Movies and TV shows are, of course, great ways to get wide swaths of people interested in history. But “as popular culture tries more and more to address the international tragedy that is the slave trade, it is still far from accurately portraying that history onscreen — especially when it comes to Canada.” – CBC
Author: ArtsJournal2
Yes, The Hula Hooping Girl Is A Banksy
The artist admitted it on social media. In Nottingham, not everyone gets it … or cares. “Within hours the council had rushed to protect the piece by placing clear plastic sheeting over it. Vandals have spray-painted over the plastic two or three times already.” – The Guardian (UK)
Your Indie Bookstore Wants You To Revive It, Not Help Murder It, OK?
Before the pandemic, indie bookstores were reviving to the tune of hundreds more per year. Now they’re closing, about one per week, and as a certain online behemoth pushed a certain discount deal, locals are sharpening their stilettos – and asking for help. – The New York Times
Henry Golding On The Classic Actor Narrative Of Playing A Role And Finding Yourself
The actor who found fame in 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians talks about making indie movies before he hit it big. “It was magical as an actor to be able to sit in a character’s feelings and confusion and history. I’ve been trying to find great material to work from like this, much more independent styles of movie making.” – The New York Times
A Book Finds A New Audience In The Last Place On Earth It Hadn’t Gone Before
John Hersey’s Hiroshima, first a 30,000-word article in The New Yorker, became a book almost immediately, and has sold millions of copies in many different languages since. But “one of the few places Hiroshima did not appear in the year after its initial publication was Russia. That changed this past August.” – The New York Times
The Endless Hours Of Architecture Are Bad Enough, And Now There’s Constant Surveillance
From architecture firms that demand their employees log into webcams at 8:30 am and not log off until 10 pm to firms that fired pregnant workers and those who didn’t want to be exploited, architecture is starting to face a reckoning. “The pandemic has finally pushed it into the kind of extreme, exploitative territory where we must all stand up together and say enough is enough.” – The Guardian (UK)
How Is Hollywood Still Getting Paris So Very, Very Wrong?
It’s as if writers from the U.S. can’t see the city as anything but a backdrop for old clichés, narratives long grown stale. “Many of the misconceptions about the city swirling around in the US imagination are not really misconceptions at all – it’s just they are 100 years out of date.” – BBC
In Paris, Fashion Mavens Wonder If Their Art Can Provide Hope In A Dark Time
Another lockdown may be looming as the virus spikes in Paris again, but Fashion Week still had about 20 in-person runway events. Designer Andrew Gn: “We have to project ourselves towards better times. We, designers, are the core and the driving force of the whole fashion ecosystem. The weavers, printers, embroiderers, ateliers, all depend on our creative work. We must keep on.” – NPR
Hard To Believe, But Roddy Doyle Wrote A First Book That He Describes As ‘Shite’
The author of The Commitments misses Dublin pubs, says Ireland is nicer now – he doesn’t miss being denounced from the pulpit, for instance – and worries about what will happen to his writing, usually set in the present moment, if the present moment keeps changing rapidly due to the virus. – Irish Times
Soviet Spies Targeted George Orwell And His Wife As They Fought In The Spanish Civil War
Depressingly, while fighting Franco – or not being organized enough to fight Franco – “George Orwell, whose book Homage to Catalonia became a celebrated account of fighting in the civil war, and his wife Eileen were spied on in Barcelona at the time of a vicious internal conflict on the Republican side of the war in May 1937.” – The Observer (UK)