Tag: 01.04.20

‘There Is More Theatre In Here Sometimes Than In The Outside World’: At Milan’s Home For Retired Opera Divas

Yes, divos too. Since 1902, funded by revenues from the composer’s operas, Casa Verdi has been an old-age refuge for singers and musicians, not all of them famous. Today, some 60 retirees live there, paying according to their means. And, since 1999, they’ve been sharing the home with 20 music students, the elders providing the youngsters with lessons and guidance and the students livening up the place. – The Guardian

TS Eliot’s “Muse” Ordered Her Letters Released 50 Years After Her Death. But Eliot Prepared A Response!

Twenty-four hours after the release of Emily Hale’s letters, the TS Eliot Foundation published a statement from beyond the grave, written by the author of the letters himself in 1960 and expressly designed to accompany their unveiling. There is, indeed, a statement about the statement – “It has come to my ears that she [Hale] has added, or is preparing to add, some sort of commentary of her own”. There then follows what appears to be a piece of pre-emptive exculpation, complete with reference to Henry James’s exploration of unscrupulous literary wrangling, The Aspern Papers, and an account of the changes in Eliot’s feelings towards Hale over the decades. – The Guardian

Norway Debates The Ethics Of Writing A Near-Autobiographical Novel

Vigdis Hjorth’s novel, in which a woman in her 50s reveals to her family that her father sexually abused her as a child, has touched off a debate in Norway – and fury in her own family. “Hjorth’s sister, Helga, a human rights lawyer, responded to the book by writing a novel of her own, Fri Vilje (Free Will), in which a character suffers the trauma of living with the public fallout from a narcissistic sibling’s ‘dishonest’ autobiographical novel.” – The Observer (UK)

Terry Gilliam Calls The Me Too Movement ‘A Witch Hunt’ And Says That He’s Tired Of Being Blamed For Things

As they say, he could just have said nothing, and no one would have had to figure out that complicated dance of dealing with sexist whining from a(nother) beloved filmmaker. Instead, he”has invited renewed backlash after repeating his claim that he is a ‘black lesbian in transition,’ assailing the #MeToo movement as a ‘witch-hunt’ and asserting that some of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged victims are ‘adults who made choices.'” – The Guardian (UK)

What’s Going To Happen To This 10,000-Member Writers’ Association If It Can’t Get Itself Together About Racism?

The RWA is still embroiled in an ongoing and, it seems, widening scandal about its leadership. Karen Grigsby Bates says of the organization for the most lucrative sector of publishing: “If they don’t adjust to change and format themselves so that the people that they want to reach, that they need to reach feel included and welcome, they will find that they have a much smaller organization, if they have an organization at all.” – NPR

Even Comic Book Characters Created In 2011 Need A Makeover After *That* Decade

Marvel’s Miles Morales – the star of Into the Spider-Verse and a lot of comics, books, animated series, and a game – needed help as the decade went on. See, “despite Marvel’s financial interest in expanding the diversity of its characters during and after the election of President Barack Obama, they initially charged very few writers and editors of color with the creation and development of these characters.” (Things have been improving, but there’s a ways to go.) – Los Angeles Review of Books