She first tried to publish the novel in 1931, but its genesis was earlier. "Hurston began researching Barracoon in 1927, when she first interviewed the former slave Kossola (later named Cudj…
Nora Fischer, the daughter of the conductor Ivan Fischer and the recorder player Anneke Boeke, is mixing pop, the blues, and classical music in her performances and albums. "Her affinity wit…
Marketing - and the history of war. "Most Americans now know Ferrero Rocher by way of Nutella, but long before the hazelnut cocoa spread became an ingredient seemingly found in every trendy …
Leonard Bernstein at 100: An American Archetype My 5,000-word piece on the Leonard Bernstein Centenary, in The Weekly Standard this week, begins with a story you've never heard before:…
The film, Rafiki, was banned, and the film classification board even issued threats. "The Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) said the film 'seeks to legitimize lesbian romance.' KFCB war…
Her images (including one of her young daughter naked, sitting on a rock) often involved her children and her children's friends in odd and psychologically intense costumes, in the Australia…
The new "queens of Venice" are Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell of Grafton Architects, a practice that's been doing the work without getting starchitect status - but that could change now…
First, MoviePass changed its plan so that new subscribers are limited to 4 movies a month instead of one movie per day. Then, on Friday, the day that Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War came out…
Robbins, who directed and choreographed On the Town, The King and I, West Side Story, and many more classic musicals, returned to ballet fully in 1969 - and changed American ballet as well. …
Eudora Welty and Richard Ford will also be getting markers in a new series stretching across the state. Will Richard Wright make the cut? That's yet to be decided.
"That's the genius of the museum's design. It neither shies away from nor revels in the horrors it asks you to contemplate. ... It grabs you by the throat but makes sure not to choke you. It…
Warsaw just hosted a theatre festival with five women directors and a lot of young, fiery daring. One of the glass-ceiling-breaking women: "I'm trying to sound some kind of alarm"that we sho…
Hamill also sparked a massive movement of poets against the war with Iraq after being invited to a White House symposium in 2003. "He built a website to present the poems he received, and th…
Étienne Terrus was a friend of Henri Matisse, and the museum devoted to his works had gotten the help of the town of Elne to buy many works over two decades. Then an art historian came t…
Eleven movies, leading up to the newest Avengers show. A two-day movie marathon. "By the time Infinity War was on deck, 28 hours in, the excitement was palpable. When the 3D seemed to be mis…
Just stop already. "Each joke is played with a knowing wink, with countless call-backs to episodes of yore. It's reminiscent of a breaking of the fourth wall, but done in a fashion so grand …
How did the creative team of the Once on This Island revival make their set? They scouted in earthquake-ravaged, and rebuilding, Haiti.
U.S. college students just aren't good at essays, says one prof, and that's because no one takes those students seriously, not even themselves. "A decade teaching young writers has taught me…
Jane Rule Burdine: "I could have lived anywhere. I've traveled a great bit for work, but I came back to Mississippi because it's what I know. When I go out hunting for these photographs, it'…
The Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, frozen in September when the museum decided to deaccession and sell some of its art, represents a tiny fraction of the money that's coming in from a…
The Guardian says: "In this brittle standoff, fault lies on both sides. The French anti-streaming measures may be draconian, but resistance to Netflix's anti-cinema model is quite understand…
One theatre writer (who's white) says that it's disingenuous to have all-white casts, white directors, and white designers for plays that supposedly examine white privilege.
Wow: "There was poetic justice of a sort in the auction of the poets' belongings by their daughter, Frieda Hughes, at Bonhams in London in March. Ms. Plath's lots, which included clothes, je…
Aïda Muluneh brought East Africa's first (and still only) international photography exhibition into being, but she's doing more than that with her color-saturated studio images. "This pla…
Junior winner Christian Li "shared his win with Chloe Chua from Singapore, who at age 11 was the second-youngest to compete this year. Each of them won 10,000 Swiss francs and Li also was aw…