“As a prolific social critic covering topics from AIDS to American interventionism, Susan Sontag seemed almost fated to run afoul of the Bureau. Although her association with the ‘New Left’ of the 1960s first put her on the FBI’s radar, it was her writing in opposition to the Vietnam war that earned her her own investigation and the personal attention of no less than Director J. Edgar Hoover.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Former Village Voice Writers On What It Meant To Work There
“The Voice was a cultural necessity for decades, a springboard for generations of passionate and relentless journalists, critics, and writers … Here, some of the Voice‘s most singular — Gary Indiana, Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman, Vivian Gornick, Melissa Anderson, Robert Christgau, Michael Miller, and Greg Tate — have shared their recollections about what it meant to work at that irreplaceable place.”
The Village Voice, Birthplace Of Rock And Pop Criticism As We Know It
“Much of how we think about contemporary music criticism traces its roots to The Voice … The paper provided crucial early coverage of hip-hop, was dedicated in its coverage of jazz and modern classical, and weighed in on obscure rock and hyper-mainstream pop. On this week’s two-part Popcast, several former Village Voice music editors and music critics, whose tenures date from the paper’s early years up to the last decade, look back.” (podcast)
Toronto’s Luminato Festival Finds Its New Artistic Director Right Down The Hall
Naomi Campbell (a Torontonian not to be confused with the supermodel) has been a staff producer at the festival since 2011 and was appointed deputy artistic director last year. She succeeds Josephine Ridge, who stepped down in July over concerns about Luminato’s business model and rapidly shrinking budget.
What Turned CBS’s Board Against Les Moonves? Secrets And Lies
In late July, after the first allegations of Moonves’s sexual misconduct became public, a solid majority of the board backed him. (One member said in a meeting, “I don’t care if 30 more women come forward and allege this kind of stuff. Les is our leader and it wouldn’t change my opinion of him.”) A month later, they were ready to fire him for cause. James B. Stewart reports on how the turnaround happened.
Gawker Will Rise From The Ashes Under A New Owner
Bryan Goldberg, who plans to relaunch the site early next year, wrote to staff in a memo, “We won’t recreate Gawker exactly as it was, but we will build upon Gawker’s legacy and triumphs — and learn from its missteps.”
73,000-Year-Old Drawing, World’s Oldest, Found In South Africa
The relic — a piece of stone marked with a hashtag-type design in red ochre, discovered in an oceanside cave between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth — is roughly 30,000 years older than the oldest previously-known drawings, which were found in Spain and Indonesia.
China Cuts Off Tour Of Ibsen’s ‘Enemy Of The People’ After It Hits Too Close To Home
A troupe from Berlin’s Schaubühne was giving the first performance of a three-night run at The Egg in Beijing when one scene moved some audience members to shout out critical remarks about the Chinese government. Censors told the performers to remove that scene or have the tour cancelled, and they did; even so, the theater at the tour’s next destination, Nanjing, has suddenly experienced “technical difficulties.”
Russia Cracks Down On Use Of Minority Languages, And Ethnic Minorities Fight Back
Even as the Kremlin pushes hard for the continued use of Russian in the former Soviet republics, it has begun discouraging and even suppressing the official use of native languages in the autonomous republics within the Russian Federation (Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, for example) that are home to Russia’s ethnic minorities. Crucially, Moscow is mandating severe cutbacks in the teaching of local languages in schools and firing language teachers (sometimes en masse). But the Bashkirs, Tatars, and others are resisting, especially online.
London’s WhatsOnStage Launches New Awards To Honor Theatre Workers Most Of Us Forget
To complement its more conventional WhatsOnStage Awards, the publication’s new WhatsOffStage Awards will have categories for best box office, stage door, theatre website, front-of-house staff, and so on.