Merwin “was one of the most highly decorated poets in the nation, and very likely the world. He was the United States poet laureate from 2010 to 2011; won two Pulitzer Prizes, a National Book Award and a spate of other honors; and was lauded for his volumes of prose and translations of poetry from a Babel of languages.” – The New York Times
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Russia Bans A Teen Theatre Production; Police Question Director
The show, called The Pinks and the Blues, “developed by the activist troupe Merak, triggered intense scrutiny from local authorities who saw it as a dangerous and subversive activity promoting ‘hatred against men and non-traditional family relations.'” The teens in the theatre troupe were also questioned by police. – Global Voices
Of Critics, Bullies And Trolls – How Do You Tell Which Is Which?
Famous people who spend a lot of time online become especially defensive; experts point to the explosion of social media for the increase in conflating bullies with critics. After all, bullying has been around forever. Now, there are just more opportunities for anyone to weigh in on any subject they want, and it’s far more likely the intended target will see or hear the criticism. – Washington Post
Netflix Says It Will Make More Interactive Content
The studio judges that its “Bandersnatch” project was a success and it’s exploring extending its experiments in letting viewers have more control of the stories they’re watching. But what kinds of stories should these be? – The Guardian
Indigenous Australian Artists: It’s Time We Stop Being Reviewed By White Culture
“It feels like a moment where we are angry and ready enough to address how white Australian review culture maligns Indigenous work by only superficially engaging with it. It feels like a moment where we are ready to sustain our own review culture. We have centuries of white engagement with Indigenous story as evidence for the need to change; we also have our own critics, who show us what’s possible when whiteness loses its frame of evaluative authority over a work.” – The Guardian
A Large Local Arts Funder Searches For A New Leader (And Ponders Some Existential Questions)
Cleveland’s Cuyahoga Arts and Culture is one of the country’s largest local arts funders. As such it has an enormous impact on its arts community. Of course having money to spend supporting the arts is a good thing. But it also gives a funder power. So what kind of leader does CAC want to have? – CANJournal
Overnight Reviews Are Largely A Thing Of The Past. Is It A Good Thing?
Is a review dashed out in an hour really going to be as good as one written under a more generous deadline? Sometimes, maybe: I know some critics who think British deadlines are the enemy of decent reviews, but they can underestimate the quality that can be mustered with the adrenaline pumping. Nonetheless, there is something obviously counterintuitive about the idea that the more important the review, the less time will be spent on it. – The Stage
Watch The Winner Of This Year’s ‘Dance Your PhD’ Contest
Oh yes, there is such a thing: it’s run by Science magazine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And this year’s winner, Superconductivity: The Musical! by (and starring) University of Victoria physics researcher Pramodh Senarath Yapa, is about the formation of electron pairs in metals. (You can watch all four of this year’s category winners here.) – Forbes
Meet DC’s National Gallery’s First Woman Director
The gallery’s fifth director, Kaywin Feldman thinks that her appointment as the institution’s first woman director broadcasts a commitment to diversity. When she started working in the field 25 years ago, only about 15 percent of museum directors were women; now, according to the AAMD’s 2017 Gender Gap report, 48 percent of museums have female directors—but only 30 percent of museums with annual budgets of $15m and higher, decreasing as budget size increases. Feldman now oversees a museum with a $190m annual operating budget. – The Art Newspaper
Off-Broadway’s Best-Connected, Best-Loved Talent-Spotter
“For the past 15 years, [Jason Eagan] has been the remarkably well-connected, stealthily low-profile, principal creative force shaping the innovative Off-Broadway incubator Ars Nova. … He’s the guy who plucked an obscure Billy Eichner out of one Manhattan basement and an unknown Lin-Manuel Miranda out of another; who discovered the alt-cabaret comedian Bridget Everett at midnight at a karaoke bar; who looked upon the glorious excess of Dave Malloy’s nascent War and Peace musical, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, and said, in effect: ‘More.’ ‘Keep going.’ And ‘Yes.'” – The New York Times