The Hate U Give book cover illustrator Debra Cartwright on what happened when the studio took over: “So much money was thrown behind the movie, and so much marketing was thrown behind it, and it’s just like, you can tell who Hollywood is pushing to be in the limelight, and everybody knows it has a lot to do with appearance, but it also is still being driven a bit by colorism. Not a bit. It is.”
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Our Brains Trick Us, But We’re Learning To Trick Them Back
We have cognitive biases – like weighting something that will happen soon over something that will happen in the future – and they can mess us up. “A solid group of 100 or so biases has been repeatedly shown to exist, and can make a hash of our lives.” Is there a way to use our own cognitive biases to mitigate that potential mess?
Who Should Store Confederate Monuments After They Come Down?
That all depends on the lawsuits – and the museums. “‘Truth is, we absolutely could not take them,’ says Christy Coleman, CEO of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Va. Coleman often receives calls from cities hoping to find homes for their Confederate monuments. ‘The biggest reason, I’d say, that museums aren’t able to accept them is that they simply can’t afford to take care of them,’ says Coleman.”
Brexit Is Dramatically Changing The Future For Musicians In Britain And The EU
There are so many concerns for classical music groups, opera companies, and British music schools that it’s impossible to list them all in one article. Still, basically: “The U.K. has a thriving cultural scene; it might not disappear overnight. But over a 50-year period, who knows?”
Who Really Owns, And Who Really Should Own, The Elgin Marbles?
A new book addresses the issue in a variety of ways that should make us reconsider what ancient art actually means to us. “I doubt that anyone is willing to add color to these sculptures, although that would make them look more authentic. The critical question, then, is what these dilemmas says about legitimate ownership of the marbles. Once we turn sacred works into art, and remove the original coloring, why cannot we also move them?”
Henry James, Failed Playwright
He was trying to fix an issue with diminishing royalties from his novels, but when Guy Domville was produced in London, chaos ensued: “James made it backstage for the closing minutes. He heard both the sneers from the gallery and the enthusiastic applause from the stalls. When Alexander took his curtain call, Henry’s friends in the audience began shouting ‘Author, author!,’ and the unnerved actor took James by the hand and led him onstage. A civil war ensued.”
Where Have All The Big-Budget Romantic Comedies Gone?
To Netflix, of course, which made a decision after watching the data on viewers streaming old romantic comedies since studios were only producing things that would do well with 12-year-old boys (and their parents). “That business decision has led to what Netflix has deemed ‘summer of love,’ a three-month period in which the platform is releasing a slew of exactly what Witherspoon described longing for: ‘romantic movies.’ They’re not all comedies, per se, but they’re the kind of movies that give viewers the feels.”
The Blazing Hot Author Who Didn’t Even Read A Book From Start To Finish Until He Was 17
Jason Reynolds, who produces high-quality, award-winning young adult books (and now middle grade books too) at an astonishing clip, explains his strategy to get kids reading: “Young people – especially young men – it’s not that they hate reading, it’s that they hate boredom. So my thing was: I need to write a story that is interesting, that is gripping, that can connect to them and their experiences, and write something that’s not very intimidating.”
Hey Lincoln Center, What *Is* Mostly Mozart Now?
The Lincoln Center Festival is gone, though a few of its programs got added elsewhere. But the whole Mostly Mozart brand has lost some of its allure. “Mostly Mozart has some thinking to do,” says NYT critic Anthony Tommasini.
Can Bystander Video Create A More Just Society? [VIDEO]
Here’s the theory: “We live, at the moment, in a country where basic rights are really being violated. … There’s a real need to understand how video can help people prove what happened.” (But videographers and photographers need to defend their rights to film and take photos, too.)