Sinéad Gleeson, an Irish Book Award-winning author, says that reading offers connection and perhaps an escape – unless you’re slogging through the “great American” canon. – The Guardian (UK)
Blog
The Grammys Tend To Be Pale, Male, And Somewhat Stale
Can the Recording Academy’s new plan change that? – Los Angeles Times
Hungary’s Theatres Protest Orban’s Culture War And Attempted Control
Actors and audiences alike participated in protests against Viktor Orban’s new law around who controls theatre funding. “The change comes as Mr. Orban’s government has become increasingly authoritarian and eroded democratic institutions. It has widened its control over the news media and education, and has given allies roles in overseeing the country’s cultural institutions. And after winning a third term last year, Mr. Orban set the tone for a battle over the arts, saying, ‘We must embed the political system in a cultural era.'” – The New York Times
Britain’s 70-Something-Old Nightclubbers Who Just Won’t Quit
Oh, well, why not dance, listen to music, and party into your 70s? After all, Mick Jagger still does it. “For those who do keep dancing, it can be much more than just a night out. What starts as an act of teenage transgression becomes radical in middle age.” – The Guardian (UK)
Hallmark Disappears Ads With Same-Sex Kissing; Zola Pulls All Its Ads; A Boycott Campaign Gathers Steam
Zola, the wedding planner site that was running the ads, was not OK with the channel’s response to the anti-gay freakout from a notoriously homophobic group. “‘All kisses, couples and marriages are equal celebrations of love and we will no longer be advertising on Hallmark,’ Mike Chi, Zola’s chief marketing officer, said in a statement.” (And #BoycottHallmark has been trending on Twitter for hours.) – The Hollywood Reporter
A New Opera Company For Orange County? Not Likely
LA Opera continues to stage traditional and spectacular productions, Long Beach Opera forges ahead in its scrappy and innovative way, San Diego Opera provides yet another outlet for listeners. The market for opera in Southern California may already be saturated, and it may be a settled question: asking for a fully-staffed, active and sustaining professional company in Orange County that consistently delivers top-quality, fully-staged productions before packed and enthusiastic houses? It may be too much. – Voice of Orange County
Actor Danny Aiello, 86
He memorably portrayed blue-collar heavies and hotheads in films such as “The Godfather: Part II,” “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and “Do the Right Thing,” and played against type as a middle-aged mama’s boy in “Moonstruck.” – Washington Post
How Awards Distort Our Movie And Music Culture
Awards are, it must be said, an absurdity. It is not only possible but crucial to insist on the importance or value of art without giving it a trophy. For the many who are interested in the arts, both mass-marketability and the potential for conferred prestige (i.e. awards) should be irrelevant. If those markers are your interest above the work itself, you can turn to metrics, algorithms, and trending topics, which have robust and widely-available platforms for consumption and analysis. Instead, in discussing and deciding what’s available to watch, what’s worth or not worth watching, and how movies are shaping our society, we must try to de-emphasize the validating mechanisms the industry itself provides. – The Daily Beast
Cost Of The Edinburgh Fringe Is Shutting Out Working Class Artists
“So, who can afford to perform at the Fringe regularly? Who can absorb a grand loss every year? Who can work unpaid for 17 weeks at a time? The answer is people who already have money. People who have the financial resources to take that hit year-in and year-out while they build a profile, while they experiment, while they get better at their job. Not me, and not any of my fellow working class artists – that’s for sure.” – The Stage
ARTnews’ Top 200 Collectors List For 2019
“There is this great shift in what’s going on in collecting,” said Sara Friedlander, Christie’s head of postwar and contemporary art. “Collectors across the board are looking for something new that is also of great quality—in concert with what’s happening curatorially in museums and in scholarly gallery shows.” The result, she said, is “shifting the conversation away from simply dead white men to artists of color and women.” – ARTnews