A show with 121 episodes? Sure. What’s going to interrupt you – your baking plans? In addition, of course, there’s the comfort-watch of familiar characters like the cast of Friends or Living Single. Then there’s the pleasant idea of things changing. “Character-driven shows about crime soon became my balm for the unrelenting sameness of daily life. These worlds follow a consistent storytelling logic. The plot changes as time moves along, and time—unlike in real life—always moves along.” – The Atlantic
Tag: 12.17.20
Some Writers Spend Their Time On Christmas Novels All Year Long
Not so easy this year. “‘It’s the least festive I’ve ever felt in my life,’ Ashley says, of writing A Surprise Christmas Wedding amid the gloom of 2020. ‘Every word was a struggle.'” – The Guardian (UK)
The Psychology Behind Great Gift-Giving
Givers might favor the beautiful and dramatic because they think about gifts in the abstract: “What’s a good gift?” Recipients, in contrast, imagine themselves using it, and so focus more on utility. – The New York Times
Late-Night TV’s Trump Problem
Trump has been a singular challenge for writers in the late-night landscape. An obvious target as a candidate—with his verbal gaffes, body language, and appearance contributing to facile impressions and shallow punchlines—he killed the joke when he won the White House. As president, he placed traditional late-night shows in “a rock-and-a-hard-place situation. – The Atlantic
Theatre That Steps Outside The Theatre
“We are all here because we believe in the power of theatre, right? We think it has the power to change minds, to catalyze conversations, to shift narratives. But we most often limit that to what’s on our stages, with the goal that our mostly wealthy, mostly white patrons might see our groundbreaking show and say, “Wow, I never knew that.” But if we approached theatremaking as cultural workers, we wouldn’t be measuring success only by the number of tickets sold, and our programming choices wouldn’t be driven primarily by the institution’s need to sustain itself.” – American Theatre
Laid-Off Publishing Pros Reject Corporate Publishing To Start Their Own Press
In its revamped form, Spiegel & Grau will produce 15 to 20 books a year, as well as original audiobooks and podcasts. It will also work on television and film adaptations and already has signed a first-look deal with Amazon Studios to develop projects from its titles. – The New York Times
Robert Musil As Playwright
The author of The Man Without Qualities worked in the theaters of Vienna as both critic and playwright. Author Genese Grill looks at how Musil’s two completed plays fed his most famous novel. – Literary Hub
The Complicated Career Of Louis Armstrong
Meeting culture in the middle meant Armstrong could change things from within. The list of firsts he oversaw is staggering. Knockin’ a Jug, which featured black and white musicians, was one of the US’s first integrated recordings. That same year, he cut the first integrated vocal duet, Rockin’ Chair, with white singer Hoagy Carmichael. Black and Blue, a 1929 B-side on Okeh Records’ “popular music” listings (a label that had previously marketed him for “race records”), has been called American music’s first bona fideprotest song against racial inequality. – The Guardian
Dorothy Gill Barnes, Sculptor In Wood And Tree Bark, Dead Of COVID At 93
“From strips of mulberry tree bark, she produced an intricate vase. To make a stout bowl, she folded hunks of poplar bark. She once wove a basket on a loom with lichen. She also created sculptures from wood, like a hollowed-out oak tree she encased with apple suckers and a work featuring branches of cherry and paulownia linked together like a necklace with glass and wire.” – The New York Times
How To Deal With Offending Classics?
“The art of dance is distinct in being the single art in which the body is the most easily decontextualized from the surrounding work—in order to be consumed as if it existed in and for itself. Yet, in the present controversies that swirl about nineteenth-century ballet classics such as La Bayadère, those which display the racial stereotypes of Orientalism, the problem is more complex than that of bodies alone.” – MassReview