“This week, The New Yorker attached its own extraordinary editor’s note to a National Magazine Award–winning 2018 article by staff writer and novelist Elif Batuman about Japan’s so-called rent-a-family industry, in which desperate and lonely people hire actors to play their absent fathers, wives, children, and so on. The New Yorker reported that three central figures in the story had ‘made false biographical claims to Batuman and to a fact checker,’ undermining the veracity of large swathes of the article and revealing this particular rent-a-family business to be something of a scam.” Ryu Spaeth looks into how and why this could have happened. – The New Republic
Tag: 12.17.20
Pay Cuts At U.S. Orchestras May Last Beyond The Pandemic
“While musicians at some major ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, have agreed to steep cuts that would have been unthinkable in normal times, others are resisting. Some unions fear that the concessions being sought could outlast the pandemic, and reset the balance of power between management and labor.” – The New York Times
Classical Music’s Real Heroes Of 2020? Video Engineers
“Crowds of listeners gathering in front of crowds of musicians has been all but impossible, so ensembles have rushed to replace in-person performances with online programs — often well produced and sometimes more daring than the live concerts that had originally been planned. In the process, media departments, now much more than promotional supplements, have been the linchpins.” – The New York Times
Unknown Shirley Jackson Short Story Published For First Time
“Adventure on a Bad Night,” brought to print by the magazine The Strand, “shows a microcosm of the racism and sexism in US society through a dissatisfied woman’s trip to a corner shop … [where] a pregnant immigrant … is being verbally abused by a shop clerk after asking for help.” – The Guardian
French Senate Nearly Squashed Return Of Statues To Benin
“On Thursday, the French Senate blocked a bill that would bring 26 statues back to Benin and a sword from West Africa to Senegal. Then, the National Assembly, which has the power to rule on matters on which the Senate cannot reach a consensus, decided that the plan must move forward, putting France on track to repatriate the objects within a year.” This after the Senate unanimously approved the plan last month. – ARTnews
By The Numbers: What Theatre Looked Like In 2019
“A bright spot in the report indicates that the U.S. professional not-for-profit theatre field attracted an estimate of 38 million audience members to 180,000 performances of 21,000 productions in 2019, and more than one million Americans subscribed to a theatre season that year.” – American Theatre
All The Ways Senator Mike Lee Is Wrong In Blocking A National Latinx Museum
“There is a vacuum when it comes to the representation of Latinos in U.S. culture and that vacuum gets filled by figures like Trump, who regularly vilifies Latinos, describing Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists.” As I’ve written in the past, the cultural arena offers little to counter to these depictions: it’s either a steady diet of stereotype (maid and drug trafficking roles in Hollywood movies) or just straight-up invisibility.” – Los Angeles Times
Queering The Christmas Pantomime
“Madre Goose tells the story of an LGBTQ+ community of activists rallying against gentrification and materialism. All the wacky costumes, silly characters and daft jokes are as you’d expect from panto, but it has punk songs, psychedelic green-screen backgrounds and embraces inclusivity.” – The Guardian
‘Burroughs and the Dharma,’ the Real Story
James Grauerholz: “William was not a Buddhist: he never sought or found a “Teacher,” he never took Refuge, and he never undertook any Bodhisattva vows. He did not consider himself a Buddhist, nor — for that matter — did he ever declare himself a follower of any one faith or practice. But he did have an awareness of the essentials of Buddhism, and in his own way, he was affected by bodhidharma.” – Jan Herman
Why Right-Wing Talk Radio Is So Effective
Good talk show hosts know their job isn’t to find or interview “good guests”; it’s to build a trust relationship with their audience, cemented over years, caller after caller, day after day. Truly effective hosts like Limbaugh and Michael Savage talk to their listeners as if they’re close and trusted friends. This is a dynamic unavailable to podcasting or television, as it is impossible to replicate without live listener interaction. – The Nation