The autumn film series at Derby Cathedral in the English Midlands includes The Wicker Man (which features female nudity and a pagan sacrifice), Don’t Look Now (sex and seances), and The Life of Brian (the Gospels get the Monty Python treatment). Says one church warden from the diocese, “I just think it isn’t appropriate to show these films in a place of worship that is consecrated and hallowed.” Responds the Cathedral’s dean, “The first thing we’re trying to do is open the cathedral to new people. It doesn’t just belong to the people who go to church; it certainly doesn’t belong to me.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Lindsay Kemp, 80, Groundbreaking Dancer-Choreographer-Mime-Performance Artist
While he’s most famous for having taught the singers Kate Bush and David Bowie (He helped invent and coached Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona), Kemp founded his own contemporary dance company in the 1960s and created flamboyant, pioneering stage productions that combined – and ignored any boundaries between – dance, mime, musical and spoken-word theatre.
Met’s ‘Heavenly Bodies’ Exhibition Passes Million-Visitor Mark
On Thursday, August 23, after just 3½ months, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” received its one millionth visitor. The show is now the most popular in the history of the Met’s Costume Institute and the third most-visited the entire museum has ever presented. (And it still has six weeks left to run.)
Wildfire Smoke Has Cost Oregon Shakespeare Festival $2 Million
“Bill Rauch, the festival’s artistic director, said in an interview that the financial losses are a result of over 20 performances of the three outdoor main-stage shows having been either canceled or moved to a smaller indoor theater, which has diminished ticket revenue. Reduced attendance has also contributed. In recent years, the festival has reported around $20 million in ticket sales.”
Two Of London’s Top Orchestras Get New Summer Opera Gig
The Philharmonia Orchestra and the period-instrument English Concert have inked five-year partnership agreements, beginning in 2020, with Garsington Opera in Buckinghamshire. The Philharmonia will perform for two to three productions, with the English Concert playing for one or two; they will replace the current pickup group in the pit.
Here’s A Canvas Artists Should Use More Often: Tennis Courts
As part of a US Open-50th-anniversary celebration, the USTA commissioned artists to paint courts in Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and Miami. It was a challenge for the artists to get used to the medium, but the results are impressive. (They should probably have avoided white, though.)
David Simon On Why He Doesn’t Make TV For The Networks
“Frankly, I’ve never been good at writing to the common denominator. I’m still not. I haven’t done one show that was a huge ratings hit. And at this point, I’ve done about 130 hours of television. … As long as you had to go for the mass audience, you couldn’t have stories that were dark, that vexed people, that had lead characters who were morally inconsistent, unlucky, or tragic. You couldn’t write tragedies that any self-respecting Greek might recognize.”
‘Irony Poisoning’ – Yes, It’s A Thing, And We Should Take It Seriously
“Yes, at the moment the concept is seen as little more than another bit of self-referential young person slang, used only in the deepest recesses of the web. … But irony poisoning should be entered, we think, into the pantheon of social science concepts that are used to rigorously measure, study and perhaps one day understand how social media platforms can rewire your brain and alter society.” Max Fisher and Amanda Taub explore the concept and how it works.
In Search Of A More Inclusive Plural Form Of Address Than ‘You Guys’
“There are, of course, plenty of people — including many women — who have no problem being addressed as ‘guys,’ think the word has evolved to be entirely gender-neutral, and don’t see a reason to change their usage. But others aren’t so sure. … In the course of reporting this story, I heard from teachers who wanted a better way to get students’ attention, an ice-cream scooper who wanted a better way to greet customers, and a debate coach who specifically encourages his students to use ‘y’all.’ These are representatives of a broad coalition of people who have contemplated, and often gone through with, excising ‘guys’ from their vocabularies.”
Disney Will Give Up Tax Breaks To Avoid Paying Disneyland Workers A Living Wage
“The Walt Disney Company came under heavy fire on Thursday for a decision to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks for its southern California theme parks, a move critics are characterizing as an extraordinary last-ditch effort to avoid paying a living wage to thousands of workers.”