Hollywood

Get into the spirit of the season with creepy, overly capitalistic Christmas commercials from the 1980s. “Taste all the ways butter helps your holidays throughout the year!” [YouTube]
On the history of classical Roman torture in Hollywood film. [The Awl]
Adrian Chen follows Swedish journalist Robert Aschberg, whose TV show Troll Hunter confronts Internet trolls IRL. The point, according to Aschberg: “The agenda is to raise hell about all the hate on the Net.” [Technology Review]
Sound art 101: Know what a “gremlin” is. [Leonardo Music Journal]
Good news for the ICA: Political activist Barbara Lee has gifted the museum with over 40 artworks, many by female, international, and politically active artists. [Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston]
Mo’ money for the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which has decided to start charging admission. [Hyperallergic]
A little history lesson on the Shanghai art scene in the 1980s: “[a]rt from the end of the Cultural Revolution through to the mid-1990s was insufficiently modern, fashionable, and avant-garde, and was at best expressing rebellion against a restrictive social environment.” [LEAP]
David Carr goes on WBUR to discuss the massive blow visited upon American freedom because, following terrorist threats, movie theaters unanimously decided not to show The Interview. Barely mentioned is the fact that trailers present the film as a buddy movie about a dictator who is STARVING PEOPLE, sending them to labor camps, and killing all who try to escape. Or the fact that this was not a case of government censorship but decisions made by private theaters who chose not to sell this product. But we as a nation suffer, because our comedies have been jeopardized. If the premise weren’t so ignorant, I’d put it on par with hate speech. We are a nation of assholes. [WBUR]
Jerry Saltz complains about not getting paid. This, from the man who just weeks ago, told artists to “[g]row up. Stop feeling deprived. You will never have enough money. You will never get enough love.” [Twitter]
A history of the candy cane reveals that they are not a “J” for Jesus, but the result of a fortuitous manufacturing malfunction. [The Smithsonian, via Metafilter]

Hollywood

L.A. Art Diary: Week One

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Hollywood

L.A. Art Diary: Week One

Friday Links: “J” Is for Jesus

New Study Finds Grim Numbers on Hollywood’s Diversity

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