“A Border Force officer at Heathrow Airport discovered the hundreds of clay figurines, pots, and tablets covered in cuneiform script in a pair of metal trunks last July. Intercepted en route from Bahrain to a private address in the UK, the objects were sent to the British Museum for inspection. There, they were discovered to be fakes. The striking thing about the discovery, says St John Simpson, a curator at the British Museum, is not the number of counterfeit relics. It’s the type.” – Artnet
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‘This American Life’ Wins First-Ever Pulitzer For Audio Journalism
“In partnership with the Los Angeles Times and Vice News, This American Life won for an episode called ‘The Out Crowd’ — which illuminated the personal impact of the Trump Administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. In the episode, listeners hear from asylum seekers in a refugee camp in Mexico just across the border, as well as the officers who sent them there. In fact, many of the U.S. asylum officers felt awful about sending the migrants back to Mexico, as Los Angeles Times reporter Molly O’Toole learned.” – Poynter
‘The Central Park Five’ By Anthony Davis Wins Pulitzer Prize For Music
“[The work,] which debuted last June at Long Beach Opera, … chronicles the racially and politically charged New York trial and conviction of one Latino teenager and four black teens — who were later all exonerated and freed — in the 1989 rape [and beating] of a young white female investment banker in Central Park.” – The San Diego Union-Tribune
‘A Strange Loop’ By Michael R. Jackson Wins Pulitzer Prize For Drama
“Jackson’s win marks the first time the committee has awarded a black writer for a musical. … That’s particularly poignant given the material itself: a discursive meta-tale about a young, gay, black musical theater writer, who’s writing a musical about a young, gay, black musical theater writer, and so on down the rabbit hole.” – Forbes
Colson Whitehead, Jericho Brown, Benjamin Moser, W. Caleb McDaniel, Anne Boyer, Greg Grandin Win Literary Pulitzers
Whitehead received his second fiction Pulitzer for The Nickel Boys; Brown’s The Tradition took poetry honors; the biography prize went to Moser’s Sontag: Her Life and Work; McDaniel’s Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America took the history category; the general nonfiction prize was shared by Boyer for The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care and Grandin for The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. – Los Angeles Times
L.A. Times Art Critic Christopher Knight Wins Pulitzer Prize
“The jury said Knight’s work demonstrated ‘extraordinary community service by a critic’ through the application of ‘his expertise and enterprise to critique a proposed overhaul of the L.A. County Museum of Art and its effect on the institution’s mission.’ … [The other finalists were] Justin Davidson of New York magazine, nominated in part for his writing on the Hudson Yards development in New York, and Soraya Nadia McDonald of The Undefeated, honored for her work exploring the intersection of film, theater, and race.” (Davidson has already won the criticism Pulitzer, in 2002 for classical music writing at Newsday.) – Artnet
How Production Studios Are Adapting To Stay-At-Home Productions
“There are systems we had before that are good and coming in handy, but there are new systems that are popping up all the time, too. I think it’s going to change us for the better in the long term. There’s no way we go back to the studio and produce the show the same way we did before. We’ve learned too much.” – Washington Post
Is The Future Of Music Festivals Drive-In Theatre?
The Danish city of Aarhus allowed popular singer Mads Langer to perform a drive-thru event at a newly constructed venue just outside the city. With six days’ notice, the event sold 500 tickets and, according to locals, went off without a hitch. – Los Angeles Times
Will Audiences Really Pay For Online Content?
The rationale is clear enough. With families trapped inside by COVID-19, and children out of school and starting to climb the walls, a hyperactive new movie ought to be just the ticket. Also, twenty bucks is less than you’d pay at the cinema for yourself, your kids, and your silo-size Cokes. Yet the sum feels extortionate when you’re shelling out at home, perhaps because it carries a sweaty whiff of boxing bouts on pay-per-view. – The New Yorker
Can This Live-Streaming Platform In Europe Help Save Night Life?
Called United We Stream, the combined live-streaming and fundraising platform hosts live music, DJ sets, performances and other live experiences from a growing roster of venues across Europe. Patrons are invited to drop into daily events staged for the platform, and invited via on-screen buttons to donate money if they can, either by buying merchandise or by splashing out on a “virtual drink.” These donations are plowed back into keeping music and nightlife scenes alive. – CityLab