It’s a candy Venice. A Venice of candy and gingerbread, royal icing (“basically like glue”) and buttercream for decoration. And when roofs collapse? The teams soldier, or solder (with buttercream), on. – NPR
Tag: 12.08.19
Teenager Admits Attempted Murder In Throwing Boy From Tate Modern Balcony
The now-18-year-old said he did it because “he had to prove a point ‘to every idiot’ who said he had no mental health problems, asking police if it was going to be on the news.” – BBC
Styling ‘Orlando’
Orlando, a new opera based on Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a time-traveling, gender-bending love letter to her aristocratic lover Vita Sackville-West, “is the first opera commissioned from a female composer by the Vienna Opera in its 150 years of existence.” They wanted to get the costumes right, so they commissioned designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, who is a bit busy. She says, “There were 36 main costumes for the principals, plus 106 others for the choruses and other groups. I accepted to do the costumes on condition that … I could use the theme of “Orlando” for the two Paris collections proceeding it.” – The New York Times
Caroll Spinney, Long The Voice Of Sesame Street’s Big Bird And Oscar The Grouch, Has Died At 85
Spinney created two indelible characters, and, in his long tenure on Sesame Street, assisted in the creation of many more. “His Big Bird had a childlike innocence, sometimes goofy, sometimes subdued, outgoing or shy, like most children a creature of habit and mood. His themes were simple: that it was good to speak up, O.K. to make a mistake, all right to be sad sometimes. At Jim Henson’s memorial service in 1990 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Big Bird sang a heart-rending farewell, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.'” – The New York Times
France Wants To Rein In Big Tech
Digital taxes are only a start, says France’s digital affairs minister. “More important? Targeting the biggest tech companies—most of which are American—with new regulations to prevent them stifling competition and damaging democracy.” (Er, and part of the plan is designed to help French entrepreneurs and their start-ups.) – Wired
African And Arab Filmmakers Put Their Focus On Genre
Films and filmmakers from Africa and the Middle East have had a good year at A-list film festivals, including Mati Diop and her Atlantics, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes. “The ‘new wave’ of Arab and African cinema includes a small group of films that explore links with genre cinema – including fantasy, sci-fi and horror – which is related to a broader trend in literature and the contemporary arts in the Arab world that is exploring dystopias and fantasy settings.” – Variety