The great reckoning now sweeping across pop culture has been working through the stacks of literature for far longer. The effects of time are twofold: Most books have fallen into dust, along with the racist values they imbibed. And those few texts that survive have been subjected to rigorous — and ongoing — debate. – Washington Post
Tag: 07.07.20
Stradivari’s Hometown Became A COVID Hotspot, And Its Instrument-Makers Are Still Suffering
“COVID-19 has caused more than 1,000 deaths and 6,600 confirmed cases of infection in the province of Cremona … and it is now putting a strain on its economy. In particular, it is threatening the violin-making craftsmanship that has been the historical engine of Cremona’s industry and made its botteghe (Italian for ‘workshops’) famous throughout the world, turning the city into a microcosmic reflection of how the pandemic is jeopardizing the culture and arts sector globally.” – BBC
Britain’s Theatre World Banded Together And Got The Government To Provide Lockdown Rescue Money. Why Can’t American Theater Do The Same?
Jesse Green: “For months I’ve been waiting for industry groups to galvanize themselves into meaningful action, as they did in Britain — and as Black theater artists have proved can be done here, too. … But the American theater’s biggest failure is the one that renders it helpless in an existential crisis like this. In allowing itself to be cast as just another industry — a role it does not even play very well — it has disowned its true identity as a public entitlement. Will anyone make that argument now?” – The New York Times
What To Do With The Theatres And Concert Halls Now Sitting Empty? Use Them As Classrooms
Justin Davidson makes the case that New York City’s overburdened, underinvested-in school buildings simply can’t fit students in at a COVID-safe distance, but the currently-dark performance venues (and sports arenas and deserted malls, for that matter) can. – New York Magazine
Atwood, Marsalis, Steinem, Rushdie, Bill T. Jones Among 153 Signing Letter Warning Of ‘Intolerant Climate’ (Yup, There’s A Backlash)
“The letter, which was published by Harper’s Magazine and will also appear in several leading international publications, surfaces a debate that has been going on privately in newsrooms, universities and publishing houses that have been navigating demands for diversity and inclusion, while also asking which demands — and the social media dynamics that propel them — go too far. And on social media, the reaction was swift, with some heaping ridicule on the letter’s signatories … for thin-skinnedness, privilege and, as one person put it, fear of loss of ‘relevance.'” – The New York Times
Here’s The Full ‘Letter On Justice And Open Debate’
“The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. … The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.” – Harper’s
Big Three Movie Theater Chains Sue New Jersey For Right To Reopen
“In the lawsuit led by the National Association of Theatre Owners of New Jersey, naming Gov. Philip Murphy and New Jersey’s health commissioner, …, the plaintiffs” — which include AMC, Cinemark, and Regal — “argue that because churches and retailers have been allowed to open in the state, the movie theaters should be permitted to reopen as well.” – NPR
Artists’ Retreat MacDowell Colony Drops ‘Colony’ From Its Name (Because Colonial Oppression)
“MacDowell Board Chair Nell Painter … acknowledged that the word ‘colony’ can mean a country or given location under the control of an outside power or, as would apply to MacDowell, a community of like-minded people. But she said both definitions carry a sense of exclusion and hierarchy, and that … ‘in the language we speak today, colony is a word tied to occupation and oppression.'” – AP
Terry Pratchett’s Last Unpublished Stories Will Finally See Print
“The final collection of early stories from the late Terry Pratchett, written while the Discworld creator was a young reporter, will be published in September. The tales in The Time-travelling Caveman, many of them never released in book form before, range from a steam-powered rocket’s flight to Mars to a Welsh shepherd’s discovery of the resting place of King Arthur.” – The Guardian
Toronto Symphony Cancels 2020/21 Season
But the orchestra says it will look for ways to perform in smaller ensembles. TSO musicians will also continue to perform virtual concerts. Since the start of the pandemic, musicians and guest artists have appeared in more than 100 virtual concerts and events, which have been viewed more than two million times, according to the TSO statement. – CBC