Mystery novelists have to write a lot of deaths. Which is their fave? Depends on the author, of course Ruth Ware: “Set on a cruise ship, it’s one of the most coldblooded crimes I’ve ever devised — a murder committed in international waters using a method designed to leave detectives wondering not just whodunit but did it happen at all? It’s a plan predicated on a single driving force: a desire to kill, and get away without even a stain of suspicion.” – The New York Times
Author: ArtsJournal2
Shakespeare In Canada, Set In India
It’s the first time a Bard on the Beach production has been set in India – and that’s a boon for Sarena Parmar, the woman playing Helena, who grew up one of very, very few kids of color in Kelowna, B.C. But the country has changed, she says. “Bard on the Beach has been making a push for diversity, but even so, this is the first time it’s had such a large South Asian cast. ‘We’re getting so many more South Asians coming to see the show and suddenly they can see themselves in the story in a way that maybe they couldn’t before,’ [Parmar] said.” – CBC
Hugh Southern, NEA Chair During The Culture Wars And Co-Creator Of The TKTS Booth, Has Died At 87
Before running the NEA and, briefly, the Metropolitan Opera, Southern was the first executive director of the Theatre Development Fund. Though Broadway producers resisted the discount TKTS booth at first, they came to see its value later: “In the fiscal year that ended June 30, in which a record 14.7 million people saw Broadway shows, the TKTS booth at all three locations sold more than 1.1 million same-day discounted tickets, about 8 percent of all tickets sold.” – The New York Times
How Three Women Revolutionized The Ways We Think About Sex And Culture
Zora Neale Hurston, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead – all influenced by their mentor, Franz Boas – changed the way we think about human relationships. “The anthropologists had a revolutionary new idea, which they called ‘cultural relativity.’ The phrase is a bit misleading, because it implies there is no truth to be found, but Boas and his students didn’t think that. Instead, they argued that all societies face the same basic problems—love and death, work and children, hierarchy and community—but that different societies could find different, and equally valuable, ways of solving them.” (And Mead, especially, had a lot of sex along the way.) – The Atlantic
A Chinese American Teenage Dancer Says ‘Haters Will Always Be There Hating’
But the 16-year-old says she wants to focus on what she’s passionate about – and she wants ballet to change, “to be a welcoming place for everyone and step away from traditions that can be harmful to people who might look different.” – The Oregonian
Britons Are Not Happy With Unstaffed, Self-Service Scanner Libraries
In some locations, local councils – whose library budgets have been slashed for years by the conservative government – are paying for security guards instead of library staff. “‘It’s a folly … it is dishonest to represent this as a library service when taxpayers have paid for a quality service with a librarian,’ said Nick Poole, chief executive of the UK Library Association.” – The Observer (UK)
Hong Kong Actor Simon Yam Was Stabbed On Stage In China
Yam, who was in the city of Zhongshan, was attacked during an appearance by a man who rushed him and slashed the actor’s stomach and hand. Yam had surgery for what his management team says are “minor wounds.” – South China Morning Post
Let’s Talk About Epicurus, And What He Means For Modern Life
Sure, people use the word “epicurean,” but do they know what the pursuit of happiness really means, or where it came from? In our age of deep anxiety about politics and the planet itself, it’s a good time to find out more about the original philosopher. – Aeon
The Deep Literary Allure Of Outer Space
Poet Gale Marie Thompson: “I think it’s the job of a writer (or poet!) to come up against the ineffable, time and time again. We compulsively work to make meaning out of something that can never completely have meaning, to put words to things that can’t be verbalized. Space is full of things that we know exist, some of which we can see from far away, but we can’t touch them or actually be in their presence.” – LitHub
The Loudness Of Bossa Nova’s King Of Quiet [AUDIO]
Bossa nova had a golden age, ushered in by its creator, João Gilberto – and “the reign of bossa nova — as it was originally intended — was brief. It was an engagement with and a rejoinder to the samba that preceded it, and by the late 1960s, the Tropicalia movement had captured the center of Brazil’s creative imagination. But bossa nova has had a long and not always substantive afterlife; it has become the stuff of car commercials, beach bars and other places a dash of cosmopolitanism is needed.” – The New York Times