Seelan Palay’s Singapore isn’t the overwhelmingly rich, lush fantasy of 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians. Instead, it’s a place where protest, including performance art protest, is limited to one place, Speaker’s Corner. Step out of there? Hm. Palay: “I took a few of the objects used in the performance: the book, mirror, drawings, and banner that I used at Speakers’ Corner. I showed them to the arresting officer and asked him what meaning he derived from the objects. He admitted that he didn’t understand what they were trying to say.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
Author: ArtsJournal2
The Year Of The Little Indies That Could
Oh, are movies entirely dominated by Disney and Netflix? These 2018 independent movies beg to differ. – Slate
Should We Be Able To Sue Facebook (And Other Companies) For Violating Our Privacy?
Yes, but they sure are trying hard to make it impossible. “Huge privacy violations have become commonplace. Without a private right of action, consumers have little practical ability to seek relief in cases where their data was mishandled or misused. This eliminates a powerful enforcement stick that can be used to dissuade companies from violating the law.” – The New York Times
A Man Walked Into A Bookstore
But he was in his 40s, and so it wasn’t as filled with possibility and joy as it might have been when he was in his 20s. “The bookstore is a liminal space. Even if like me you don’t have the cash to buy a box of new titles and reinvent yourself week to week, you have the moment of the choosing and everything it tugs upon.” – LitHub
America, We Need To Talk About ‘Dixie’
Though the song didn’t have its origins in the actual Confederacy, it became an anthem of that attempt to break away from the United States. But eventually, long after the Civil War ended with the Union winning and slavery coming to a legal end, “Dixie” became a marching band staple … and that got weird. – NPR
Wait, *What* Happened At The Golden Globes?
Whoa. (Here’s the full list, including some rather surprising winners.) – Variety
Many Bookstores Have Coffee Shops, But This Is A Bookstore With A Craft-Beer Bar
Heck yeah, books and beer. Or really, books and a brewpub. How is this not in every city in the U.S. already? – The New York Times
Everything About The 2019 Golden Globes
Here’s a collection of stories and a future live-blog for the ceremony, which starts at 8 Eastern tonight. – Los Angeles Times
One Of Hollywood’s Early, Prolific (Woman) Directors Gets Two Movies Restored
A century ago, Lois Weber ruled Hollywood, directing 138 films and being counted as one of the three finest minds in the industry, alongside DeMille and Griffith. Her biographer: “She was a very vocal advocate for cinema’s ability to portray complex social issues in a popular narrative form. … She considered cinema what she called ‘a voiceless language.’ And by that I think she meant cinema had an ability to convey ideas to anybody, regardless of their educational level, regardless of their command of English, right, at a period when there were many immigrants to the U.S. who did not speak English as a first language.” – NPR
A Choreographer Creates An Homage To Fluidity, Biculturalism, And A Classic Third-Wave Feminist Book
That’s right, choreographer Miguel Gutierrez titled his new dance after the classic anthology This Bridge Called My Back – but with the word “ass” instead of back in his title. “‘What underlies ‘This Bridge,’ Mr. Gutierrez said, is a consideration of something that has long piqued him: ‘the perception that artists of color are always doing content work’ — dealing with identity politics — ‘and white artists are only doing form and line.'” – The New York Times