Month: July 2018

Romance Novels Are Trying To Reach A Hot Intersection Of Inclusion And Publishing

Or at least romance writers are. Some of the publishers aren’t there yet. “Even as the genre has evolved to reflect readers’ varied tastes and fetishes — popular subcategories include vampire and werewolf romance, military romance, cowboy romance, time travel romance, pirate and Viking romance — the lead characters are often confined to a fairly narrow set of ethnic, cultural and aesthetic types.”

Frederick Wiseman Describes The Process Of Making His Detailed, Quiet, Thorough Documentaries

At the time of the profile, the 88-year-old documentarian was editing footage from the New York Public Library, and he had more than 150 hours to cut down to two or three. “While the technique is uncompromising, some of the observations are laugh-aloud funny – as when a telephone operator valiantly attempts to explain that unicorns don’t exist, or a picture librarian demonstrates a system of themed archiving with images of ‘dogs in action’. ‘Everything that I find is coincidental, but there’s nothing coincidental about the final film,’ explains Wiseman, who is not only the director and editor, but the sound recordist and producer.”

A Daring Opera Leader Leaves His Mark In Provence

Bernard Foccroulle is getting ready to go. What’s his legacy at the Aix-en-Provence Festival? “During the past 11 years he has made the Aix festival … feel more connected: to young artists, whom it has assiduously fostered; to new work, which it has commissioned in quantity and quality; to the operatic canon, which it has refreshed with provocative stagings and musical visions; to new audiences; and to its Mediterranean region, which it has celebrated with forays into North African and Middle Eastern styles without seeming patronizing.”

Oakland Is Getting Its Hollywood Moment

Or at least its indie moment, after the Oakland scenes of Black Panther fade. “Long in the shadow of the city across the bay and nestled between liberal Berkeley and the exploding tech expanse of Silicon Valley, Oakland (pop. 425,000) is in the midst of a long-awaited movie moment, and [Sorry to Bother You writer/director Boots] Riley is helping put it on the map.”

Boston Symphony’s Star Flutist Files A Gender-Discrimination Lawsuit

Elizabeth Rowe has been the face of the orchestra in marketing campaigns, and she and the only other woman who’s a principal in the orchestra were featured soloists in a tour of Japan. Yet “pay disparities can be significant. Ms. Rowe, 44, is paid about $70,000 less each year than John Ferrillo, 62, the principal oboist, based on data in the lawsuit and tax records. That is despite the fact that they play next to each other and are both ‘leaders of the orchestra in similarly demanding artistic roles,’ according to the lawsuit.”

The National Gallery Of London Buys A Painting By Artemesia Gentileschi, Raising Its Number Of Works By Women To 21

That’s out of 2300 artworks that the National Gallery owns, by the way. But anyway, the National Gallery spent millions of pounds on this rare painting. Gentileschi “was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence and largely rejected the subject matter expected of female artists, preferring to paint heroic women, often in the nude.”

Yes, They’re Marketed Brilliantly, But Why Are We Obsessed With Superhero Movies?

What do they say about us, about our time period? What will historians say in the future, when this time (the time of the superhero) is, at long last, over? “Gone is respect for the rule of law and the importance of tradition and community. Institutions and human knowledge are useless. Religion is irrelevant. Governments are corrupt and/or inept, when not downright evil. The empowered individual is all.”

There’s A New, 90-Minute Tour Of The Louvre, Based On Beyoncé And Jay-Z’s Video

Their song “Apeshit” has been viewed tens of millions of times on YouTube since it came out, and the Louvre is not unaware of their influence. Now the museum, “which already has a tour based on the US rapper will.i.am’s hit ‘Smile Mona Lisa,’ has created another based on the Carters’ night in the museum. It follows the video through 17 paintings and sculptures which feature in the six-minute clip, going from the monumental white Greek marble ‘Nike of Samothrace’ to Marie Benoist’s ‘Portrait of a Negress.'”

This Curator Had A Job Offer At MoMA’s PS1 – Until They Learned She Had A Baby

The curator was pregnant – visibly so – when she “continued to have face-to-face meetings, conversations and correspondence with Mr. Eleey and with Klaus Biesenbach, PS1’s director, according to the complaint. In fact, she says she saw Mr. Biesenbach just eight days before she gave birth to her first child, a son, in late July.” But later, he seemed shocked that she’d had a baby – and the job offer was soon off the table.