The Culture Ministry demanded that the Moscow Open International Book Festival cancel a scheduled play titled The Soul of a Pillow for promoting homosexuality. (Also censored, for naughty language, was the grown-up play Herbivores.) Said the Ministry’s letter, “The content of both plays goes against the traditional moral values of Russian culture.”
Tag: 06.10.14
Star Filmmakers Petition Putin To Release Director Jailed For ‘Terrorism’
“A who’s who of European directors” – among them Pedro Almodóvar, Agnieszka Holland, Stephen Daldry, Béla Tarr, Wim Wenders and Mike Leigh – “have signed a letter to Vladimir Putin and Russian leaders seeking justice for Oleg Sentsov, the Ukarainian filmmaker who was arrested by Russian authorities on May 11 and is believed held in a Moscow prison.”
Audra McDonald Replies To Criticism Of Her Tony Speech
“Every parent, when faced with a decision like that, makes it on the basis of real, personal and specific circumstances relating to their child. For some, the right decision is to medicate, for some it is not. … I’m positive that your son will someday recognize that he has a mother who is fiercely devoted to him and that every decision she ever made was out of love for the child he is and the adult he will become.”
We Had No Future In Cuba, Say Defecting Ballet Dancers
“‘In Cuba, there is a lot of monotony,’ Carlos Ignacio Galindez said. ‘In every sphere: Sports, arts, engineering, computer science. And as a professional, you always feel a bit stuck’.”
Amazon Is Fighting With Yet Another Big Supplier: Warner Home Video
“The Everything Store is shrinking again. Amazon customers who want to order forthcoming Warner Home Video features, including The Lego Movie, 300: Rise of an Empire, Winter’s Tale and Transcendence, are finding it impossible to do so.”
How I Set Out To Prove That Vermeer Used A Camera (By Meticulously Reconstructing ‘The Music Lesson’)
“Tim Jenison, a Texas-based inventor, attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in the art world: How did Dutch master Johannes Vermeer manage to paint so photo-realistically 150 years before the invention of photography?”
Scanning Books For Searchable Database Is Not Copyright Violation, Finds U.S. Court
“The creation of a full-text searchable database of millions of books is a fair use of copyrighted works, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, saying it also is permissible to distribute the books in alternative forms to people with reading disabilities.”
Florida School Cancels Summer Reading Program Rather Than Include Cory Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’
“The principal’s complaints included that Little Brother endorsed hacker culture and questioned authority, according to Doctorow” – who proceeded to have the book sent directly to students and to make it available for free download.
What Does Soccer Mean Today?
“My first question, then, was how soccer affects the life of a country. My second was how the life of a country affects its soccer.” (Yes, even ArtsJournal will glom onto the World Cup.)
The Tony Broadcast Cut The ‘In Memoriam’ Segment – And Lots Of People Are Unhappy
Said one Broadway producer, “It looks like somewhere along the way theater people have lost control of the Tonys, and CBS is pushing them around. So we end up with a star like Jennifer Hudson singing a song from Finding Neverland even though she isn’t in the musical – and the musical isn’t even on Broadway.”