“Although movies and television have long toyed with doomsday scenarios, we’re now seeing deeper, more poignant treatments of the issue, with scenes of children and young adults trying to grapple with their fears about a fast-changing world.” – Washington Post
Tag: 06.30.19
Smithsonian Declines Senator’s Request To Remove Sackler Name Of Its Building
In a letter to Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley dated Friday, new Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III reiterated the institution’s position that it is legally bound to keep the name of the late benefactor, Arthur M. Sackler, who, in 1982, donated 1,000 objects and $4 million toward the construction of the museum. – Washington Post
Whitman and Music: A Fresh Discovery
The best setting of Walt Whitman’s words by an American composer may just be a 30-minute radio play by Norman Corwin and Bernard Herrmann. – Joe Horowitz
Help For Dave Frishberg
Pianist, singer and songwriter Dave Frishberg has suffered medical setbacks that have led him and his wife April to seek help in meeting his long-term health care needs. – Doug Ramsey
Microsoft’s Ebook Apocalypse And The Very Dark Side Of Digital Rights Management
You know you’re just sort of renting those ebooks you supposedly bought, right? Well, let the demise of Microsoft ebooks explain it all to you. “The digital bookstore never took off. As of April 2, it halted all ebook sales. And starting as soon as this week, it’s going to remove all purchased books from the libraries of those who bought them.” Sorry, what? Yes. If you bought Microsoft ebooks, they’re soon to be gone. – Wired
Understanding Social Media As Just One More Way Of Controlling Women
Start with the murder of a social media star, and you unravel a thread that ends up in a particularly unsavory place. “It can very quickly spiral from someone disliking an opinion you have to real violence. It’s really not just a case of words on a screen. This is an exciting time for us. Groups that were previously marginalised – queer groups, religious minorities – have found a space online. It is a moment of real freedom. But it comes with real danger. We’re starting to be smarter about online safety, but then, so are the people who don’t like our opinions.” – The Observer (UK)
When Judith Krantz Died Last Week, Did The Era Of ‘Bonkbusters’ Come To Its End?
Possibly. “Krantz was the ‘queen of the bonkbuster,’ those glitzy novels with their gaudy covers and snappy often one-word titles – Scruples, Lace, Rivals – that dominated commercial fiction in the late 1970s and 1980s, spinning stories of fabulous lives lived at full tilt and stuffed full of sex, secrets and shopping.” But they were so much more than that: “They are also part of a rich tradition of novels which place women’s interior lives and, most importantly, their sexual desires centre-stage.” – The Observer (UK)
Problem In Music: Even Taylor Swift Doesn’t Own Her Own Work
Not only has her former label not let the singer buy back her own masters, but Scooter Braun, a powerful music mogul whom Swift calls a manipulative bully, has bought the entire label (likely sold to him specifically because Swift wouldn’t re-sign with her former label). It’s a nightmare scenario for many singers and singer-songwriters. “‘This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept,’ Swift wrote on Sunday.” – The New York Times
What Happens When You Put Two National Poet Laureates In The Same Room
When the poet laureate of Scotland meets the poet laureate of the United States … no, not the start of a joke. “Both strongly believe in poetry as a means of fostering empathy by inhabiting different characters and different selves. ‘In a way I think of your work as a great opera of voices,’ [Jackie] Kay tells [Tracy K.] Smith. ‘It’s almost like you’re saying that all of these human beings come through us, that we’re not one person, we’re many.'” – The Observer (UK)
Creating A Visual History Of LGBTQ Life Before Stonewall
Of course, LGBTQ life didn’t start in 1969 – but there’s not a lot of visual record out there, at least not in public. The director of 1982’s Before Stonewall reflects on her archival research and the difficulties along the way as the film gets a re-release for the 50th anniversary of the protests/riots/major point in the fight for civil rights. – The Atlantic