In case you didn’t get enough Trump trauma in 2015, the Donald’s campaign got back to work in 2016 with his first official television ad. Team Trump reprises all the hits — a wall to keep the Mexicans out, an immigration ban for Muslims, making America great again — it’s predictably upsetting on every level.
Obviously you have to watch it.
If the future looks so bleak, how do we even go on? If you live in New York, I recommend attending Laurie Anderson’s documentary screening/concert for dogs in Times Square Monday night. Anderson will play low-frequency melodies on her violin for any dogs passing through at 11:30 p.m. Dogs are invited to sit at Duffy Square and listen, according to The New York Times. Some of their masters will get the chance to listen, too: because of the frequency, people won’t really be able to appreciate the music, but the organizers will give sets of headphones to 350 lucky attendees so that at least a few humanoids can appreciate it.
For those who can’t listen, there will also be an extremely abridged version of Anderson’s documentary, Heart of a Dog, playing on some of Times Square’s billboards. The whole installation is part of “Midnight Moment,” a project that briefly turns Times Square into an art gallery.
A dog concert sounds like something you’d see on a daytime talk show. Coincidentally, there were a couple of big announcements in that world. First, NBC announced that it’s managed to convince Ellen to keep dancing her afternoons away on the network, all the way through the summer of 2020.
At the same time, one of her network dance partners has gotten the boot: NBC cancelled the Meredith Vieira Show after two years. Deadline reported that Vieira will stay at NBC to cover the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this summer, so maybe that eases the pain a bit.
Given the increased influence of video games on popular culture in 2015, culturally minded people who haven’t been playing games should probably resolve to start paying more attention to the medium this year. Rather than diving into the deep-end and struggling through all of the problems of the unfamiliar medium, it might be better to see the industry through a more idealistic lens: Gamasutra released a list of game developers’ New Year’s resolutions for 2016. Even a quick glance will show that game-makers have similar aspirations (and presumably face similar challenges) as other types of artists you may already admire. Artists: they’re all the same!
Even Michael Bay, whose Transformer movies have caused intergalactic conflict time and again. Don’t remember it going that way? This Monster Movie-style trailer by Mashable will remind you how things really went down.