Los Angeles City Council Moves To Help Artists And Arts Organizations With Emergency Grants

The grants, which are also available for live performance spaces, “will take arts fees paid by developers in support of now-canceled or planned cultural events and instead make the money available as small-dollar grants.” One city councillor said, “Whether a poet, a painter or a dancer, Los Angeles needs its artists right now … and artists need our help.” – Los Angeles Times

Historically There Have Been Very Few Polymaths

Goethe genuinely advanced fields of scientific inquiry such as geology and colour theory; Nabokov is always said to have been an eminent entomologist. Leonardo da Vinci, naturally, is an obvious candidate, with his speculative drawings about engineering projects, though Michelangelo (strangely not mentioned by Burke) was probably just as successful a polymath, achieving masterpieces of the first rank in painting, sculpture, architecture and poetry. Beyond a handful of freaks such as these, we find a lot of experts who dabbled in something else — and we are left trying to admire the paintings of Churchill and Strindberg or the novels of C.P. Snow. – The Spectator

An Early Oscar Contender May Actually Have Been Helped By The Lockdown

Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always was never tipped to be a blockbuster. Her heavily realistic, light on the swelling music movie of two young women in search of at least temporary safety and medical care wasn’t meant to be a feel-good movie, either. But “Oscar buzz is now steadily building (buzz that was given a major boost thanks to the Academy’s decision to relax its anti-streaming rules for films whose cinema releases have been scuppered by the pandemic).” – The Guardian (UK)

Fred Willard, The Master Of Comic Cluelessness, Has Died At 86

His collaborations with Christopher Guest and Guest’s mockumentary ensemble were epic. “He played an Air Force colonel in This Is Spinal Tap (1984), then was travel agent/amateur actor Ron Albertson in Waiting for Guffman (1996); dunderheaded announcer Buck Laughlin in Best in Show (2000); Mike LaFontaine, blond-haired manager of the New Main Street Singers, in A Mighty Wind (2003); and smarmy newsmagazine host Chuck Porter (supposedly modeled on Billy Bush) in For Your Consideration (2006).” But that was far from all; his IMDb credit list runs to over 300 appearances, many of them as “self.” – The Hollywood Reporter

Director Lynn Shelton Has Died Of A Rare Blood Disease At 54

Shelton created and directed many small-scale, intimate indie films, funding those well-reviewed passion projects with tons of TV show work, including, recently, four episodes of Little Fires Everywhere. Her partner, the actor and podcaster Marc Maron, said, “Her spirit was pure joy. She made me happy. I made her happy. We were happy. I made her laugh all the time. We laughed a lot. We were starting a life together. I really can’t believe what is happening. This is a horrendous, sad loss.” – The New York Times