Kris Vire: “What we have in this moment, I believe, is a theater community that feels newly empowered in the wake of last year’s explosive Profiles Theatre saga to root out bad behavior within its ranks, and a new generation of artists in the social-media age who believe criticism should be a back-and-forth conversation with many voices participating.” (Not that Hedy Weiss is planning to participate, of course.)
Tag: 06.23.17
Good News: Google Will Stop Scanning All Of Your Gmail To Help With Ad Targeting
Why? Because they care? Because they’re not doing evil? Ha! No: Because, even though the practice is only for personal email and not corporate email, the scanning “has made it difficult for Google to find and retain corporate clients for its cloud services business … due to general confusion over Google’s business tactics and an overall apprehension to trust the company with sensitive data.”
How, In This Time Of Collapsing Theatre Coverage, Is London’s ‘Theatre Record’ Still Alive?
The guy who runs it works for free, and it takes its content from printed reviews. (But are there any printed theatre reviews anymore? Or will there be in the future?)
The Huge Price Someone – Maybe All Of Us – Pays For Empathy In ‘S-Town’
The podcast, originally a discussion between host Brian Reed and a man in the town he calls “S-Town,” is now a genuine phenomenon. But what are the ethics of so many of knowing so much about the life of someone we’ve never met? “None of this is easy. Or ethically clear. But it is moving in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. One of the things a large and pluralistic society denies us is proximity. And with that denial, the lives of our fellow citizens are harder to imagine, creating a kind of empathetic poverty that erodes our shared life.”
The Making Of GLOW, Netflix’s New Women Wrestling Comedy
For one thing, all of the actors had to learn how to wrestle. “We knew from the beginning GLOW was a show about bodies and women using their bodies in different ways that they hadn’t used them before, and using bodies in ways that we as an audience haven’t seen before. It felt pretty important that, to honestly tell that story, we should show you the women’s real bodies going through this experience.”
The Slow And Semi-Secret Death Of The Electric Guitar
The industry (and music in general) needs more guitar heroes if it’s going to survive – or else technology, and the electronic music it produces, will take over.
The Walker Mounts A Show Of Jimmie Durham’s Art To A Lot More Criticism From Native American Communities
Cherokee artist America Meredith says the problem is that Durham has no documented links to actually being Cherokee, and yet, “Art historians have really latched onto him. And he represents us. He’s occupying a space. He’s written more about than any actual Cherokee artist in the literature.”
Philippe Auguin Is Leaving The Washington National Opera, But What Does It Mean When A Music Director Leaves?
Anne Midgette: “It’s important not to cling too tightly to tradition, but it remains unclear exactly what vision WNO, under Zambello, is offering to replace it.”
Why Bong Joon Ho’s New Girl-And-Her-Six-Ton-Pig Flick Isn’t With A Studio, But With Netflix
Why Netflix? Well, “plot points include a pignapping, Mija’s desperate pursuit, a bumbling Animal Liberation Front troop, an insecure corporate villainess (played with pitch-perfect iciness by Ms. Swinton) and a foray into the grisly mechanics of factory farming.” The last bit is where studios drew the line.
The World Might Be Going To Hell In A Handbasket, But These Designers Are Trying To Make It Look Pretty
For instance, at the London Design Biennale, “Guatemala, which ties for sixth place in the Global Emotions Report, will show an installation about the community action taking place in Santa Catarina Palopó. This town on the volcanic shores of Lake Atitlán is reinventing itself as a kind of conceptual art, using the paintbrush to boost civic pride and tourism. Its residents have become involved in a two-year scheme in which they are painting their houses in bold Mayan patterns, with a strict but vibrant palette of five colours sourced from local textiles.”