Tag: 07.17.20

Christopher Dickey, Journalist And Memoirist, Dead At 68

“A foreign correspondent who wrote books about terrorism and international intrigue” — he worked at The Washington Post and Newsweek for many years and at his death was world news editor of The Daily Beast — “but who was perhaps best known for a revealing memoir about his tortured relationship with his father, the renowned poet and novelist James Dickey.” – The Washington Post

How To Improve The Livability Of Our Cities

If there’s one lesson to be learned from the pandemic, it’s the benefits of flexibility. In a matter of months, we’ve converted parking spaces into cafés, restaurants into food pantries, closets into broadcast centers, parks into hospitals, hotels into homeless shelters, porches into concert stages, and laptops into schools. Surely, in the coming years, we can figure out how to recycle empty storefronts for needs we didn’t know we had. – New York Magazine

Zizi Jeanmaire, Ballerina Who Became Famous Actress And Cabaret Legend, Dead At 96

Trained at the Paris Opera Ballet, she became an international star in the title role of Carmen by her husband, choreographer Roland Petit (for whom she continued to dance for decades, sometimes with the likes of Nureyev and Baryshnikov as partners). She went to Hollywood and starred alongside Bing Crosby in Anything Goes. Back in Paris, where she and Petit were the toast of high society, she became queen of the city’s music hall scene, decked out in resplendent feathers for her signature tune, a lewd little number called “Mon Truc en plumes.” – The Washington Post

How We Get Facts To Bend To Our Prejudices

“We keep hearing that this is a post-truth era, that feelings beat facts, people no longer care what’s true, and we’re heading for ruin. Opponents of Brexit and Donald Trump not only found those victories intolerable, but many refused to believe them to be legitimate, instead supposing that lies had swayed a docile population. This idea of a gullible, pliable populace is, of course, nothing new. Voltaire said, ‘those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities’. But no, says Mercier, Voltaire had it backwards: ‘It is wanting to commit atrocities that makes you believe absurdities’.” – Times Literary Supplement

Tony Elliott, 73, Founder Of “Time Out” Publishing Empire

According to the publisher’s own history, Elliott founded the magazine during a summer holiday from Keele University, where he was studying. “He produced the first edition on the kitchen table in his mother’s house in Kensington with £70, part of a recent 21st birthday present from his aunt.” It began its global expansion in 1995 with the launch of Time Out New York and the process continued in the following decade. – The Guardian

What Disneyland Means To Southern California

It may be closed on its 65th anniversary, but that’s the only appropriate choice. “For me and many Southern California residents, Disneyland is more than a theme park; it is where I go to write, to read, to reset. It represents something between a living pop-art museum and an emotional retreat. Mostly it’s an invitation to play, and when I play I’m calm. Yet I would not be calm if I were inside Disneyland right now.” – Los Angeles Times

UK Theatres And Other Cultural Venues Plead For Better Guidelines, More Money

Opening with socially distanced audiences on August 1st? Not likely, say theatres. “For most theatres it will not be economically viable to reopen with 30%-40% audience required under social distancing. … We now need to progress as quickly as possible to an announcement on the all-important stage five. Without this, most theatres cannot reopen viably.” – The Guardian (UK)