It started as math, transitioned to both epidemiology and morality, and now holds sway among the public as well. But the idea of a “wave” wasn’t inevitable. – Boston Review
Tag: 06.26.20
Bands Whose Names Refer To Slavery Are Changing Their Names, And Sometimes More
The band names are a symbol – just a symbol, perhaps, but a strong one. However: “The question is not, “‘hould bands whose names have ties to slavery change them?’ The question is: Are we committed to looking our awful history in the eyes, admitting that it led us to a place in which Black people in America are still systematically mistreated, and doing everything we can to fix that?” – Vice
Fringe Theatres And Pubs Are The Lifeblood Of British Theatre, And The Virus Is Killing It All
Without the small stages, emerging voices in British theatre don’t have much of a chance. One playwright: “Uncertainty is dreadfully demotivating. I intended to use the lockdown to write a new play that’s been nagging at me, but I’ve hardly written a word. For the first time in a decade and a half, I cannot see much prospect of getting it performed.” – The Guardian (UK)
Kenneth Lewes, Whose Takedown Of Homophobia In Psychiatry Changed The Official Take And Many Lives, Has Died At 76
“Lewes’s major work, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality (1988), traced the evolution of the prevailing view that homosexuality was a curable illness and explored what he called the psychoanalytic establishment’s ‘century-long history of homophobia.'” – The New York Times
What Will Success Mean When Movie Theatres Reopen In The U.S.?
Well, maybe something is salvageable (though very possibly not, as numbers of infections continue to mount): “If audiences show faith in theaters’ revamped safety, social-distancing, and cleaning protocols, this July and August’s remaining ticket returns could help reverse a death spiral that has so far yielded a barely consequential $3 million in ticket sales between April and June, and narrowed the usual field of 25 to 30 potential blockbusters to just 7 or 8 wide-release films.” – Vulture
Ola Mae Spinks, Librarian Who Used Her Own Money To Organize ‘Slave Narratives’ At The Library Of Congress, 106
Spinks was working as a school librarian in Pontiac, Michigan, when “she and a friend, also a librarian, contacted the U.S. Library of Congress and volunteered to visit Washington, D.C., to help organize the ‘Slave Narratives.'”- Detroit Free Press
In Britain, Performing Arts Spaces Say They’ve Been Hung Out To Dry
The government issued a five-step roadmap to reopening … a roadmap that “did not come with dates or monetary help attached.” One theatre executive said the roadmap was “‘as useful a map as a snakes and ladders board,’ adding: ‘We need dates, data and INVESTMENT now!'” – BBC
The Twilight Of The ‘Hero’ Statues
Most of the statues are bad art in any case, with the Confederate ones intended to pave the way toward a white supremacist future. “Even if most of the hero statues remain standing, we should follow the pigeons: Desecrate them, at least. We must activate our skepticism about the ways dubious heroes are foisted on us. And we must build new kinds of memorials.” – Los Angeles Times
Milton Glaser, Master Designer Of I Heart NY Logo, 91
Glaser, a co-founder of New York Magazine and designer of iconic images and styles, “changed the vocabulary of American visual culture in the 1960s and ’70s with his brightly colored, extroverted posters, magazines, book covers and record sleeves, notably his 1967 poster of Bob Dylan with psychedelic hair and his ‘I ♥ NY’ logo.” – The New York Times
Why Does Some Music Have Therapeutic Effects?
And can brainwaves explain it? There’s a place at “the frontiers of biotechnology and experimental music” trying to figure it all out. – Aeon