Call-out and outrage culture make it harder for comedies to pass muster with the vigilantes of social media. – Philadelphia Inquirer
Author: Douglas McLennan
PBS Launches Native Alaskan Kids Show
The show that the producers dreamed up, called “Molly of Denali,” ended up becoming a PBS cartoon about a 10-year-old Athabascan girl with a video blog about life in rural Alaska. PBS says it is the first nationally distributed children’s series with a Native American lead. – The New York Times
National Film Board Of Canada Delays Strategic Plan As Critics Look For More Oversight
Critics have alleged the film board’s production funding has decreased since 2002, and that spending on non-filmmaker salaries and institutional, legal and human resources services has increased. – Toronto Star
Winners And Losers In This Year’s Emmy Nominations
It looks like HBO’s back, piling up a whopping 137 nominations to Netflix’s 117, with Game of Thrones, Chernobyl and Barry among the big leaders (but with Veep rather far down the list with only nine nominations, including comedy series). – Hollywood Reporter
Report: Notre Dame Was Much Closer To Collapsing Than Has Been Reported
Some of what went wrong that night has been reported in the French news media, including Le Monde and Le Canard Enchaîné. Now, The New York Times has conducted scores of interviews and reviewed hundreds of documents to reconstruct the missteps and how Notre-Dame was saved in the first four critical hours. – The New York Times
What Snowball The Dancing Parrot Is Teaching Neuroscientists About Why Humans Dance
These newly published observations cement the human-ness of Snowball’s dancing. His initial headbangs and foot-lifts are movements that parrots naturally make while walking or courting. But his newer set aren’t based on any standard, innate behaviors. He came up with them himself, and he uses them for different kinds of music. “This is what we would genuinely refer to as dance, both in the scientific community and in the dance profession,” says Nicola Clayton of the University of Cambridge, who studies bird cognition. “It’s amazing.” – The Atlantic
Francoise Gilot Was Picasso’s Muse. When She Left He Predicted Disaster. It Didn’t Turn Out That Way
“For one thing, Gilot ended up happily married to Jonas Salk, who was doubtless secure enough in his own accomplishments to like her for reasons that had nothing to do with Picasso. And she went on to have an admired career as an artist. Gilot is ninety-seven now; she has been painting nearly as long as Picasso did, and is enjoying something of a revival.” – The New Yorker
Scarlett Johansson Says Her Comments On Casting Were Taken Out Of Context
In a recent interview with As If magazine, she said actors should be allowed to play any person “because that is my job and the requirement of my job”. On Saturday, Johansson said those comments were subsequently edited in other publications for “clickbait”. – The Guardian
Speakers Of Endangered Languages Find Model For A Comeback
“As thousands of languages around the world are threatened—hundreds of which are in the United States—Indigenous communities are learning from the successes of the Māori and the Hawai‘ians. Revitalization has proved to be as dynamic as the communities who undertake it: fluency, intergenerational learning, and engagement with a deeper understanding of cultural contexts and traditions are just some of the aspects of language revival.” – Emergence Magazine
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Transformative $55 Million Gift
Peter Dobrin: “It’s hard to overstate the significance of this recent $50 million infusion to the endowment plus an additional $5 million toward operations from an anonymous couple. In real financial terms as well as symbolic ones, it promises to be a turning point for the long-troubled organization.” – Philadelphia Inquirer