Classical Ballet Is Rooted In One Russian’s Sexist Assumptions, But Is That A Problem?

Marius Petipa’s 19th century choreography for Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and many more classical ballets is focused on how a ballerina becomes a sculpture in male hands. “The woman goes on point; the man does the partnering. The positions may not be reversed. What’s going on here? Is he serving her or controlling her? He subordinates himself to making her all the more spectacular, but which one is in charge? We can say that such behavior glorifies women — or that it falsifies them.” – The New York Times

A Literary Cry Of Grief For The Ending Of ‘Tin House’

Sure, the site, and its books and workshops, will continue, but losing the literary magazine is a real blow. Karen Russell: “Tin House was so inviting, so beautiful and so playful. … You sort of felt like readers all are welcome here, and these are your people. These are the lovers of language, the super weirdos, the poets and the wizards that you want to be with.” – NPR

A Comics Creator Says The Genre Is (Finally) Opening Up To Everyone

Creator and editor Tameka Stotts won an Eisner Award for her anthology Elements: Fire — A Comic Anthology by Creators of Color, and she’s making plans for a lot more. “We’re the main characters, we’re not the token characters, and we’re taking our adventures on a completely different level where our narration is no longer whitewashed and it’s no longer controlled by a medium that would like to see us palatable for a national audience.” – NPR

Alice Walker Defends Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theorist As ‘Brave’

The writer she praised in an interview that caused protests both against her and against The New York Times for running the interview (or not better editing it) is David Icke, who, among other things, “has posited that a cabal of a child-sacrificing, bloodthirsty lizard people, many of whom are Jewish, are secretly running the world.” – The New York Times

‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Isn’t Perfect, But It Made A Perfect Decision About The Idea Of Having It All

Sometimes, it’s not possible to be devoted to art and to have love and a family. [Spoiler alert for the end of Season 2 ahead.] “‘I can’t go back to Jell-O molds,’ Midge tells her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Joel. ‘There won’t be three [kids] before 30 for me. I just made a choice. I am gonna be all alone for the rest of my life.'” – The Atlantic