Ask some science writers. Or, if you want to stay happy, maybe don’t. “The most optimistic scenario they could muster: a series of deescalating surges, mitigated by a slowly disseminated vaccine and perhaps some herd immunity.” – Los Angeles Times
Author: ArtsJournal2
Thinking About Indie Bookstores
One bookstore near the High Line in New York: “The last day we were open, I asked customers where they were from. Turned out that they were all British flying back home. The last sale was to an Englishman, who bought Albert Camus’ The Plague. We wished each other luck.” – The New York Times
Boston Lyric Opera’s New Conversation Series Tries To Reckon With A Legacy Of Racism
Series host Celeste Headlee says, “The idea has been to create discussions that are not just listening sessions, not just another forum in which people talk and bare their souls, and well-meaning executives nod their heads and then change nothing. We want discussions centered around finding practical, actionable solutions, and an environment in which people can voice hard truths without others feeling defensive.” – Boston Globe
Exploring What It Means To Live In A Body
The artist Senga Nengudi’s early sculptures became icons of the Black Arts Movement – and she’s still exploring the ways the body shapes art, and art, along with dance, can distort and reflect, especially, a Black female body. – The New York Times
Anne Hathaway Apologizes To The Disability Community About Her Character In The Witches
Hathway’s character had three fingers on one hand – and the film made that a stand-in for her character’s evil. “The disability community reacted to the now-streaming film with disappointment, sadness, and outrage.” – Los Angeles Times
Do Directors Need To Be Jerks To Make Good Art?
Writer, director, and actor Marielle Heller, who’s starring in the new Netflix serial The Queen’s Gambit, thinks not. The director of Can You Ever Forgive Me? also says, “Writing, directing – it’s just torture every time and it doesn’t seem to get any easier. And yet I love them and I’m not going to stop doing them.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Vatican Library Enlists An Army Of Bots To Protect Its Online Library
Hackers threaten the Vatican’s digital holdings at a rate of more than three a day, the library says. “The library, founded in 1451 by Pope Nicholas V, is one of the world’s most important research institutions, containing one of the finest collections of manuscripts, books, images, coins and medals in the world. The digitisation of 41 million pages is intended to ‘preserve the content of historical treasures without causing damage to the fragile originals.”’ – The Observer (UK)
Another Kind Of Virtual Theatre
The kind that’s in print – “a book reflecting on what it means to make theatre at a time when live performance is effectively halted.” Depressed playwrights, this one’s for you. – American Theatre
Defending Short Stories, And Not Being The Only Black Writer In The Conversation
Danielle Evans says, “Stories work in compression and intensity, and their structure helps me get to the place where everything collapses or the threads come together. It can echo some of the intensity of how being alive feels.” – The New York Times
The Daring Kurdish Artist Who Smuggled Her Work Out In Turkish Prison’s Dirty Laundry
Zehra Doğan had little access to visual art materials during her imprisonment in Turkey, where she was jailed for painting a Kurdish town that was destroyed by Erdogan’s government in 2015. “With no paper, Doğan used newspaper, cardboard and clothes as canvases. For paint, she found that crushed herbs made green, kale was a substitute for purple, and pomegranate or menstrual blood could be used for red. Blue ballpoint pen, cigarette ash, coffee grounds, pepper and turmeric make up much of the rest of her prison palette.” – The Guardian (UK)