Novelist Waubgeshig Rice: “It kind of blew my mind. … I wrote that plot point of Moon of the Crusted Snow just as a what if, not as a how-to guide.” – CBC
Tag: 04.09.20
How Bad Is The State Of The Arts?
At least in one West Coast city – though truly, everywhere in the U.S. – “It’s pretty grim. … Everyone is experiencing the worst.” – Oregon Artswatch
Lincoln Center Has Canceled Everything Through The End Of August
No Lincoln Center Out of Doors, no Mostly Mozart Festival, no summer programming at all. – NPR
A Third Of French Art Galleries Could Go Out Of Business This Year
In 1995 46 percent of France’s galleries had to close after the art market crash. Estimates now are that one third of French galleries will go out of business due to the pandemic. – The Art Newspaper
Manchester Arts Groups Team Up To Help Artists
GM Artist Hub includes 10 regional arts groups who have banded together to explore opportunities for the area’s mostly-freelance artists and workers. – The Stage
How An Awkward, Overprotected Valedictorian Grew Into Weird Al Yankovic — And Stayed Popular For 40 Years
“For many decades, he has been trying to delight Alfred Yankovic, the bright, painfully shy kid who grew up alone in his tiny bedroom. For the benefit of that lonely boy, he reshaped the whole world of pop culture. His ridiculous music sent out a pulse, a signal, and these were the people it drew: the odd, the left out. A crowd of friends for that lonely kid.” – The New York Times Magazine
Amazon Bumps Some Sellers To The Back Of The Line. Book Sellers Are Furious
Amazon was overwhelmed by orders once retail closed and Jeff Bezos announced that all third-party merchants who sell non-essential items could no longer use Amazon’s warehouses or shipping. That includes books. Now writers are struggling to get their books sold. – The Times (UK)
Playwrights Horizons To Release Brand-New Audio Plays By Star Writers
“Soundstage, a podcast series from Playwrights Horizons announced on Thursday, allows listeners to experience world premieres by playwrights including Robert O’Hara, Heather Christian, Lucas Hnath and Jeremy O. Harris while confined safely, if sometimes uncomfortably, indoors. The podcast has been in the works for about two years, but its release date was moved up to April from the summer in response to social-distancing directives.” – The New York Times
Notes On Happiness From An Expert
“I teach a class at the Harvard Business School on happiness. It surprises some people when I tell them this—that a subject like happiness is taught alongside accounting, finance, and other, more traditional MBA fare. Nathaniel Hawthorne once famously said, “Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” This is not exactly the stuff of business administration.” – The Atlantic
A Silver Lining: Coronavirus May Have Made Dance Instagram Into What It Should Have Been All Along
Theresa Ruth Howard: “In 2018 I wrote an article about how Instagram was changing the value system of the dance world. It took to task the hyper-sexualization of the body’s facility, the fetishism of dance tricks. … Enter COVID-19. … Literally overnight, the exhibitionistic nature of Instagram was sublimated from being mainly a tool of narcissistic self-promotion (to be sure, it still is) into what could be the highest form of itself: a tool for education, nurturing an authentic community.” – Dance Magazine