Category: today’s top story

Miller-McCune “gather[s] together some of the more provocative papers of recent years, which are guaranteed to enliven the dinner table by providing fresh fodder for family squabbles.” (Sample finding: “The stuffed turkey represents the Native Americans, sacrificed and consumed in order to bring civilization to the New World.”)

An online survey of more than 5,300 artists “found that the recession has been exceptionally tough for many artists. Eighteen percent of those who responded said their income had dropped 50 percent or more in the last year.”

“Even as the rest of the country drowns in unemployment and lessened circumstances, the period of noble abstinence for this hedonistic set is apparently over. … For better or for worse, much of the art world is feeling flush again” — just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach.

Sarah Kaufman says that, because U.S. companies are so utterly dependent on income from their annual Nutcracker runs, ballet in this country “suffers from a serious lack of confidence that is only growing more and more paralyzing. … Has ballet become so entwined with its Nutcracker image, so fearfully wedded to unthreatening offerings, that it has forgotten how eye-opening and ultimately nourishing creative destruction can be?”

Admired for her radiant voice, keen dramatic instincts and cheerful disposition, the Swedish soprano was, among her many accomplishments, a key figure in the ongoing revival of Leos Janácek’s operas.

“Artist Jeanne-Claude, who created the 2005 Central Park installation ‘The Gates’ and other large scale ‘wrapping’ projects around the globe with her husband Christo,” has died “at a New York hospital from complications of a brain aneurysm.”

“Rita Marcalo has stopped taking her medication ahead of the event at The Bradford Playhouse, which the audience will be invited to film. Arts Council England, which is funding the performance, said it aimed to raise awareness about the condition.” An epilepsy charity has “urged Ms Marcalo to reconsider the event.”

McCann took the fiction prize for Let the Great World Spin; Stiles collected nonfiction honors for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Keith Waldrop’s Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy won the poetry award, and Phillip Hoose took honors for Young People’s Literature with Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.

“Studios make dumb decisions all the time. But … the real underlying issue behind these kinds of gaffes” is homogeneity among the higher-ups. “The decision-makers at studios are virtually all white, so they don’t see potential racial slights in the same light as they would if they had someone — anyone! — of color in the executive suite.”

There’s a “reprehensible message” underlying most war-themed video games: “Killing foreigners on behalf of one’s country is one hell of a good time.” But Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is “a first-person shooter that plays as a tragedy, not a power fantasy[,]  … a murder simulator that won’t let you forget the nature of your actions.”