Boomers will remember the board as either a popular sort-of-board-game or the means by which the demon possessed Regan in The Exorcist. But its history goes all the way back to 19th-century Spiritualism; it was condemned by a Pope and denounced by a professor as “a serious national menace.”
Tag: 10.18.16
‘After Orlando’: Dozens Of Micro-Plays Respond To The Pulse Shooting
“The only criterion was that the plays should be around 3 to 5 minutes. By mid-August, 70 short plays had come in from the likes of Lindsey Ferrentino, Neil LaBute, Mia Chung, and Nathan Alan Davis. The plays will be presented in readings around the country … So far more than 40 theatrical institutions and universities nationwide and abroad have signed on.”
‘The Every 28 Hours Plays’ – A Theatrical Response To Ferguson, In Missouri And Nationwide
“[The projects’ founders] began reaching out to playwrights around the U.S. to see if they would write new short plays to add into the mix, and received dozens, including works from Neil LaBute, Dominique Morisseau, and Lynn Nottage. When [they] decided to put the idea on its feet in Missouri, they found that theatremakers from across the nation were interested in joining in.”
Books Stranded At Sea: Publishers’ Latest Headache Is A Bankrupt Shipping Company
“The Hanjin Shipping Company, which filed for bankruptcy in August, has seen dozens of its ships – some carrying significant orders from trade houses – stranded at sea or seized by creditors. Affected publishers range from St. Martin’s Press to W.W. Norton to Lee & Low.”
On Moral Issues, Liberals Ponder And Conservatives Pounce
“Newly published research suggests … that conservatives decide ethical issues in an intuitive, automatic way [while] liberals are more likely to give such questions serious thought before arriving at an opinion. This difference between snap judgments and reason-based conclusions ‘may be a fundamental aspect of left-right political orientation’.”
Why Do People In Old Movies Talk Funny?
As you probably noticed for the first time while watching TV late at night, actors in the Hollywood films of the ’30s and ’40s did not speak the way actors do now. That wasn’t because you were stoned; the elocution style really was different – for public figures in real life as well as in fiction films. (Think of FDR’s speeches.) Linguist John McWhorter explains why. (podcast)
Nude Hillary Clinton Statue (It Had To Happen Eventually) Appears Briefly In New York
Two months after guerrilla artists put up nude statues of Donald Trump in five US cities, “the grotesque caricature of the Democratic candidate appeared outside the Bowling Green station during morning rush hour on Tuesday [showing] Clinton with hoofed feet and a Wall Street banker resting his head on her bare breasts. The statue was up for less than three hours before an enraged woman toppled it over and started yelling at the statue’s creator.” (includes video)
Arts And Culture Make Cities Safer And Stronger, Says UNESCO Report
“According to the report’s findings, the best measure to prevent such negative effects” of rapid urbanization as social inequality, lack of parks and public spaces, the growth of slums, and even violence “is to fully integrate cultural components into urban strategies from the start.”
Are Your Paints Killing You?
“The warning labels on art supplies do not display a skull and crossbones, but alerts about carcinogens and diseases frighten artists, leading art supply stores and paint manufacturers to discontinue certain products and stock the alternative hues.”
Has Advertising Wrecked Our Access To Quality?
“There is a strange business model called advertising-supported media that was once restricted to a small area of our life, like newspapers, but now it is taking over every area of our life. I wanted to understand the history of advertising, because it didn’t simply always exist this way. You typically would just pay for stuff, like newspapers or movies. The idea of selling a captive audience had to be invented. And the normative question is: What are the costs of everything being free? Are we paying in other ways? There is a covenant that, in exchange for free stuff, we expose ourselves to advertising. But is that covenant broken?”