What’s the issue when libraries are more used than ever, and for more reasons than ever? Uh, they’re seriously underfunded. “Libraries are being disparaged and neglected at precisely the moment when they are most valued and necessary. Why the disconnect? In part it’s because the founding principle of the public library — that all people deserve free, open access to our shared culture and heritage — is out of sync with the market logic that dominates our world. But it’s also because so few influential people understand the expansive role that libraries play in modern communities.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Who Is Ana Mendieta Now?
Writer Achy Obejas has some thoughts: “Ana Mendieta is the president of Coca-Cola and a double-agent. She invented the sitcom, the telephone, birthed Amazon, came over with 14,000 kids and got deported with 2,021 others, mostly murderers. Ana Mendieta fears that if she weren’t an artist, she’d be devoted to a life of crime.”
It’s Time For The Women Of Wakanda To Take Center Stage
Andrea Hairston argues that those who ignore the women of Wakanda are making a big mistake – and misreading the movie entirely. The details: “The Women of Wakanda perform like African women before them: the Benin Queen Mothers; the Dahomey Ahosi women warriors, advisors, and reign-mates to the king; Yoruba Iyalojas — queens of the market in Nigeria; the Sande Women’s Societies of Central West Africa; the dike nwami — Igbo warrior women; Zulu Isangoma — healer women of South Africa; and the mikiri, ad hoc political institutions of Igbo women.”
One Of Disneyland’s Original Designers Says The Park Is ‘Gone’
Rolly Crump has a reputation as one of the park’s consistent critics – but for good reason. For deacades, the designer “has offered blunt assessments of Disney designs as well as his former peers — a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is artist who is offended at the suggestion that others would be offended by his critiques. At the same time, Crump is fiercely possessive of Disneyland’s ideals and believes strongly in the theme park as a place of living art.” (Don’t miss the detail about the poster he had on his Disney door that said “Smoke marijuana.”)
Some People Loathe The Dance Sequence In ‘Oklahoma,’ But It’s Actually Central To The Musical’s Meaning
Here’s the thing, haters: “Far more than a frothy break in the action, de Mille’s original choreography revolutionized musical theater. She had stage and film in her blood: Her father was a playwright, and Cecil B. de Mille was her uncle. That made her a natural to create dances for Oklahoma!, but de Mille did more than build on the western theme: Her ballet for the dream sequence advanced the narrative in ways singing and talking couldn’t.”
Schools Are Mining Students’ Social Media Posts For Information About Them
Companies that sell the social media mining software claim they’re trying to help prevent another Parkland – but a superintendent using the software gets alerts when family members post things about a school’s dress code. Useful or creepy, or both?
No, Your Costco Card Can’t Be Used To Check Out Library Books (Yet)
And also, the circulation desk generally doesn’t have fake moustaches to check out. Or chalk. “How can you guys not have sidewalk chalk? This is the worst library!”
Asia Argento, One Of The Leaders Of The MeToo Movement, Paid A Settlement To Her Own Accuser
“In the months that followed her revelations about Mr. Weinstein last October, Ms. Argento quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser: Jimmy Bennett, a young actor and rock musician who said she had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room years earlier, when he was only two months past his 17th birthday. She was 37. The age of consent in California is 18.”
Asian Americans And Asians Say ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Doesn’t Represent Everyone
And, says one columnist, that’s just fine: “We haven’t seen this many Asians with those many accents (Malaysian, American, Singaporean, British, Australian) being that many things ever before — sexy, funny and outrageous — and not doing martial arts. Or escaping war. Or being generally tragic.”
John Calder, An Independent British Publisher Who Fought Censorship, Has Died At 91
Calder published Eugène Ionesco, Marguerite Duras, Heinrich Böll, Samuel Beckett and nearly 20 other Nobel Prize winners. And he was against censorship: “In 1963, a few years after Penguin Books was acquitted of obscenity for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover in Britain, Mr. Calder acquired the rights to [Henry] Miller’s Tropic of Cancer — effectively daring the authorities to prosecute him under the British Obscene Publications Act of 1959.”