Basically? “Screwiness seems destined to prevail this season.”
Blog
Producers Cancel A Planned 40-City MLK Play Tour After Allegations Against Tavis Smiley
After PBS said their internal investigation found credible evidence, “The show, ‘Death of a King,’ was canceled the same week that rehearsals began. Mr. Smiley was going to narrate the production, which was heavily drawn from his book and featured photographs and film clips from King’s life. The pianist Marcus Roberts had composed accompanying music. The tour was to begin on Jan. 15, King’s birthday, in Brooklyn.”
Do You Have Questions About Netflix’s Fairly Creepy ‘Christmas Prince’ Tweet?
Also, what even is The Christmas Prince? And is this a secret Netflix marketing plan? And really, who ARE the 53 people who watched it 18 times in 18 days?
Peter Jackson Was Ready To Cast Ashley Judd And Mira Sorvino In Lord Of The Rings, But Harvey Weinstein Blacklisted Them
The blacklist was real: “‘I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs,’ Jackson said, referencing the production company Weinstein ran with his brother Bob. As a direct result, he said, both women fell out of the running for parts in his Lord of the Rings series.”
The Eccentric (Okay, Bizarre) Architecture Of Queens
Says Rafael Herrin-Ferri, who has been photographing the houses of the New York City borough for five years, “I have always been interested in houses and was impressed by how idiosyncratic – and unorthodox – the low-rise housing stock is. They express the personal preferences and cultural backgrounds of their owners without much regard for what is ‘correct,’ marketable, or fashionable.”
Welcome To The Molly House: The Gay Bars Of Georgian England
“In 1709, the London journalist Ned Ward published an account of a group he called ‘the Mollies Club.’ Visible through the homophobic bile (he describes the members as a ‘Gang of Sodomitical Wretches’) is the clear image of a social club that sounds, most of all, like a really good time. Every evening of the week, Ward wrote, at a pub he would not mention by name, a group of men came together to gossip and tell stories, probably laughing like drains as they did so, and occasionally succumbing to ‘the Delights of the Bottle.'”
Smellscapes: Mapping A City By Its Scents
Smellmaps, developed by English artist Kate McLean, “can come in handy for people interested in new ways of exploring both the cities they live in and the ones they visit. So far, McLean has led small armies of urban explorers on ‘smellwalks’ around 12 other cities, including New York, Singapore, Barcelona, and Kiev.”
Orchestra Mashes Up Beethoven And Kanye West
Time magazine spoke to Johan and Yuga Cohler, creators of Yeethoven and Yeethoven II, “about their process of piecing together the perfect orchestral mash-up, how a ‘risky project’ like this one can help popularize classical music and why Kanye makes a great case study as an artist with unexpectedly broad appeal.”
A Requiem For The Victims Of The Khmer Rouge, Created By Survivors
Reporter Joshua Barone meets Rithy Panh and Kim Sophy, the director and composer of Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, which uses both Western and Cambodian instruments as well as traditional smot singing in a memorial for the two million people – and the huge parts of Cambodian culture – wiped out by Pol Pot’s dictatorship in the late 1970s.
After #MeToo, What Next For Theaters And Actors?
“To fix a broken system is a daunting challenge. But many individuals and institutions around the country have been stepping up to the plate to do just that, in big and small ways.”