Volunteer members of an AFTA advisory council on Friday publicly called for Robert Lynch and his senior executives to resign, saying that after three months of working behind the scenes for reform, they realize AFTA is an “organization with no desire to change.” At the same time, current and former staff have alleged that senior leaders “created and condoned a hostile work environment . . . rife with bullying, intimidation, retaliation, and harassment.” – Washington Post
Tag: 12.15.20
The Birth Of America’s Penny Press
“When Benjamin Day came up with the plan of selling newspapers to the poor in 1833, he did so with the ravenous maw of poverty threatening to swallow him up…. Within four months [of its first issue on September 3, 1833], The Sun‘s circulation was 5,000; within a year, 10,000. In two years, 19,000 copies of The Sun were sold every day, making it the best-selling newspaper in the world.” – The New York Review of Books
Discovered: Earliest Known English Church Anthem Composed By A Woman
This setting of the Christmas hymn “Whilst Shepherds watch’d their flocks by night” for unison girls’ voices and organ was written ca. 1785 by Jane Savage, a composer and the daughter of one of Handel’s bass soloists, himself a composer and church musician. She created the piece for the choir of London’s Asylum for Female Orphans; as in Venice at the same time, the English capital in the 18th century had a number of institutions for abandoned or orphaned girls which became fashionable places to worship because the young ladies sang so well. – The Guardian
All Hollywood Is Furious At Warner Bros. (Nobody Blames The Streamers)
“In the aftermath of WarnerMedia’s decision to put its entire 2021 slate of films on its HBO Max streaming service the same day the titles open in theaters, the AT&T division seems to recognize the need for damage control — but not quite how to go about it.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Yves Tanguy Painting Rescued From Airport Dumpster
An anonymous businessman had been planning to bring the surrealist work, worth an estimated $340,000, with him from Düsseldorf to Tel Aviv last week — but he mistakenly left the painting behind at the airport, where cleaners saw the cardboard carton containing the painting and put it in the recycling bin. And that is where the piece was found the following day. – Smithsonian Magazine
French Arts Workers March Against Extension Of COVID Restrictions
“Cinemas, theatres, museums and concert halls had been set to reopen, but days in advance Prime Minister Jean Castex announced a change of heart in response to France’s stubbornly high infection rate. No reopening will take place now until at least 7 January. … Holding slogans like ‘we’re going to die, and not even on stage’, some of the demonstrators told the BBC of their anger and distress at the lockdown.” – BBC
Ballet Company Ordered To Reinstate Dancer Fired For Breaking Quarantine
In February, the Korea National Ballet was on tour in the city of Daegu when a major coronavirus outbreak arose; the company cancelled the remaining performances and ordered its dancers to self-isolate. Na Dae-han, a corps dancer who had achieved some fame on Korean reality TV, skipped off to Japan with his girlfriend instead, and he was sacked. Now the National Labour Relations Commission has ruled Na’s dismissal unfair and told the KNB to take him back. – Gramilano (Milan)
Bruk Up: A Street Dancer Talks About Moving In Pieces
Jamal Sterrett, 24, from St Ann’s in Nottingham, performs a style known as bruk up, which originates from Jamaica. It means thinking about your body broken up in pieces. BBC
How Country Music Obscured Its Black Roots
“Much of the history of country music has been displaced by convenient myths created during the genre’s commercialisation in the early 20th century. Travelling the American South in the 1920s looking for white performers and songs, Ralph Peers, a white record executive, played an important role in obscuring the Black roots of the genre.” – The Conversation
Black Student Expelled From Elite Private School After Mother Objects To ‘Fences’ Too Strongly
August Wilson’s prize-winning play includes heavy use of the N-word by its Black characters, and when Faith Fox found out that her 14-year-old’s class would be studying Fences, she protested to the school repeatedly. (“It wasn’t something that I thought was appropriate for a roomful of elite, affluent white children.”) She says her son was expelled in retaliation for her standing up for what’s right; the school says it was a “termination of enrollment” due to “bullying, harassment and … slanderous accusations towards the school itself” by Ms. Fox. – The New York Times