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
Blog
Record Intact: Boston’s H&H Extends Its Streak To 167 Years Of Messiahs. Here’s How
The period-instrument orchestra first performed the resplendent “Hallelujah” chorus during its inaugural concert in 1815, presenting the American premiere three years later. In the centuries since, H+H has often performed the storied oratorio, including, for the past 166 years uninterrupted, annual holiday performances that have sustained Bostonians through the Great Depression, two World Wars, 32 presidencies, the Civil War, and the Spanish Flu pandemic. – Boston Globe
Regrets About The Life You’ve Lived?
“The thought that I might have become someone else is so bland that dwelling on it sometimes seems fatuous,” the literary scholar Andrew H. Miller writes, in “On Not Being Someone Else: Tales of Our Unled Lives” (Harvard). Still, phrased the right way, the thought has an insistent, uncanny magnetism. – The New Yorker
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
What It’s Like To Be A Trans-Gender Opera Singer
“I couldn’t acknowledge that I was transgender or even queer until 2010, when I was studying voice at St. Olaf College. I was confronted with difficult realizations about who I am that I couldn’t reconcile with my plan to become a classical singer. Suddenly I was caught between two options: to live an authentic life or to keep studying voice. Maybe I was offering myself excuses, but I wasn’t willing to stop singing, so I didn’t change course. It wasn’t until January 2020 that I came out publicly as a transgender woman.” – OperaCanada
2020 Is The Year TikTok Started Transforming The World
“Now, at the end of 2020, TikTok is the most downloaded app of the year – and it’s changed an awful lot more than just how we consume media online.” Among other things, the app and the brief little videos on it have altered the way online comedy, activism, meme culture, and collaborative art. – BBC
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