Tag: 05.07.19

Study: Country Music Is Getting More White, More Specifically Male

“Contemporary country celebrates heterosexual men in blue-collar occupations just like the genre did in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. But the ideal rural man is now depicted as a particular type of heterosexual provider, while white women have increasingly been represented as the ideal sexual objects to complement this masculinity.” – Pacific Standard

Putting Saul Bellow’s ‘Adventures Of Augie March’ Onstage — Can It Work In 2019?

In Chicago, where Bellow spent his life, playwright David Auburn (who won the Pulitzer for Proof) has reshaped the hefty novel into a single-evening play with 13 actors portraying 40 characters. But will today’s audiences relate to a story by an author who, as one of his biographers puts it, is “lucky he did not live to see the #MeToo movement”? – The New York Times

Writing Now Pays So Badly That You Have To Marry Well Or Inherit Just To Afford To Do It: Report

“The full findings from the annual Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society report into author earnings … [reveal that,] while the average professional writer earns £10,000 a year, the mean earnings for a writer’s household were more than £81,000 a year, and median household earnings were at £50,000 per annum.” – The Guardian

CBS Censors ‘The Good Fight’ Segment About China

The streaming series, a spinoff of the old broadcast series The Good Wife, is known for its satirical Schoolhouse Rock-style cartoons called Good Fight Shorts. Last week, in place of the Short, the audience saw 8½ seconds of a placard that said “CBS HAS CENSORED THIS CONTENT.” Many viewers figured it was satire. It wasn’t. Emily Nussbaum reports on what went down at CBS. – The New Yorker

Dave Chappelle Awarded 2019 Mark Twain Prize For American Humor

“Known for his incisive, off-kilter and sometimes controversial approach to joking about race, family and relationships, Chappelle has influenced a generation of younger comedians since becoming a national sensation with Chappelle’s Show, his early 2000s sketch comedy series on Comedy Central. His subsequent sudden retreat from the public eye added a layer of mystique, but Chappelle has been actively performing stand-up since 2013 and has since won two Grammys and two Emmys.” – The Washington Post

Lucerne Festival Bosses Axe Easter Festival And Piano Festival

While things will proceed as planned for the rest of this year, from 2020 onward, the Lucerne Festival will redirect focus and resources to its flagship late-summer event and its in-house orchestra (directed by Riccardo Chailly) and academy. Consequently, the satellite Lucerne Easter Festival and (late-autumn) Lucerne Piano Festival are being eliminated by the artistic director and board, who have determined that those events are “strategically of lesser importance” to the Festival’s brand. (in German; for Google Translate version, click here) – Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich)

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui At The Royal Ballet

“Despite running a ballet company — and his many commissions for ballet companies — Mr. Cherkaoui is still largely seen as a contemporary dance-maker … [and he] seem[s] half-amused, half-pained by the idea that he is seen as an outsider in the ballet world.” Reporter Roslyn Sulcas talks to the choreographer about his new work for London’s august ballet troupe, Medusa. – The New York Times