Michael Andor Brodeur looks at the NFL’s decision to add “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” to “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games, and ponders other anthems (because that’s what they are) ranging from “God Bless America” to “This Land Is Your Land” to “The Times They Are A-Changin'” to “Born in the U.S.A.” (and maybe even “Strange Fruit”). “However varied these many musical visions of patriotism may be, they share common concerns: struggle, tension, transition, uncertainty, progress. These are not songs that chant U! S! A! (although Bruce does comes close) so much as walk its roads, fight its wars, bear its burdens.” – The Washington Post
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Report: Global Movie Box Office Down 66 Percent For 2020
For the U.S., the firm’s annual study projects a 65.7 percent decline from $11.4 billion in 2019 to $3.9 billion this year. The firm warned that “the whole cinema ecosystem will be dramatically affected,” with cinema revenue, comprised of box office and cinema advertising (but excluding concession sales in cinemas and movie merchandising), set to contract globally at a 2.4 percent compound annual rate from 2019 to end 2024 with $39.9 billion. – The Hollywood Reporter
Jazz Was Born As Resistance Music. It Got Institutionalized. Can It Get Its Protest Mojo Back?
“As it evolved, jazz remained a resistance music precisely because it was the sound of Black Americans building something together, in the face of repression. But at the end of the 1960s, … schools and universities across the country began welcoming jazz as America’s so-called ‘classical music,’ canonizing its older styles and effectively freezing it in place. … Partly as a result, the music has become inaccessible to, and disconnected from, many of the very people who created it: young Black Americans, poorer people and others at the societal margins.” – The New York Times
How Creative Workers Are Adapting During Shutdown
The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged all parts of the economy, and culture workers are among the hardest hit. Yet some have managed to keep their jobs — and even thrive — while others are still struggling or have pivoted to new roles. – The New York Times
The First Live Musical On The West End Since Lockdown Will Be —
— Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World, which will get matinee and evening performances (socially distanced, of course) on Sunday, October 11 at the London Palladium, the theatre where Andrew Lloyd Webber presented a trial show in July. – WhatsOnStage (London)
David Graeber, Author Of ‘Bullshit Jobs’ And Co-Organizer Of Occupy Wall Street, Dead At 59
“His 2011 book Debt: The First 5,000 Years was an anti-capitalist analysis that struck a chord with many readers in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Graeber’s rigorous, readable radicalism was showcased again in the 2018 book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.” A longtime activist, he was with the Occupy movement from its very earliest stages; calling themselves, and most of the rest of us, “the 99%” was his idea. – AP
Have A Look At L.A.’s New Streetlights
“Team names and locations were not attached to the submissions when a panel of six professionals … judged them, so it was with surprise and delight that the jury discovered it had selected a design from a small, L.A.-based collective called Project Room.” – Los Angeles Times
Colorado Ballet Furloughs All Its Dancers
“Virtual rehearsals had been running for five weeks when [company members] got the news: Colorado Ballet’s PPP loan had run out, and [all] of Colorado Ballet’s dancers were being furloughed.” – Denverite
New BBC Boss Rules Out Change To Subscription Model
In the old-yet-new-again debate over the licence fee (charges to every UK household that owns a TV) that funds the national broadcaster — and appointed by a Conservative government that doesn’t much like the fee or the BBC itself — incoming director general Tim Davie rejected the option of making the network a cable-style subscription-only offering: “I do not want a subscription BBC that serves the few.” – BBC
The Biggest Problem BBC’s New Chief Has To Solve
It’s funding, of course. Over the long term, it’s probably increasing income from exported BBC programming. But in the near term, it’s what to do about the TV licence fee that funds the whole operation — and getting his decision past “a government that has a big majority, is a bit vengeful and not very strategic.” – Variety