“The National Gallery of Art will open its six-acre Sculpture Garden to visitors on Saturday, marking the first step of a multiphase comeback from the museum’s coronavirus closure. The second phase, with a date still undetermined, will include the opening of the ground floor of the West Building. The East Building will remain closed for several months to prepare for a major renovation.” – The Washington Post
Blog
Upright Citizens Brigade Founders To Give Up Leadership
“The group’s founders, Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh, who control operations of the organization’s training program and theaters, said that they have been seeking nonprofit status since February, and that they intend to pass control of their theaters to a new board ‘of diverse individuals.'” – The New York Times
Leadership Succession Crisis At Paris Opera
“Outgoing director Stéphane Lissner dropped a bombshell Thursday, saying Europe’s biggest opera and ballet company was ‘on its knees’ and he would be leaving seven months early in January. But his successor Alexander Neef said Friday he knew nothing of Lissner’s early exit, and cast doubt on whether he would be able to immediately step into his shoes just as the opera faces one of the biggest crises in its 350-year history.” – France24 (AFP)
French Government Seeks Designs For Memorial To Victims Of Slavery
“Last week, the country’s ministry of culture launched an open call for the design and production of the public work, which will be installed in Paris’s Tuileries Gardens, next to the Musée du Louvre.” The Representative Council of France’s Black Associations, one of the leaders of the campaign for the monument, says that “the artist chosen must be of African descent.” – Artnet
A Deep Dive Into The Alternative Universe Of YouTube
Popular YouTube videos are filled with flashes of memes, zoom-ins, funny voices, gurning faces and whiplash-inducing cultural references. Watching a Pewdiepie video is like having some sort of episode. I thought that my generation of Generation X-ers were knowingly abstract, but this generation is dealing with so many layers of whimsy and reference it’s often disorienting. – Irish Times
Book Critics Circle Board Members Resign Over Statement
Laurie Hertzel, who had served as president since 2019, announced over the weekend she was leaving the 24-member board. Her departure came two days after another board member, Ugandan-American writer Hope Wabuke, posted redacted screenshots on Twitter of an email exchange that included correspondence from Hertzel and board member Carlin Romano. The NBCC had been crafting a response to the worldwide protests against police racism and violence. – Baltimore Sun (AP)
Will People Flee Cities In Post-COVID World? Preliminary Findings Say No
“We found that 25-to-34-year-old college graduates were among the most likely to move of any demographic group, and that they were systematically moving toward some places and away from others,” states to the report, Youth Movement: America’s Accelerating Urban Renaissance. “To an apparently unprecedented degree, those moves seemed to be motivated by a desire for urban living.” – CityLab
How To Write A Novel: A Practical Guide
The most important point to start from is that while there are a number of things you should consider when planning your book – such as characterisation, plotting or the style and voice of your work – there is no single golden rule for how to write a novel. – Psyche
The End Of The Liberal World Order
We could try to salvage the order by constructing institutions that enable us to meaningfully govern it. But to do that, we’d have learn to do politics with people who are different from us. Can that be done? Probably not. And that means either the nation-states will kill the liberal order, or they will find a way to disguise it in democratic daydreams. The liberal order might not last much longer. – Aeon
Drive-In Concerts In High Demand
These shows will be the first paid gig many people in the industry have had since March. Airwaves’ event director, Cindy Jensen, says organising her event has highlighted how desperate the music industry is for work. “Since we launched [last Monday] I’ve been inundated – and I mean inundated – with calls from production houses, foodies, market stall holders asking: ‘Have you got this sorted?’ Everyone is just screaming out for work.” – The Guardian