Despite it being a show that satirised the appropriation of disabled roles by non-disabled actors, few assumed someone with cerebral palsy might have staged it. That he did – and so well – feels like a step forward. – The Guardian
Blog
Why I’m Philosophically Opposed To Signing Petitions
“Such a document tries to persuade you to believe (that it is right to do) something because many people, some of whom are authorities, believe it (is the right thing to do). It is not always wrong to believe things because many people believe them, but it is always intellectually uninquisitive to do so.” The New York Times
Kennicott: How Seeing Video At The Barnes Foundation Made Me Reconsider The Whole Place
“It took seeing the museum’s powerful survey of Bill Viola’s rich, deep and deeply moving video work to fully understand what is so hollow and dispiriting about the main galleries of the collection, which hold an invaluable collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art assembled in the first half of the previous century.” – Washington Post
Hostile Architecture In The Big Apple
Here’s a look at the some of the design features — often touted as amenities — that keep people from lingering, stretching out, or even sitting down in various public (or should that be “public”) spaces in New York City. – Gothamist
Prejudging The Movies – When The “Buzz” Gangs Up
“Today, the forces of entertainment marketing, social media and grievance culture are increasingly colliding, with the casualty being the movies themselves. Why wait to actually see “The Irishman,” Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating project about Jimmy Hoffa and the mob, when you can start fact-checking it months before it opens?” – Washington Post
Why Widely-Spoken Languages Have Simpler Grammar (Okay, Except For Russian)
It’s not only because so many people learn them as second or third languages. Recent research has indicated that, even when a language is new or developing, it has to have simple rules in order for large groups of people who don’t know each other well to make themselves understood. – The Economist
When Kanye Dissed Taylor At The VMA Awards Ten Years Ago And Changed Pop Culture
Everyone had an opinion about what Kanye did. The VMAs were viewed by 11 million people that year, though the crush of coverage after the fact was more comparable to that of a Super Bowl, which typically gets 10 times as many viewers. – Washington Post
What’s Going On In This Merce Cunningham Masterpiece? Nothing.
“Nothing but the world outside the human one.” Alastair Macaulay offers an analysis (if that’s the right word for a Cunningham piece) of the 1958 work Summerspace. – The New York Times
European Opera Houses Take Wait-And-See Attitude Towards Domingo
In Europe, there were no immediate cancellations of the 78-year-old Domingo’s performances and even some words of support for the star. Opera world officials noted that no charges had been brought against Domingo and no formal judicial investigations were underway that might provide legal underpinning to cancel any contractual obligations.The stark differences in the levels of urgency in the responses underline the differences in the footing of the #MeToo movement on both sides of the Atlantic. – Yahoo! (AP)
Producer Edward Lewis, Who Helped Break Hollywood’s Mccarthy-Era Blacklist, Dead At 99
His movies earned 21 Oscar nominations over his four-decade career, and he garnered one himself for Best Picture for Costa-Gavras’s 1982 film Missing. But he’s best remembered for breaking the blacklist by hiring Dalton Trumbo to write the screenplay for Spartacus — and crediting him for it by name. – The Washington Post