It’s not easy out here for a novelist. “Good political satire should be imbued with the spirit of speaking truth to power. But what does that concept mean when the powerful are impervious to truth telling?” – Washington Post
Author: ArtsJournal2
How The Church Of England Bought Into Beyonce’s All The Single Ladies And Justin Timberlake’s Sexyback
Wait a second, those royalties are going to whom? Well: “The church is one of hundreds of investors in a company called Hipgnosis, which, for the past three years, has been hungrily snapping up the rights to thousands of hit songs.” – BBC
Ruth Kluger, Author Of A Haunting Holocaust Memoir, 88
Kluger’s Still Alive redefined the genre. Her work “spared no one with its blunt and haunting narrative — not her cultured neighbors who stopped suppressing their latent anti-Semitism when Germany annexed Austria; not her adult relatives who she believed should have foreseen the ‘final solution’ for European Jews and fled the continent with their families; not her liberators who swiftly wearied of hearing about the Holocaust; not even her tormented self.” – The New York Times
Turner Winner Rachel Whiteread Urges Creative Young People Not To Give Up
The artist says that she’s been gaining comfort from doodling in her journal, not to mention new drawings and sculpture. But, in opposition to the offensive retraining advertisements the British government tried to put out a couple of weeks ago, she says that for young artists, “It is important they don’t give up on their dreams, and they follow through with what they have trained for.” – The Observer (UK)
The Great British Baking Show Still Somehow Makes Us Feel Good About Humanity
After all of these seasons, a switch from the BBC, the loss of the great Mary Berry (not to mention presenters Mel and Sue), and a barrage of other baking shows, how does the Great British Baking Show still do it? “To watch The Great British Baking Show is to believe that the average guy and gal can do remarkable things, that good nature is compatible with excellence, that high achievement will be recognized, that honest feedback can lead to improvement, that there are things to life beyond work. It is to believe that spectacular creativity can actually be scrumptious.” – The Atlantic
The Serious, Mysterious Autograph Collector
A jeweler started collecting autographs when he was a teenager. Eight presidents, many famous writers, Thomas Edison, and Sarah Bernhardt later, Lafayette Cornwell’s book was full – and a mystery. “How Cornwell organized the signatures in the book is as unclear as how he obtained so many.” – The New York Times
Hamilton Music Arranger Alex Lacamoire Breaks Down His Process
Music arranging is a science, and art, and an ability to stand back and respect the composer when the composer wants something different. Or: “Those are arrangement decisions, looking at how the song feels, looking at what key it’s in and looking at the what we call the routine of the song, you know, is it three courses, is it two courses? Do you end the song with a big bang for applause, or do you melt away and disintegrate a little bit to a quiet whisper? Those kinds of decisions are what arranging truly is.” – Slate
The Real-Life, Self-Educated British Fossil Hunter Behind A New Movie
Mary Anning risked her life in fossil hunts, never gaining the recognition nor certainly the rewards that rich men in Britain won. She “was three things you didn’t want to be in 19th-century Britain – she was female, working class and poor.” – BBC
The Playwright Who Is So Ready For Her Trump/Comey Play To Be Irrelevant
Anne Washburn thought Shipwreck, which she wrote in 2017, wouldn’t be relevant for long. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case; the themes of the Trump administration have been shockingly consistent. But she’s ready never to have to think about the play again. “If Trump is not president in January, I think we won’t want to think about him again for a long time.” – The New York Times
A French Teacher Who Showed His Class Cartoons Of The Prophet Mohammed Was Beheaded
The history teacher’s lesson “was related to the ongoing trial over the 2015 attack at the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which came under fire for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Islamist extremists killed 12 people, and 14 defendants stand accused of giving the gunmen logistical support.” Protests in support of the teacher erupted across France over the weekend. – NPR