Last year’s tree arrived half-dead, shedding needles and nicknamed Spelacchio (“Mangy”) — yet people grew so fond of it that they attached handwritten notes to it and created a Spelacchio Twitter account. This year’s tree is 65 feet tall, lush, covered with 60,000 lights, and sponsored by Netflix. (The ornaments have red Ns on them.) Journalist Ilaria Maria Sala argues that this is all too fitting. — The New York Times
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“To Kill A Mockingbird” Sets New Broadway Box Office Record
The new Broadway adaptation from Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin made Broadway history for the week ending December 23, taking in $1,586,946 at the box office, shattering the house record at the Shubert Theatre for the highest weekly gross of any Broadway play (non musical) in the Shubert Organization’s 118-year history. – Playbill
Roxane Gay’s Radical Honesty
It is hard to read the abuse Gay gets for her size. If there is anything useful in the experience it is, she has said, in the way it engenders empathy, for other lives, for difficult lives, for different lives. Reading, she says now, does the same – fiction mostly, but also non-fiction, “because you just think, ‘Oh my gosh, imagine if that were my life, imagine if that were my children, how would I feel?’ – The Guardian
Turkish TV Is Hot. But Can It Export Internationally?
The shows are a phenomenon in the Middle East and Latin America, and have become such a symbol of Turkish soft power that they have been used as counters in political disputes. On March 1, for instance, the Saudi Arabia-based satellite broadcaster MBC abruptly dropped all Turkish drama, cutting off some shows midseason, apparently in response to Turkish support for Qatar. – The New York Times
A Record Year Worldwide For Movie Box Office
That would mark a healthy 2.7% gain from last year, with most of that hike coming from North America. Year-end projections released Thursday by Comscore predict that domestic grosses will hit $11.9 billion, a 7% increase from 2017. International grosses look to reach $29.8 billion, a 2.7% bump compared to the previous year.
2018: More TV Than Ever (And It Just Keeps Expanding)
Television, already bursting at the seams with peak programming and lots of filler, finally blew apart this year, fragmenting into a dizzying constellation of nearly 500 new original series and destinations we’ve yet to explore
You Don’t Own Your Tattoo Art (The Artist Does). That Can Be A Problem
Any creative illustration “fixed in a tangible medium” is eligible for copyright, and, according to the United States Copyright Office, that includes the ink displayed on someone’s skin. What many people don’t realize, legal experts said, is that the copyright is inherently owned by the tattoo artist, not the person with the tattoos. – The New York Times
Naked Boys Reading (Yes, This Is An Actual Literary Event)
This “cheeky literary salon” (ahem) has been taking place for six years in an east London gay bar: curators pick readings on a particular theme and willing audience members (of varied ages and shapes) read them, on a stage and in the buff. The Economist‘s audience engagement editor shares his experience reading at a science fiction night. — 1843 Magazine
Warring with Warhol: What I Most (& Least) Appreciated About the Whitney’s Retrospective
Although I gave Andy Warhol — From A to B and Back Again (to Mar. 31) a mixed review last week, one focus of the Whitney Museum’s widely praised extravaganza particularly interested me. It’s an aspect that general audiences, who usually pay more attention to the art than the writing on the walls, could easily miss. — Lee Rosenbaum
‘Miriam, Part 2, The Chair’
“A woman trapped in domestic boredom moves toward a nervous breakdown. Institutionalized, she attempts to create a performance for a shortly expected visit from her children, but can find no words to express her feelings. Only her instrument can serve as an expression of her deepest emotions.” — William Osborne & Abbie Conant