“The EU considered” – and has now rejected – “a restriction on cadmium [paints] following pressure from Sweden, which argued that artists pollute the food chain when they rinse their brushes in the sink. Cadmium ends up in sewage sludge and is then spread on agricultural land … Cadmium in its pure form is highly toxic, but the cadmium compounds used by artists are not classified as hazardous.”
Tag: 10.29.15
When An Author You Translate Gets Death Threats
“Acclaimed Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk (pictured) has received a steady stream of hate mail and even death threats after questioning her country’s view of itself as ‘an open, tolerant country.’ As one person put it in a post to Tokarczuk’s Facebook page, ‘The only justice for these lies is death. Traitor.'” And when translator Jennifer Croft set up and English-language Facebook page to support Tokarczuk, she found herself in the line of fire.
Shakespeare’s Globe Performs ‘Hamlet’ In Syrian Refugee Camp
“Aiming to visit every country in the world to commemorate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, and the 400th anniversary of his death, it has visited 136 countries out of 196. The only country the company could not get permission and insurance to visit was Syria, so they performed in the Zaatari refugee camp on the Jordanian border to an entirely Syrian audience.” (photo journal)
Important Things We Can Learn From Reality TV
“Can America really be healthy if it wants to watch Survivor, Joe Millionaire, Paula Abdul, the Situation, or the Kardashians? But now that reality TV has been revealed not as some malignant mind fever but another genre of entertainment, as great or foul, good or bad, watchable or unwatchable, as any other, let’s appreciate when it gets this deep.”
Impostors – Can Identity Be Chosen Or Must It Be Inborn?
“Caitlyn Jenner identifies as a woman, Rachel Dolezal as black. Why should one be legitimate and the other condemned?”
This ‘X-Files’ Episode Was Basically Banned From TV For Being Too Terrifying
“It just seemed like such a horrifying situation, and I’d been trying to use it. So we had been working out the story where there was another brother under the bed, and Jim Wong one day goes: ‘It’s the mother! The mother’s under the bed!’ And I felt Freud and Joseph Campbell do back flips, and that was that.”
What The iPod – Now 14 – Did For Us All
“I gave in and bought a 160-gig iPod Classic, which remains the closest thing to an emotional holodeck. … Photos are souvenirs, but songs are a means of reliving.”
When Celebrities Go To Broadway Plays, Who’s Paying Whom For What?
“Even with all the greatest copywriters in the world, it’s hard to improve on ‘Love Love Loved,’ especially when replete with visual aid and the concise hashtag ‘greatforhiphopheads.’ One can only hope the affection was genuine and spontaneous, rather than a matter of shared interests. Not that we would really know, either way. Given the intricate networks of agents, executives and representatives at the upper echelons of the entertainment business, I suspect there were elements of both.”
39 Theatres Have Pledged Their 2020 Seasons To Diversity
“Last week, they unveiled what they call ‘The Jubilee’: an initiative inviting theatres across the nation to pledge to produce only plays written by women, people of color, LGBTQA individuals, and writers with disabilities for a whole season.”
WQXR Music Editor Fired For Plagiarism
“The stories in question were found to contain descriptions, phrases and sentences that duplicate or closely resemble work that was previously published elsewhere. An NPR.org copy editor uncovered the connections last week while working on one of Brian Wise’s stories.”