“In July, a flock of internet detectives discovered the books. The Travels and Adventures of Little Baron Trump and His Wonderful Dog Bulger was published in 1889, and quickly forgotten thereafter, as was its sequel, Baron Trump’s Marvelous Underground Adventure. They are not timeless, and were quickly overshadowed by more compelling contemporary entries in the fanciful-travel-stories-for-children genre, like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and The Wizard of Oz. Their author, lawyer Ingersoll Lockwood, appears in history mostly for his role in a financial tangle that occurred in the aftermath of an elderly woman’s death on the railroad tracks near Philadelphia.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
$998 To See “Hello Dolly” On Broadway?
The high “Dolly” ticket, which is for weekend performances, reflects strong demand to see Bette Midler’s Tony-winning turn before her run ends on Jan. 14. And the front row provides an opportunity for fans to be quite close to her: She performs the title song on a passerelle, a walkway that arcs in front of the stage, and she often reaches out toward audience members, sometimes shaking their hands.
How Skiffle Gave Us The Music Revolution Of The 1960s
Lennon and McCartney are writing their own songs because skiffle has empowered them. And I don’t think there was that equivalent in the United States. There was no mass movement of school-aged boys playing three-chord blues songs in the United States. Skiffle was less like the punk scene and more like — do you know what a fidget spinner is?
A Growing Tide Of Worry That Our Technology Is Fragmenting Our Brains
There is growing concern that as well as addicting users, technology is contributing toward so-called “continuous partial attention”, severely limiting people’s ability to focus, and possibly lowering IQ. One recent study showed that the mere presence of smartphones damages cognitive capacity – even when the device is turned off. “Everyone is distracted. All of the time.”
Bill McKibben: I Quit When Si Newhouse Bought The New Yorker. I Was Wrong
Si Newhouse seems to have decided that the New Yorker was worth protecting, and that the way to protect it was to get out of the way. Remnick has written that he was left alone to manage the magazine. If it has become more business-savvy, sponsoring festivals and so on in a way that would have embarrassed Mr. Shawn, none of that seems to have diminished the quality or the integrity of the words on the page (or, as Mr. Shawn never could have imagined, on the screen).
Holly Block, Ex-Director Of Bronx Museum, Dies Of Cancer
“As executive director of the Bronx Museum, Block significantly altered the museum’s presence in the New York art world over the course of her decade-long tenure there, including a decision in 2012 to stop charging admission fees. Between 2012 and 2016, as a result of the change in admissions policy, the museum quadrupled its attendance.”
The Leadership Shakeups In NY’s Downtown Dance
“From July 2016 to February 2017, directors came and went at five major contemporary dance hubs below 23rd Street: New York Live Arts in Chelsea; Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side; Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at New York University in Greenwich Village; Gibney Dance Center, in TriBeCa and near Union Square; and the temporarily nomadic Performance Space 122 (PS122), whose East Village home, under renovation since 2013, is poised to reopen soon.”
The Art Of Embarrassment – Authenticity On Display
Part of the appeal of live art is the chance that it could go wrong. There is also a perverse pleasure in observing the authenticity of a mistake in a contrived setting — for instance, actors “corpsing” can prove exhilarating in small doses. The trend of confessional art (and one may extend the point to reality television) offers similar authenticity within an artificial environment, if not to the same extent as an onstage mistake. As playwright and actor Tim Crouch puts it, “To see someone fail and to be embarrassed is a very real thing, and we like it real and unmediated.”
How Fascist Ideas Slip In To The Arts
“The fascist tradition of using the arts as vehicles for expanding the movement is visible in the U.S. today, in some cases in eerily similar ways to the original rise of European fascism in the early 20th century. In an interview with Pacific Standard, Ross discussed the ways fascists have historically snuck into mainstream cultural milieus, why progressives sometimes fall for fascist infiltrators, and how entertainment media played a role in the election of Trump.”
It’s Official: Print Loses Its Glamour
UK Glamour magazine is going “digital first”, stopping its monthly editions and instead producing a “collectible, glossy” issue twice a year. A spokeswoman told the BBC the “mobile-first, social-first” move with a focus on beauty was based on how readers are “living their life today”.