Agencies are under growing pressure “to scale up and adapt to a changing media industry. The rise of streaming and the expected decline of TV packaging — where agencies collect fees for packaging talent on shows — combined with the effects of the longstanding writers boycott, have squeezed talent agencies, some of which have weathered high-level executive turnover, laid off workers and cut back on overtime pay for assistants.” – Los Angeles Times
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How To Save The Oscars From The Academy
At the moment, the Oscars reflect the Academy, but the Academy reflects nothing but its august name; plausible deniability and the shunning of responsibility are built into the current system. Paradoxically, counting only votes from members with a stake in the image of the industry put forth by the industry would cast onto the Oscars the sharp light of accountability, would be, in effect, a truth-in-awards program.” – The New Yorker
When Neurodiverse Actors Make A Play Better
“When it comes to acting, neurodiversity — a term embraced by many people with intellectual, social and other disabilities arising in the brain and nervous system — involves more barriers and engages more prejudice than even physical challenges do.” Jesse Green writes about one case where an actor changed his conception of autism (perhaps it’s a sort of dialect) and another where a performer with Tourette’s syndrome seems “an ideal interpreter” of one of Beckett’s most challenging scripts. – The New York Times
The Very Complicated Culture Of Reviewing Books
The consequence of identifying so closely with the literary community is that critics often don’t feel that they’re part of the reviewing apparatus. They feel like they’re subject to it. This has two consequences. First, they live in a certain fear of it, because the kind of reception that their future books will have might be contingent on their relationship with the person they are reviewing. Second, there’s a lot of insistence that the book reviewing world is going through some challenges, but there’s very little consensus about who is responsible for making changes. – American Scholar
Choreographer Gregory Maqoma Turns Traditional South African Movement Into Contemporary Western Concert Dance
“‘He has coherently brought classical African dance into conversation with all that is contemporary,’ said [South African dance scholar] Jay Pather, … long-established practices of Zulu, Xhosa and Sotho people, ‘rituals and codes that are highly complex and have been passed on in highly sophisticated ways.’ Mr. Maqoma, who is of Xhosa descent, doesn’t deconstruct these rituals and codes. He uses them to tell contemporary stories.” – The New York Times
Idea Factory: What Makes Malcolm Gladwell Tick
“When I suggest to Gladwell he has an unusually relaxed attitude towards criticism, he returns to a theme from the night before: success is wasted on the successful. ‘The weird thing about people who become successful is that they don’t understand that they now have the freedom to let their guard down: you know – it’s fine’.” – New Statesman
Podcasts Are Getting Book-Group-Like Fan Clubs — And, Like Book Groups, They’re About More Than Just The Material
“Though they are ostensibly meant for conversation about the shows themselves, actual episodes are seldom discussed. Instead, members get sidetracked and end up on tangents, talking about their failed marriages, sharing parenting advice and helping each other pick outfits for first dates.” – The New York Times
Putin Enlists Major Cultural Leaders To Rewrite Russian Constitution
Wasting no time, the Kremlin on Wednesday posted a list of 75 members of a working group appointed to draft the constitutional amendments, including a range of political and cultural figures. Among them are Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and Zelfira Tregulova, the director of Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery, both seasoned political players. Both were among the public figures who served as his 2018 presidential campaign confidants. – The Art Newspaper
Audible And Publishers Settle Lawsuit Over Captioning
“In July, the audiobook company owned by Amazon announced Captions, an additional function for the existing app that would allow customers to read the text as it was read, as well as looking up words and translating them. … Seven publishers, including the ‘Big Five’ – Penguin Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Macmillan – sued Audible in August, a move that was also backed by bodies representing authors and agents,” all of whom maintained that the captioning was unauthorized reproduction of the printed text. – The Guardian
Bird Killers – Our Glass Buildings
All told, glass buildings are responsible for up to one billion bird deaths in the United States each year. At a time when two-thirds of North American birds are in danger of extinction from climate change, it’s no exaggeration to say that glass architecture is a threat to life on Earth. Yet buildings sheathed in smooth glass walls continue to go up, not because they are cheaper to construct or better from an architectural standpoint, but because they embody modern luxury. – The New Republic