“[She] was the youngest recruit and last survivor of the original Lindy Hoppers, the all-black Herbert White troupe that broke in at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom and popularized the Lindy Hop in Broadway shows, on tours of Europe and Latin America, and in Hollywood films.” – The New York Times
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In The Age Of Brexit, There’s A Whole New Crop Of Video Games About Britain
“They come in all shapes and sizes, from Nintendo’s Pokémon Sword and Shield, which riffs on the architecture of Oxbridge and London, to PanicBarn’s anti-Brexit polemic Not Tonight. Most began development long before the EU referendum, but they are useful explorations of national identity at a time when what Britain stands for is hotly contested.” – The Guardian
Dr. Ruth At 90: How Little Karola Siegel Escaped The Holocaust And Became The Grandma Goddess Of The Sexual Revolution
“For a woman who, on arriving in New York, had worked as a housekeeper for $1 a day — and a woman who had taught herself English with the help of romance novels (‘because I always wanted to read to the end to know what happened’) — it [has been] a remarkable reversal. But it was also a logical one: There was a market for treatments of sex that prioritized truth over timidity. And there was, in an even broader sense, a need for those treatments.” – The Atlantic
Audio-Only Porn Becomes A Business (How Did This Not Happen Before Now?)
“These recordings — half-erotica, half-radio play — have long flourished on Reddit communities like GoneWildAudio or PillowTalkAudio. Now, entrepreneurs bet it can go mainstream — and make money. … Anyone looking for the classic tropes — for example, a pizza delivery boy’s romp with a bored housewife, or any sex that starts with ‘I’m sure we can figure out some form of payment’ — should look elsewhere.” – The Daily Beast
Google’s New AI App Generates Poetry
“The idea behind the app” — PoemPortraits — “which was jointly conceived by artist and stage designer Es Devlin and the creative technologist Ross Goodwin, is for users to ‘donate’ a single word to an ongoing, collective poem. The word you enter will be integrated in a randomly, or rather, algorithmically-produced couplet based on a scanning of more than 20 million words of 19th-century poetry.” – Literary Hub
Ballyhooed Space Art By MacArthur Genius ‘Fails To Deploy’
Orbital Reflector, sculptor Trevor Paglen’s 100-foot-long, titanium oxide-coated, $1.5 million diamond-shaped Mylar balloon, was launched into orbit in December and was meant to be visible from the Earth’s surface. But the balloon never inflated and has lost contact with the satellite system that could command it to do so. Paglen blames the January government shutdown. – The Art Newspaper
The Most Prolific Producer Of New Plays In The Entire UK Is A Lunchtime Series In Glasgow
Since 2004, Òran Mór in Scotland’s largest city has been presenting A Play, a Pie and a Pint, which is exactly what it says: a meat pie and a pint of ale for lunch, along with an hour-long play, all for just £12.50. A new script is produced each week for 35 weeks a year (plus holiday pantos), and the series is about to present its 500th play. Audiences just (ahem) eat it up. – The Guardian
You Have One More Year To Pull In A Bigger Audience, Scottish City Government Tells Arts Centre
The municipal council of Perth and Kinross, alarmed by poor attendance and financial performance at the Perth Theatre and Perth Concert Hall, warned the nonprofit which operates the twin venues that it has a year to work a turnaround. – The Stage
This Opera Company Posted A Profit Of $5.6 Million (!) For 2018
Mind you, the operating surplus was only just over $342,000 (in local dollars), but even that isn’t bad for such a money-losing art form. But several million dollars in bequests came in last year, sending the consolidated profit figure soaring. Which company? Opera Australia. – Limelight (Australia)
Cancel Culture, Miss Saigon, And Butterfly
Cancel culture is not the same as the rising desire to engage with art’s social implications. But both phenomena are indications of a country that is fundamentally shifting the way it engages with entertainment. As such, the titles in Houston have been criticized for inaccurate and stereotypical portrayals of Asians. Since its premiere in 2017, theater critics have taken issue with the representation of women and Vietnamese people in “Miss Saigon.” And the local production of “Madama Butterfly” was itself a piece of self-commentary. – Houston Chronicle