What with an explosion in podcasts – and a terrible lack of attention from the corporate overlords – what can the BBC possibly do? “The BBC has promised to replace Film with another show, but the challenge is how do you cover movies for a BBC One audience? The problem the BBC has is that movie broadcasting has been subject to a populist online revolution.” – The Guardian (UK)
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There’s A Lot Of History Going On In Zines, And Zine Libraries Highlight Marginalized Voices
Fifteen years ago, Jenna Freedman “established the zine library at Manhattan’s Barnard College, where she is still zine librarian. Today, the collection consists of over 10,000 zines and focuses heavily on material created by marginalized communities, with topics as varied as mothers and daughters documenting holidays together to searing political collections about racism in punk rock.” – BuzzFeed
Fire Up That To Be Read Pile For Lit Hub’s ‘Most Anticipated Books Of 2019’
That’s right, it’s almost 2019. And just in case you’re panicking about all of the books you didn’t get to in 2018, well, add a stack to the teetering pile (or add some gigabytes to your phone). – Literary Hub
Norman Gimbel, Oscar-Winning Lyricist Of ‘Girl From Ipanema’ And ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song,’ Has Died At 91
Gimbel was “a Bronx-born songwriter who studied under Frank Loesser, the celebrated composer of Guys and Dolls” and who wrote the themes for Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. – The Washington Post
Can We Still See Frida Kahlo’s Art Without The Scrim Of Kitsch In Between?
Honestly, everything from Frida Kahlo air fresheners to Frida Kahlo teacups are available. But “would an anticapitalist, whose 1932 painting Self-portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States contrasts indigenous Mexican flowers and artefacts with the smoke-belching chimneys of a Ford factory, be pleased by the commodification of her image?” – The Guardian (UK)
Eight Months With A Flip Phone
Why would someone not 90 years old use a flip phone? “Motivating me in those early days, during the brain-shock of the new-old, was a thought experiment of my simple invention: Suppose the Dalai Lama had a smartphone.” – Wired
Netflix’s New Movie Is Interactive, And That Took A Major Leap In Software
Everyone’s talking about the new Black Mirror movie, Bandersnatch, partly because it’s a choose your own adventure movie – but how does that work, with Netflix? Whew: The network created an entirely new software called Branch Manager. “The final product — which looks like islands of flowcharts that branch out to include series of if-then options — creates an infinite number of variations to the story because of the ‘state tracking’ technology that tracks viewer choices as the experience progresses.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Mrinal Sen, Legendary Indian Filmmaker, Has Died At 95
“Along with his contemporaries Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, Sen was part of a troika of directors from the Eastern Indian state of Bengal that put Indian cinema on the global stage. During a tumultuous time in Bengal politics in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sen and Ray both made Calcutta trilogies, with Sen choosing to be overtly political.” – Variety
British Theatre Industry Leaders Make Some 2019 Predictions
Lighting designer Paule Constable sums it all up: “Theatre isn’t entertainment alone – it needs to challenge, to bring together, to reflect. There are so many complex issues to grapple with at the moment: diversity, sustainability, Brexit, pressure on resources, gender, representation. We need art to help us to think – to work out a way forward.” – The Stage (UK)
The Centuries Old, Heartbreaking, Beautiful Love Story Of Rembrandt And His Wife, Saskia
“Rembrandt was 28 when he married Saskia in 1634; 36 when she died, leaving him with a baby son and a sorrow so destructive he gave up painting in oils for several years. The measure of his loss is apparent, too, in the nature of these images of Saskia and their happiness, made before (and in one case after) her death. Here is the artist’s heart.” – The Observer (UK)