Andrea Clearfield added Nepali and Tibetan bells, conch shells, and singing bowls to the Western orchestra for Mila, Great Sorcerer, but even those were sounds she already knew. So she got an instrument maker to create seven entirely new instruments, from, as David Patrick Stearns puts it, “an ethereal tricked-out music box to a drone that suggests something primeval welling up from the center of the Earth.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Author: Matthew Westphal
Will Shortz In Hot Water For Ethnic Slur That Made It Into New York Times Crossword
“The clue for 2 down in the New York Times‘ first crossword puzzle of the new year was nothing unusual: ‘Pitch to the head, informally.’ But the answer stopped many puzzlers in their tracks. … It was a minor dust-up, all things considered, but it says something about the state of crossword puzzles in 2019.” — Slate
Nat Geo Shelves Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Show After Sexual Misconduct Accusations
“National Geographic Channel has pulled its long-running Neil deGrasse Tyson chat show StarTalk off the air, at least for now, following allegations of sexual misconduct against the famed astrophysicist. StarTalk will remain on hiatus as a Fox Networks Group investigation into the multiple claims continues.” — Variety
Anne Midgette Reviews The IRS’s On-Hold Music
“Background music has to walk a tricky line. We want something inoffensive yet meaningful, and you’d better believe that we — the consumer masses — will barrage customer service with complaints if the balance tips too far in one or the other direction.” — The Washington Post
Court Throws Out Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Against Artforum And Its Ex-Publisher
“New York’s Supreme Court has dismissed a case against [the magazine and its] former publisher, Knight Landesman, whom curator and art fair director Amanda Schmitt claimed had sexually harassed her via ‘unwelcome physical contact and repulsive written and oral demands for intimacy’ while she was an employee at the magazine.” (Landesman resigned the day the suit was made public.) — ARTnews
Movie Theatre In Germany Offers Nationalists Free Tickets To ‘Schindler’s List’, Nationalists Act All Insulted
The Cinexx theater in the town of Hachenburg made the offer to members of the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland for a screening on Jan. 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Cinexx says it wasn’t trolling and wants to “initiate discussion,” but AfD folks called the scheme a “tasteless instrumentalization” and a “senseless provocation.” — The New York Times
Louvre Had Record-Breaking 10.2M Visitors In 2018, Thanks To Delacroix And Beyoncé
The figures show a bounce-back for the museum after several years of dips in attendance attributed to falling tourism in Paris following the 2015-16 terrorist attacks. Juicing the numbers were the wildly successful Delacroix retrospective and (of course) the hit Beyoncé/Jay-Z video “Apeshit.” — The Guardian
Beset By Orbán’s Right-Wing Government, Budapest’s Theatres Hang On
Howard Shalwitz, longtime artistic director of the DC company Woolly Mammoth, writes about his recent visit to the Hungarian capital, reporting that, despite constant political pressure on funding and programming, “there’s still plenty of social and political kick on Budapest’s stages.” — HowlRound
#MeToo Sweeps Argentina After Young Actress Accuses Star Actor Of Rape
Last month, Thelma Fardin posted a video to Instagram in which she tearfully recounted how Juan Darthés allegedly raped her while they were touring Nicaragua for a telenovela. She was 16; he was 45. Fardin’s million followers sent the video viral, with the hashtag #Miracomonosponemos (roughly, “#LookWhatYouveDoneToUs”), and the effect has been as big as that of the Harvey Weinstein accusations in the US. — Public Radio International
In Brazil, Female Readers Band Together To Support Female Writers (And They’re All Going To Need Each Other Now)
Book clubs with names such as “Read Women” have been growing in Brazilian cities, pushing for including more work by women authors in publishers’ lists, bookstores’ inventory, and even school curricula. Now those writers and their supporters worry about whether the new president, Jair Bolsonaro, and his far-right followers will undo the progress of recent years. — Public Radio International