September 18, 2021
Paris is taking space back from cars. Here's how.
The Liberation of Paris From Cars Is Working - "The French capital is quickly cutting automobiles out of daily life. David Belliard is the deputy mayor behind it."[1,2] (previously) [more inside]
Three and/or Sixty-One Literary Bears
Patricia Lockwood (LRB, 08/12/2021), "Pull Off My Head": "Is Bear one of those 1970s books about growing out your armpit hair? Kind of, but not only. Is it a metaphor for our relationship to nature? Fuck off." Marlena Williams (LitHub, 10/23/2020), "Sylvia Plath... Nature Writer?": "'The Fifty-Ninth Bear' taught me about the darker, sulfuric thing bubbling under the surface of love, and I became a person suspicious of heterosexual romance, uninterested in marriage." Naomi Ishiguro (Granta, 02/03/2020), "Bear": "For a moment I was almost proud of her, even if it did mean we had to bring back this vast sixty-five-pound bear, to share our home with us."
FULL BEAST
The Bangladesh Safety Accord has been renewed.
Originally postponed for renewal by the pandemic, garment brands and global unions have come to an agreement on workplace safety. The original accord grew out of a response to several factory fires in Bangladesh in 2010 where workers were killed due to unsafe working conditions. The deal has only been renewed for two years, and many major US brands, such as Walmart, the Gap, JC Penney, have refused to sign it. It has received scant attention in US mainstream media.
H&M and Zara are among the major brands that have signed on to renew; however, campaigners are calling upon everyone to do more, to also protect workers wages. [more inside]
Assassins
Stephen Sondheim was being stymied by historical events. After the truly massive success of Into The Woods, he delved into darker subjects for his next show, 1990's Assassins. An exploration of the American Dream and the broken people it fails, the show opened Off-Broadway just a month before the First Gulf War began. Public sentiment during wartime didn't favor criticism of US culture, and the show never transferred to Broadway. When it finally did land on The Great White Way in 2004, THAT production was delayed from its intended 2001 opening due to 9/11. Here is a "C-grade" VHS audience filming of the Broadway Production from 2004, with Neal Patrick Harris and Michael Cerveris. It's watchable, but it isn't great. [more inside]
“I’ve had the greatest job... and I feel like the luckiest person"
After a 35-year run leading Chicago’s most prestigious theater company, Goodman Theatre artistic director Robert Falls is to resign, effective at the end of the current season in August 2022. [more inside]
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