With hedge fund the Man Group having announced that it will end its sponsorship of the English-speaking world’s leading literary award after this year, the literati are all wondering what changes might come to the Man Booker Prize — with some observers in Britain who are too chicken to compete worry about over-dominance by writers from the United States wondering if the 2014 decision to include them can be overturned. — The Guardian
Author: Matthew Westphal
Sophie Blackall’s ‘Hello, Lighthouse’ Wins Caldecott Medal; Meg Medina’s ‘Merci Suarez Changes Gears’ Takes Newbery Medal
This is the second Caldecott win in the span of four years for Blackall, whose Finding Winnie took the prize in 2016. Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X was given the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult literature. — The New York Times
Conductor Daniele Rustioni Takes Reins At Ulster Orchestra
The 35-year-old Italian, currently chief conductor of the Orchestra della Toscana in Florence and the Opéra National de Lyon, succeeds Rafael Payaré, who leaves in July for his new job as music director of the San Diego Symphony. — Belfast Telegraph
Helen Sung And Dana Gioia: A Fine Joint Effort
Helen Sung: Sung With Words (Stricker Street Records)
In this poetry and jazz collection Helen Sung further validates her position as one of the most accomplished pianists In the New York jazz community. — Doug Ramsey
Auschwitz & the Art of Advertising
Something was horribly wrong with the full-page ad for an upcoming exhibition about the Auschwitz death camp. It appeared yesterday on Holocaust Remembrance Day. — Jan Herman
Director Michael Greif Reimagines ‘Rent’ For Live TV
Greif staged both the original off-and-then-on-Broadway production (1996-2008) and a 2011-12 Off-Broadway revival, and he’s now directing Rent: Live, airing this Sunday on Fox. Diep Tran talks to director and cast about how they’re reconfiguring the show for a live audience of 1,500 plus a TV audience they hope will be in the millions. — American Theatre
This Really Was An Evil Plot By The Patriarchy: Art Dealers Erased Female Old Masters And Sold Their Paintings As Works By Men
Jordana Pomeroy, director of the Frost Art Museum in Miami and a specialist in the history of women artists, says that some dealers went so far as to paint over a female artist’s signature and replace it with that of a male one “so that you can ask more money for a Frans Hals than you could for a Judith Leyster. And this kind of thing went on for many, many years.” — The Art Newspaper (podcast)
Jonas Mekas’s Final Interview: ‘The Best Commercial Cinema Today Is Action Cinema’
“The plots are invented on the spot. Not like Hitchcock, where every scene that follows is connected with the final scene. In the action movie, it is more like the style of The Arabian Nights.” (Mekas’s favorite recent film? Lady Bird. “It is the only one that deals with real life and succeeds.”) — The Guardian
How The MAGA Teen Video Crystallizes America’s Culture Wars, Despite Meaning (In The End) Almost Nothing In Itself
“This is just the latest instance of a phenomenon you could call ‘event politics’ — that familiar flurry of knee-jerk responses sparked by a single image or clip that a little too perfectly illustrates one side’s worldview.” Lili Loofbourow looks at what event politics signifies (“a response to uncertainty”) and why it spreads so fast (“we’re in a moment when so much is truly bananas — the president can’t spell hamburgers and was investigated by the FBI for being a possible Russian agent, to pick two examples at random — that reassuring framings are welcome.”) — Slate
Andy de Groat, Experimental Choreographer Of 1970s And ’80s, Dead At 71
“Mr. de Groat was a significant presence on the New York downtown dance scene and in Paris in the 1970s and ’80s. Introduced to audiences through his work with [Robert] Wilson, he later formed his own company and built a distinctive choreographic identity through his use of spinning, a technique he began to develop for Mr. Wilson’s work.” — The New York Times