“The final version of the federal budget was rolled out on Wednesday, and not only does it maintain funding levels for federal arts programs, it actually increases them. The NEA and NEH will receive $355 million in 2018 — an increase in five million from the year before. Meanwhile, $445 million has been allocated to CPB — the same total as last year.”
Blog
Why Do Dictators Keep Fancying Themselves Literary Authors?
“How can you be a dictator without your sacred text, without a document to show your word is law?” From Lenin’s dense treatises and Hitler’s notorious memoir, through Mao’s “little red book” of aphorisms and Kim Jong-Il’s critical treatises on cinema and opera, to Türkmenbashi’s faux-folklore and Saddam Hussein’s romance novels, they just can’t stop themselves from churning out books. Colin Dickey examines the what and why.
Can The Classical Music World Just Drop The Whole ‘Maestro’ Thing Already?
“Amid the manifold campaigns to make classical music more accessible, less patriarchal, to take itself less absolutely seriously and to crack a smile – if not a joke – the outdated term is getting slightly grating to read. … [And] ‘maestro’ doesn’t fool anybody. If anything, it reveals a kind of uniquely fragile masculinity that sips time and again from the elixir of self-proclaiming ‘greatness’ in order to reaffirm its own status. The musicians, at least, don’t fall for it.”
What Exactly Do We Do? Everything! (A Librarian Tells You What The Job Is Really Like)
“Librarianship asks you to do 12 things at once and then when you’re in the middle of those projects wonders if you’ve got any tax forms left or an eclipse viewer. It’s endless questions. It’s ‘my two dollar fine pays your salary.’ It’s a grubby little hand at storytime grabbing your leg and smearing glitter glue down the side of pants you’ve already worn twice that week. It’s finding the right answer to a question and reveling in that small joy for a bare moment before another patron comes up to ask you something even weirder.”
How Director Marianne Elliott Wrestled With ‘Angels In America’ (And Tony Kushner)
As the UK National Theatre’s revival of the epic opens on Broadway, Michael Schulman talks to its director – known to US audiences for War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time about the challenges and joys of staging the play and bringing to the States (and, yes, of dealing with its notoriously difficult famously engaged playwright).
ACLU Sues City Of New Orleans For Censoring Trump Mural
“[The suit is] on behalf of the resident Neal Morris, who is facing potential jail time over a mural painted on his private property that the city has demanded he remove. The mural, by the artist Cashy-D, depicts a quote from the 2005 Access Hollywood Tape in which US President Donald Trump brags about [you-know-what].”
Barbara Wersba, Whose Children’s Books Explored Alcoholism, Gay Relationships, And The Like, Dead At 85
“Ms. Wersba began writing in the 1960s, and her work reflected the era’s new realism in literature for younger readers with stories no longer confined to intact nuclear families and sanitized goings-on like prom nights. Some of her frank themes generated criticism; others generated praise.”
Poland’s Rightist Government Tries To Transform The Arts – Or Let Them Wither
“Often, the changes being made are nearly imperceptible from the outside. … By altering funding policies, swapping artistic directors or terminating contracts, [the ruling Law and Justice party is] taking an opportunist approach that doesn’t swap out the engines of Poland’s culture industry, but changes them slowly, piece by piece, cog by cog. … The government would rather have no cultural production than anything that might not fit its values.”
A Culture War Rages In Israel
As Israel lives under the most openly right-wing nationalist government in its history and as tensions rise with the Palestinians in the territories (and with many countries overseas because of the issue), both the culture ministry and many combatively conservative citizens are attacking (sometimes physically) artists, dancers, filmmakers, theater companies, and so on that breach taboos ranging from nudity onstage to the treatment of Arabs and African refugees.
J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore Website Lays Off Most Editorial Staff
“The popular website was launched by JK Rowling in 2012 after the final Harry Potter film was released and was originally conceived as a way for the British writer to maintain and grow the online Potter fandom. According to a well-placed source, Pottermore sacked a string of editorial staff over the last few days, including both senior and junior staff who were making original content for the website.”