The headline: “Was this decade the beginning of the end of the great male white writer?” (#NotAllGreatMaleWhiteWriters, of course.) “Though few publications have reached parity, the overall trend has been a shift in that direction. Even the dismal New York Review of Books stats (27.1% women in 2018) have shown an almost twofold improvement over 2010 (16.2%).” Well, uh, wow? Let the 2020s double that kind of not really twofold improvement, at least, maybe. – HuffPost
Author: ArtsJournal2
Hallmark Christmas Movies Are Big Business In British Columbia
Basically, it’s always Christmas in July in British Columbia, complete with fake snow, fake characters, fake love stories, fake Christmas and … er … yes, the whole schlockfest (BELOVED schlockfest, we note) that is the Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movie production factory. “Picking out the locations has become a favourite pastime for locals. [One said,] ‘You get to see the locations on the movie and know exactly where that was and have attachment to it now, you feel like you were part of the movie in a way, which is pretty awesome.'” – CBC
The Creator Of A Joyful Game About Golden Poop Says Yes, We Can Be Happy
Keita Takahashi, an artist and an “unconventional” game developer, is beloved for his game “Katamari Decency,” and now he’s got a new game out – ostensibly about golden poop. The game “was inspired by watching his two younger children play. He wanted to create something that presented a more hopeful view of the world.” – Los Angeles Times
Is Anyone Happy Anymore?
Indeed: “The catastrophe of climate neglect, the toxic politics, the tangible sense of so many things worsening in your own lifetime, along with a sense of your obscure or outright complicity, all combined to make the idea of any possible happiness seem at best childish, at worse willfully blind.” – The New York Times
Ithaca College Responds To A ‘Racially Charged’ Incident In A Theatre Class
Students responded not only to one incident, in which the lecturer for the class was removed, but many other experiences at the college: “Some of the quotes and scenarios on the board read: ‘White male faculty member to a black female student: ‘Act more sassy,’’ ‘Holding a meeting about microaggressions where a student of color was told to stop being mean to white people,’ ‘Male director explaining to a female student what happens emotionally to a woman when she is assaulted’ and ‘Female-identifying students told to lower the pitch of their natural voices in production to ‘sound stronger.’'” – The Ithacan
Who’s Up And Who’s Down In Oscar Predictions?
Men are wimping out of seeing Little Women‘s award showings, which is tanking its chances; despite the awfulness of Cats, Ian McKellen’s chances are up; and more. – Vulture
The Guardian’s Top Classical Albums Of 2019
This is the calm before the storm of 2020 – a year sure to see a deluge of Beethoven for his 250th birthday. Opera was neglected shamefully, while Clara Schumann, Offenbach, and Berlioz gained some powerful new recordings. – The Guardian (UK)
Phase 2, An Innovator Of Aerosol Art, Has Died At 64
“In the South Bronx at the dawn of the 1970s, all the creative components that would coalesce into what became widely known as hip-hop were beginning to take shape. At the center of them all was Phase 2, an intuitive, disruptive talent who first made his mark as a writer of graffiti — although he hated the term.” – The New York Times
New Movies, Old Formats
The popularity of older formats is growing, including black and white and things like Canción sin nombre‘s 4:3 format. – Los Angeles Times
Jeanette Winterson Is Worried About AI
The author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and 10 other novels, along with much nonfiction and several children’s books as well, Winterson says, “People always say ‘let’s get the technology out there and lots of people will benefit in time.’ Well, no, because by that point, the technology will change and the rich will control it completely. The world is moving too fast for the trickle-down effect.” – The Guardian (UK)