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A Forgotten Literary Star, And Anti-Fascist Activist, Is Finally Getting Her Due In Spain

The writer María Teresa Léon was a good buddy of Lorca, married to poet Rafael Alberti, and took part in rescuing art from the Prado as Franco bombed Madrid. Then she, and Alberti and many other anti-fascist writers, fled to live in exile in France and Italy – and her writing and her power were remembered less and less as the male writers’ fame grew. Now her memoir is being republished, with a new introduction and a new appreciation. – The Observer (UK)

Can The Great British Bake Off Survive Global Warming?

Nope. “The heat has become an increasingly familiar character. The camera pans over shot after shot of the searing sun. The judges explain an upcoming challenge, once again emphasizing that the heat will make it even more difficult. (Butter, the star ingredient of many baked goods, turns into liquid at 94 F [34 C], and starts to soften long before that.) To cool down during challenges, the bakers have started wearing wet rags around their necks that leave damp patches on their aprons.” – Wired

The Artist Trying Damn Hard To Save Other Artists

Guy Stanley Philoche figured his fellow artists shouldn’t suffer so much because of COVID-19 and the associated shutdowns. “The art world is my community and I needed to help my community. … People say New York is dead, but it’s far from that. There’s an artist somewhere writing the next greatest album. There’s a kid right now in his studio painting the next Mona Lisa. There’s probably a dancer right now choreographing the next epic ballet. People forgot about the artists in these industries.” So the painter has spent $65,000 to help others. – CNN

We Know Who Wrote Citizen Kane

Sorry, Netflix viewers, and sorry, Gary Oldman: It wasn’t Mank. “Robert L. Carringer examined seven drafts of the screenplay in great detail and concluded that the writing Mankiewicz had done in Victorville, Calif., during the period depicted in the film ‘elaborated the plot logic and laid down the overall story contours,’ but that Welles, principally, transformed the script ‘from a solid basis for a story into an authentic plan for a masterpiece.'” – The New York Times

Oh, An All-Streaming World Is What You Want? Think Again

It’s not going to be great, friends. “If the movie theater experience, as a cultural force, winds up withering on the vine, then it’s likely that movies as we’ve known them will also wither on the vine. Pauline Kael said it best in the ’70s, when she was writing — witheringly — about the phenomenon of TV-movies. She said that what you make for television isn’t a movie. What you make for television is a TV show.” – Variety

Roald Dahl’s Family Apologizes For The Author’s Antisemitism

The author’s antisemitism was well known and public, including in a 1983 interview in which he claimed “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity. … Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.” The apology statement is buried, but present, on the author’s site, but “no mention is made of Dahl’s antisemitic views in the author’s official biography on the site. The family’s apology was not sent to Jewish organisations.” – The Guardian (UK)

Thelma Pepper, Canada’s Photographer Of The Prairies, 100

Pepper didn’t pick up a camera until she was 60 – and then didn’t waste a day. “As an outsider coming to the Prairies, Pepper was moved by her subject’s stories of how families struggled in the early days on the farm and how women did so many small, little heartfelt things to hold their families and communities together. ‘She just wanted to give those women their due that she felt they had not received during the course of their lifetimes.'” – CBC

We All Know The Crown Is Fiction, So Why Is The British Government So Concerned?

As the author points out tartly, “The presence of actors is a strong clue” that the Netflix series isn’t a documentary. And yet there is a source for this discomfort: “The real source of unease with The Crown comes from the dissonance between the high naturalism of the program’s costumes, staging, and set design and the liberties taken with its plotlines. The current discussion would not be happening if the show were not so rigorously faithful to the historical record in every department except for its script.” – The Atlantic