“When the children’s television show Arthur made headlines last week for an episode in which the beloved teacher Mr. Ratburn marries his male aardvark partner, Alabama viewers saw only a rerun of an old episode.” In explanation, APT’s programming director said in a statement, “parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision.” – Slate
Author: Matthew Westphal
Nôtre-Dame’s Walls Are So Unstable That A Strong Gale Could Knock Them Over: Study
“A mechanical engineer at the University of Versailles has modelled the engineering of the structure and shown that the walls of Nôtre-Dame could collapse under the pressure of wind speeds higher than 90km per hour, while before the fire they could withstand winds of up to 220km per hour.” – The Art Newspaper
Did We Just Get A Sign That Hilary Mantel Has Finished Her Cromwell Trilogy?
“On Tuesday (21st May), Waterstones Piccadilly sparked excitement online when it tweeted out a prominent sign, said to be spotted in London’s Leicester Square, which appeared to hint at news on the novel, titled The Mirror and the Light.” The sign has since disappeared from the billboard, and HarperCollins has no comment. – The Bookseller (UK)
Staff At Another New York City Arts Mecca Move To Unionize
Following in the footsteps of workers at MoMA and the New Museum, employees of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) have signed a formal petition to join United Auto Workers Local 2110. “While they haven’t yet posed any official demands, several workers [are] alleging worsening working conditions including the reduction of benefits, 401k matching, and healthcare, in addition to transforming full-time jobs to hourly part-time jobs, which render workers ineligible for benefits.” – Hyperallergic
Everyone Thought Aretha Franklin Left No Will. Turns Out She May Have Left Three
“In a court filing on Monday, the personal representative of Ms. Franklin’s estate disclosed that three handwritten documents had been discovered just weeks ago at Ms. Franklin’s home — one in a spiral notebook under her sofa cushions, the others in a locked cabinet — and asked a Michigan probate judge to decide whether any of them are valid wills.” – The New York Times
Man Booker International Prize, For First Time, Goes To Arabic Novel
“Jokha Alharthi, the first female Omani novelist to be translated into English, has won the Man Booker International prize for her novel Celestial Bodies. Alharthi … shares the [£50,000] prize equally with her translator, American academic Marilyn Booth.” – The Guardian
One Of The World’s Great Collections Of Soviet Avant-Garde Art, All Saved From Stalin, Is In Deepest Uzbekistan
And “deepest” doesn’t mean Tashkent, Samarkand, or the other Silk Road cities visited by tourists; this is in far-off Nukus, near the now-dead Aral Sea. Yet this distance from Soviet power centers is the reason an ex-electrician could amass the trove of once-forbidden art at the Savitsky Museum. – The Guardian
Author Binyavanga Wainaina, Leading Kenyan Gay Rights Activist, Dead At 48
“One of the first high-profile Kenyans to openly declare he was gay, … he won the Caine Prize for African writing in 2002 and was best known around the world for his satirical essay ‘How to Write About Africa.’ Wainaina was also named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2014 for his gay rights activism.” – BBC
Diversity beyond visible representation
“There is growing presence, visibility and representation of [Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic] artists, as well as a vision that they should be part of the mainstream. … However, we now need to move beyond visible representation to look at who is commissioning, directing, producing and programming the work of BAME artists.” – Arts Professional
Annette Benning Simply Will Not Tell You How She Gets To The Depths Of Her Characters
“She wished she could talk about it, she said in her barrel-aged voice. She likes to read actors’ interviews, scouring them for details of life and craft. … She wanted to be cooperative. She wanted to support the show. … Yet discussing how she prepared the role, how she plays it would mean intellectualizing it, distancing herself from it, violating something veiled, even sacred, at the core of what she does.” – The New York Times