The Broadway program publication hasn’t printed programs since Broadway went dark. Website and social media traffic is up, but advertising has collapsed. “Just as it would be impossible to imagine New York City without Broadway once the pandemic passes, it’s pretty hard to picture Broadway without those little yellow booklets in hand when the curtain rises again.” – Fast Company
Blog
Tony Elliott, 73, Founder Of “Time Out” Publishing Empire
According to the publisher’s own history, Elliott founded the magazine during a summer holiday from Keele University, where he was studying. “He produced the first edition on the kitchen table in his mother’s house in Kensington with £70, part of a recent 21st birthday present from his aunt.” It began its global expansion in 1995 with the launch of Time Out New York and the process continued in the following decade. – The Guardian
Dorothy Parker’s Ashes Are Buried In NAACP HQ. But HQ Is Moving, So…
Parker was a huge supporter of civil rights and gave most of her estate to Martin Luther King (whom she had never met) when she died in 1967. When King died, the estate was transferred to the NAACP and she was buried at Baltimore headquarters. Now the organization is moving to Washington… – The New York Times
The Legacy Of Isaac Stern
At the centenary of his birth, NPR has an appreciation of those he mentored and his influence on the music world of today. “Isaac Stern’s tombstone simply reads, Isaac Stern, fiddler. These three words leave out an awful lot.” – NPR
Dystopian Fiction Was Never Fictional For Many People In The United States
While some authors say the fiction can help people learn how to resist and persist, Black people in the U.S. say it’s more of a mirror. “Assume where America has always been is a tragedy. What is done in hell isn’t romantic; sacrificing bodies to dystopia isn’t beautiful.” (But fiction can still be a teacher of hope.) – Wired
What Disneyland Means To Southern California
It may be closed on its 65th anniversary, but that’s the only appropriate choice. “For me and many Southern California residents, Disneyland is more than a theme park; it is where I go to write, to read, to reset. It represents something between a living pop-art museum and an emotional retreat. Mostly it’s an invitation to play, and when I play I’m calm. Yet I would not be calm if I were inside Disneyland right now.” – Los Angeles Times
A Poet Contemplates Storytelling, Her Murdered Mother, And Confederate Monuments
Natasha Trethewey, former poet laureate of the U.S.: “When people talk about how getting rid of [Stone Mountain] would be erasing history – well, the monument itself is already an erasure of history. So, I’d be interested in figuring out a way that we can tell the fuller story about exactly why it’s there and exactly what it means.” – The Guardian (UK)
Indonesian Literary Legend Sapardi Djoko Damono, 80
Sapardi, an influential poet and cultural critic, founded the Indonesian Literary Scholars Association and served as a dean at the University of Indonesia. One author: “As long as I’ve known him he had always been a close reader – meticulous and generous, yet critical. … He steadfastly held on to his maxim, ‘Literature is how an author presents an idea, not the idea itself.'” – The Star (Malaysia/The Jakarta Post)
The Constant Low-Level Horror Of Our Online Lives
It’s just too, too weird. “To someone living exclusively online, many of Freud’s “primitive beliefs” would be literal truths. The dead live on in their videos and social media feeds. Thanks to targeted advertising, a pair of boots we put in our cart months ago stalks us at every turn. The notion that a single utterance can turn a random citizen into an influencer might have sounded to Freud like magical thinking. We see it happen every day.” – The New York Times
UK Theatres And Other Cultural Venues Plead For Better Guidelines, More Money
Opening with socially distanced audiences on August 1st? Not likely, say theatres. “For most theatres it will not be economically viable to reopen with 30%-40% audience required under social distancing. … We now need to progress as quickly as possible to an announcement on the all-important stage five. Without this, most theatres cannot reopen viably.” – The Guardian (UK)