No, it’s not a traditional practice, but there are pallbearers in Ghana who (at the bereaved’s request) will execute some slick moves while toting the coffin on their shoulders. The social mediaverse, as it’s wont to do, has turned images of these dancers into a meme — first to make fun of epic fails, now to express coronavirus dread and warn people to stay home and wear masks when out. Writer Dan Schindel makes the case that the choreographed casket carriers are just a 21st-century variant of a meme that goes back to medieval Europe. – Hyperallergic
Tag: 04.23.20
4’33” In Midtown Manhattan: Exploring How Coronavirus Has Changed The Sound Of The City
Karissa Krenz: “Perhaps the coronavirus is forcing us to have an extended performance of John Cage’s … groundbreaking 1952 work that epitomized his every-sound-can-be-music philosophy. … I’ve been taking some of this time to listen anew, experiencing the sonic composition of a paused city. … Hearing it now, slowed to a relative calm, it speaks volumes about what comprises the whole.” – WQXR (New York City)
How Locked-Away Artists Are Expressing Themselves
Practical concerns aside, it can be difficult to keep creating during a pandemic that has already killed more than 180,000 people worldwide. Even so, people who need to express themselves through their art are finding new ways. – The New York Times
Ten Playwrights Are Working On A Coronavirus Serial For YouTube. Does It Qualify As Theater?
Turns out not even the people involved agree on the answer to that. Absolutely not, says Ryan Rilette, artistic director of metro DC’s Round House (the theater behind the project): “You can’t actually capture the quality of being with a group of people, breathing the same air, listening to a story together.” But playwright Alexandra Petri (yes, the Washington Post columnist), who wrote the first episode, says that “[it’s] fundamentally a 10-minute play, but it happens to be set inside your computer.” – The New York Times
Was This The Social Media Of The 1700s?
In 1769, amateur historian James Granger published the Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution. It was an interactive book, aimed at collectors of printed images—a popular new hobby at the time. The Biographical History featured portraits of historical figures and blank leaves to let readers take notes referring to their own collections. Soon, collectors went beyond the book’s intended use, instead adding their own portrait collections directly inside. – JSTOR
How’s The American Shakespeare Center Hanging On? By Improvising
“With no clear indication when the theater might be deemed safe to reopen, [managing director Amy] Wratchford and her remaining team (all on half or quarter salary) have written contingency operating plans, only to have to crumple them up and formulate new ones. … [The company is] converting its ticket-buying lists into class lists and turning some of what’s executed on its modern-day Renaissance stage into teachable moments online.” – The Washington Post
Private Freedom Versus Public Interest: Houston, We Have A Problem
The logic of private interest – the notion that we should just ‘let the market handle it’ – has serious limitations. Particularly in the United States, the lack of an effective health and social policy in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has brought the contradictions into high relief. – Aeon
Why The Met Opera’s Big Online Gala Is Controversial
Saturday afternoon’s At-Home Gala, the brainchild of Met general manager Peter Gelb, will have opera stars performing live on the Web from wherever they’re waiting out the COVID lockdown. What’s the controversy? Detractors say that a company that furloughed all its staff performers and declared force majeure to break soloists’ contracts has no business asking those people to perform for free. “But with one or two exceptions,” Gelb tells David Patrick Stearns here, “everybody leapt at the idea of doing this.” – WQXR (New York City)
‘Hell No, We’re Not Opening On Monday’: Movie Theaters Resist Political Pressure To Put Butts Back In Seats Now
“They don’t want to be lumped in with meatpacking plants and senior centers as hot spots for the virus. Already struggling financially, theaters fear that a too-soon return could stigmatize them as dangerous places to congregate. And with new movies from Hollywood not set to debut until the middle of July — at the earliest — opening too soon would only make operators spend money before they could truly recoup costs from patrons.” – The New York Times
Fox News Tries Using First Amendment To Defend Its Now-Retracted Reporting On Seth Rich’s Murder
The Democratic National Committee staffer was shot during a mugging in the summer of 2016, but a conspiracy theory, developed in right-wing circles and repeated on Fox News, claimed that Rich was murdered because he (not Russian hackers) handed DNC emails to WikiLeaks. Rich’s parents and brother have sued, and the network has suffered serious fallout (hence the rare retraction). Fox execs are now claiming that the First Amendment means one of their reporters can’t be forced to give a deposition; the plaintiffs maintain that deliberately false reporting is not protected. – The Hollywood Reporter