“[Consider] the debt owed him by the graphic-novel author Neil Gaiman, the cartoonist Alison Bechdel, the filmmaker Tim Burton, and any other fantasist who loiters in the dark gardens of childhood. ‘When I was first writing A Series of Unfortunate Events,’ remembers Daniel Handler, the author of the Lemony Snicket series, ‘I was wandering around everywhere saying, ‘I am a complete rip-off of Edward Gorey,’ and everyone said, ‘Who’s that?’ Now everyone says, ‘That’s right; you are a complete rip-off of Edward Gorey!”” — The Atlantic
Author: Matthew Westphal
Frida Kahlo Wasn’t Just An Artist, She Was A Brilliant Self-Marketer
“The painter meticulously crafted her own image on a par with Cleopatra. If she were alive today, she’d probably be teaching a branding class at Harvard. Now it’s America’s turn to see how, and, more important, why she did it.” — The New York Times
The Three Mexican Filmmakers Who Are Conquering The Oscars
“Roma, Alfonso Cuarón’s intimate masterpiece, has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, … [and its] achievements belong to a generation of filmmakers unlike any other in the history of the art form. If Cuarón wins again, the Mexican trio of Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro, and Cuarón will take home their fifth Oscar in the past six years in the Best Director … Few countries can claim to have produced a cohesive group of collaborators with the level of success three Mexican auteurs have enjoyed for more than two decades.” — Slate
If New York City Wants To Landmark The Strand Bookstore (Against Its Owner’s Wishes), Just What Will That Protect?
“The Landmarks Preservation Commission exists to safeguard ‘the buildings and places that represent New York City’s cultural, social, economic, political and architectural history.’ But this is not the same thing as safeguarding the city’s cultural, social, economic and political heritage. The emphasis is on buildings and places, not what takes place inside them.” — The New York Times
A Native American Tribe Revives Its Culture With The Help Of Old Wax-Cylinder Recordings
“In 1890, just months before the murder of some hundred and fifty Lakota Indians at Wounded Knee, a mustachioed anthropologist named Jesse Walter Fewkes dragged a state-of-the-art Edison phonograph to Passamaquoddy country [in northeastern Maine]. This was during the height of ‘salvage anthropology,’ an attempt to document the many tribes that were being massacred into extinction.” Those recordings have now been digitized and returned to the Passamaquoddy, and they’re being slowly deciphered and used to teach younger tribe members their people’s traditions. — The New Yorker
Wexford Opera Festival Changes 2019 Program ‘For Financial Reasons’
The fall festival on the Irish coast, known for presenting rarities, has removed Weber’s Der Freischütz from its schedule, replacing it with Vivaldi’s Dorilla in Tempe. The Weber opera, which is on the fringes of the mainstream standard repertory, requires 12 soloists, a chorus, and a relatively large orchestra; the Vivaldi requires 6 soloists and a much smaller pit band. — Irish Times
Do The Oscar Telecast Producers Even Want To Show People Winning Oscars Anymore?
They’re only going to air two of the five Best Song nominees. They’re going to present some of the technical awards (even Best Cinematography) during commercial breaks (although the Oscars are the only time those trades get to be in the public spotlight). They generally seem obsessed with making the telecast short. New York Times Carpetbagger columnist Kyle Buchanan argues that the producers should do the opposite and embrace the Oscars’ Oscarness. — The New York Times
Violinist Tasmin Little To Retire From Performing
The popular instrumentalist will end her three-decade concert career in the summer of 2020, at which point she’ll be 55. In her announcement, she ran through her considerable list of accomplishments before concluding, “I’ve decided it’s time to find a little more space in my life for some of my many other interests!” — The Strad
Museum Of Black Civilizations In Dakar Is Major Advance In Movement To Repatriate African Art
“The museum hopes to represent all black civilizations, but the fact that it is based in Dakar is not mere coincidence. Art lives and breathes in Dakar. With its founding father and the brain-child behind this grand museum – Léopold Sédar Senghor – having been a poet, cultural theorist and leading pan-Africanist thinker, it makes sense that Dakar would be the home of this museum.” — Quartz
Meshulam Riklis, Not Just Mr. Pia Zadora, Dead At 95
He’s best known to the public as the mogul widely considered to have bought a Golden Globe award for his actress-singer wife (whom he met when she was 19 and he was 49). But before that, he was the original leveraged-buyout corporate raider and co-founded Carnival Cruise Lines. Later, he produced a women’s pro wrestling TV series and became one of Las Vegas’s top casino-hotel and entertainment moguls — until he went bankrupt and fled home to Israel. — The Hollywood Reporter