Of course there’s the Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog (Orange),” but as a museum of the Dachshund opens in Bavaria and the American Kennel Club prepares to move its AKC Museum of the Dog from St. Louis to New York (there’s another, more plainly named Museum of the Dog in Massachusetts, by the way), is there enough dog art to fill these spaces? (And what’s up with cats?)
Author: ArtsJournal2
Can White Playwrights’ Plays About Race Help Combat Racism, Or Are They Just One More Example Of It?
One theatre writer (who’s white) says that it’s disingenuous to have all-white casts, white directors, and white designers for plays that supposedly examine white privilege.
The United States Lies To And Tries To Destroy Its Writers
But writers, says novelist and essayist Alexander Chee, must write to fight back. “If you are reading this, and you’re a writer, and you, like me, are gripped with despair, when you think you might stop: Speak to your dead. Write for your dead. Tell them a story. What are you doing with this life? Let them hold you accountable. Let them make you bolder or more modest or louder or more loving.”
The Many Times Still-Living Celebrities Got To Read Their Own Obits (Even Before Twitter)
There are slip-ups, and then there’s the CNN Incident. “Many of the obits were filled in with text from Britain’s Queen Mother, who had died the year before, including a description of Dick Cheney as ‘the U.K.’s favorite grandmother.’ Castro was listed as ‘lifeguard, athlete, movie star,’ a description lifted from Ronald Reagan’s bio.”
Why Does A Silo Play Such A Significant Role In The Accidental Blockbuster ‘The Quiet Place’?
The writers are from Iowa, of course. One of them says: “We just knew inherently those were dangerous. They were always things that farmers and parents said to stay away from, because you can easily drown in those. Combining that within the world and the context of what ‘A Quiet Place’ was, felt like a natural fit — but obviously, a very, very terrifying fit.”
Sylvia Plath’s Surviving Goods Went Up For Sale, But Who Bought Them?
Wow: “There was poetic justice of a sort in the auction of the poets’ belongings by their daughter, Frieda Hughes, at Bonhams in London in March. Ms. Plath’s lots, which included clothes, jewelry and childhood drawings, outsold Mr. Hughes’s mostly literary remnants (which is to say, books) twice over and then some, earning $551,862.” (Yes, this piece is about money – but also about who Plath was.)
In The Netflix Vs. Cannes Skirmish, Everybody Lost
The Guardian says: “In this brittle standoff, fault lies on both sides. The French anti-streaming measures may be draconian, but resistance to Netflix’s anti-cinema model is quite understandable. … Quite aside from diminished screen size and visual impact, what films gain in universal accessibility, they lose in promotion, public awareness and even prestige, slotted as they are into a vast, fast-moving content menu between Adam Sandler originals and new episodes of Queer Eye.”
Can Young Cuban Dancers Remain Connected To Their Country Even As They Form A New Company With Carlos Acosta?
Acosta, who had a painful separation from his country and family in order to become a star in Europe and the U.S., says “I want to bring them to the world, but also to bring the world to them.”
Numbers Can Be Beautiful, And That Might Affect Whether Security Codes Are Truly Random At All
There’s a reason this might be happening: “More often than not, the passcodes that appear in my Google Authenticator app seem tailored to reduce the cognitive burden of storing them in my working memory, the short-term storage bin our brains use to stash information for a few precious seconds before forgetting it forever.”
What It Feels Like To Get Equal Pay, At Long, Long Last
Thandie Newton, on getting equal pay to the men of HBO’s Westworld for the upcoming Season 3: “It’s unprecedented. It’s — goodness; it shatters so much calcified pain, resentment, frustration. It just shatters it.”