Organizations who balance growing the number of younger patrons engaging with alternative artistic product while also retaining older generations’ philanthropic support seems to be an emerging best practice for finding resiliency through COVID-19. – TRG
Tag: 09.01.20
France’s Culture Of Complaint (Just For The Fun Of It)
In France, there are several words for “to complain”: there’s “se plaindre”, used for regular old complaining; there’s “porter plainte”, for complaining more officially. And then there’s “râler”: complaining just for the fun of it. – BBC
How To Explain How New Yorkers Talk?
To an outsider, someone from, say, Toronto or Seattle or London, a conversation among New Yorkers may resemble a verbal wrestling match. Everyone seems to talk at once, butting in with questions and comments, being loud, rude and aggressive. Actually, according to the American linguist E J White, they’re just being nice. – Literary Review
Cancel Culture? This Too Shall Pass
So what to make of the apparent growing strength of cancel culture and affiliated movements? Here is the fundamental point: With the rise of social media and low-cost communications, virtually everything that can be said, will be said. – Bloomberg
Good Improv Performers Adapt To Almost Anything On The Spot. How Are They Adapting To COVID?
“An art form and industry built on ‘Yes, and …’ face a world of ‘no,’ ‘maybe,’ and ‘who knows.’ … Whether it’s reshaping content to fit a new medium, staring down the possibility of permanent closures, or facing their own reckoning with a legacy of racial and cultural exclusion, improv and comedy theatres are learning just how important it is to be able to listen and adjust.” – American Theatre
BBC Doesn’t Deliberately Favor Lefty Comedians. It Can’t Find Any Right-Leaning Ones Who Are Funny.
Earlier this week, The Daily Telegraph reported that the incoming BBC director general planned to cancel left-leaning comedy shows because the broadcaster’s comic programming was unfairly biased. However, a BBC insider tells The Guardian that network execs have been pushing for months for more balance, but “some people aren’t very good. The issue is a shortage of rightwing comics.” – The Guardian
COVID Has Made Arts Audiences Smaller, Yes, But Also Younger
Or, to put it more pessimistically/realistically, ticket sales have plummeted across the board in the US and UK, but the biggest drop has been in older audience members, according to the new report “Who is Booking Now? Changes in Ticket Buyer Demographics Post COVID-19.” – TRG Arts
Maybe We Need To Expand Notions Of What Creativity Is
Imagine instead that we worked with idea that creativity wasn’t about novelty. That doesn’t mean we’d have to give up the value of originality entirely, but rather see it as one of a range of possible outcomes. Casting a wider net in this way might hence make creativity (whatever it involves) easier to achieve. – Psyche
The Venice Film Festival Is About To Open. Will It Be Safe?
Ahead of the event guests have been sent a list of Covid-19 guidelines, including information on passing through thermo-scanners as they enter the festival and anyone found to have a body temperature of 37.5°C or higher will be denied access. The guidance also states that face coverings must be worn at all times, including in outdoor areas. It is not clear how that rule will be enforced, or whether attendees will be allowed to eat or drink while in screenings. – The Guardian
Why We’re Drawn To Stories About Monsters
Loving monsters is a love of chaos, a longing to dance a little with death to better understand the danger. Cryptid violence is more approachable than human violence. It’s easy to ponder ways to control something that is other, a thing. We’ve built entire political and economic structures based upon just that—imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism. It’s more difficult to figure out how to survive the things we do to ourselves. – LitHub