torso and arms rigid; he frequently dances in sneakers or barefoot; he sometimes improvises, which is almost unheard-of in traditional Irish dance. And in his newest show, he’s collaborating with a dead fiddler who was even more nonconformist than he is. – The New York Times
The Guardian’s New Chief Theatre Critic Is Neither White Nor Male
Arifa Akbar, who will succeed Michael Billington in the new year, has been a contributing reviewer and reporter for The Guardian for several years; she’s currently arts editor at Tortoise Media and spent 15 years at The Independent as news reporter, arts writer and literary editor. – The Guardian
Shell Shock 1919: How World War I Changed Culture
“The shock of the first modern, ‘industrial’ war extended far into the 20th century and even into the 21st, and changed how people saw the world and themselves. And that was reflected in the cultural responses to the war – which included a burgeoning obsession with beauty and body image, the birth of jazz, new thinking about the human psyche, the Harlem Renaissance, Surrealism, and more.” (audio) – WNYC (New York City)
Leonardo And His Lovers: The Opera
The new piece by composer Alex Mills and librettist Brian Mullin, titled Leonardo and premiering this weekend at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, focuses on da Vinci’s relationship with two of his assistants, the rambunctious working-class youth Gian Giacomo Caprotti (whom Leonardo called Salaí, meaning little devil), and the young Milanese noble Francesco Melzi (whom Leonardo called Master Francesco). – BBC
Afro Yaqui Music Collective Works to Resurrect Silenced Voices
“On Thursday, October 24, 2019, the Afro Yaqui Music Collective took the stage on Pittsburgh’s North Side for an evening of jazz-fusion fueled activism in the name of unjustly forgotten or silenced voices–in particular, that of Puerto Rican historian, writer, and civil rights activist Aruturo Alfonso Schomburg.” – I Care If You Listen