Sarah Kaufman: “Artistically, The Nutcracker is a big playing field where dancers can achieve breakthroughs, because over the unusually long run of performances, they are typically cast in many different roles … [and get] chances to experiment and become comfortable in a range of characters and styles. It’s a prized platform for showing off strengths and catching the director’s eye. So while missing a cherished holiday ritual is surely a letdown for audiences …, it’s an incomparable hardship for the dancers.” – The Washington Post
Blog
Has This Dealer Really Found A Long-Lost Frida Kahlo Painting? Probably Not
“Scholars in the work of surrealist Frida Kahlo have searched for more than six decades for The Wounded Table, a 1940 oil painting illuminating her pain over the breakup of her marriage to muralist Diego Rivera that hasn’t been seen since an exhibition in Poland. And the historians strongly reject the idea that the mystery of its whereabouts has been solved, as claimed by a Spanish art dealer who says the painting is now sitting in a London warehouse awaiting a buyer willing to spend more than 40 million euros.” – Yahoo! (AP)
Violinist Ida Haendel Dead At 96
“[She] enthralled audiences around the world with a combination of classical rigour and romantic warmth – the mix of ‘ice and fire … simply mind-blowing’ that one reviewer found in a recording of the Sibelius concerto.” – The Guardian
France Offers Tax Credit For New Subscriptions To Newspapers And Newsmagazines
“Deputies voted to allow a one-off deduction of up to €50 (£45) to households subscribing for the first time, and for at least 12 months, to a newspaper, magazine or online news service ‘providing news of a general or political character’.” – The Guardian
“Hamilton” The Movie Is A Sensation
For the uninitiated, it remains the cultural event of a troubled season. Disney Plus has reputedly suspended all discounts and free trials ahead of Hamilton’s debut on the streaming service. Expect complete internet breakage. – Irish Times
Cheap Food Is Good, Right? Well Maybe We’re Not Adding Up The Cost…
In a capitalist society, viewed from the point of view of consumers, cheap food looks like an unequivocal democratic good, because it enables people to feed themselves, even on relatively low incomes… The missing part of the picture, however, is that cheap food is also one of the factors pushing large swathes of the workforce into exploitation and poverty. – Times Literary Supplement
Why Proof And Data Don’t Convince People
I work with civic data and teach about the power of data collection, so I want to believe that data (in the form of video footage depicting police brutality against Black people) can effect social change. But it is precisely because of my attachment to the power of data collection that I’m unconvinced video footage can solely, or even primarily, lead to meaningful change. – FiveThirtyEight
Mellon Foundation To Invest In Prison Libraries
The prison library program will give each of the 1,000 prisons the same 500-book collection selected by the project’s leaders. The collections, which Dr. Alexander called “freedom libraries,” are to include a broad variety of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, science, social thought and more. – The New York Times
Why Letting Your Mind Wander Is Good For You
While it is certainly not inevitable that children lose their sense of wonder as they grow up, and while adults are in principle as capable of experiencing wonder as children, it is to be expected that, as the world becomes more and more familiar to children as they age, they will experience wonder less readily. – Psyche
The Search For A Gender-Neutral Singular Pronoun Has Gone On For Centuries
Yes, they has been used in the singular since the late Middle Ages, but people complained about it, and looked for a different solution, back then and ever since. The effort to come up with alternatives has engaged not only lexicographers, writers and teachers but also attorneys, judges, and legislators; the issue even played a role in the fight for women’s suffrage. – London Review of Books