In the newsletter: Disney Plus reactions and the season finale of In the Making

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Hi, art lovers!

If there's only one thing my friends, work-family and strangers want to talk about right now, it's not the fact that Werner Herzog keeps up with the Kardashians...though that delicious bit of trivia is definitely related.

It's not something we covered this week, but...what's the deal with Disney Plus, everybody? Did you get it? Did technical glitches force you to wait around like a chump while you were trying to get it?

Honestly, I've yet to sign up. (Though if I do, this doc series about theme park "Imagineering" is going to be at the top of my watch list.) Going off this info, their selection old-timey titles is massive. It's not exhaustive, however. (Where is The Monkey's Uncle? And The Gnome-Mobile? We've been robbed!)

But more culturally relevant omissions have been generating plenty of discussion around what should — and shouldn't — be exhumed from the Disney vault, especially when it comes to stuff that's problematic by 2019 standards. (Or any standards, really.)

Some controversial items have been scrubbed (e.g. the Michael Jackson episode of The Simpsons). A bunch of titles now carry warnings about "outdated cultural depictions." And while I don't think anyone really, truly could have expected to find Song of the South waiting for them on the Disney Plus landing page, that particular missing movie has generated most of the discussion. (There's even a podcast series on the subject.) Here's one take on how confronting the racist chapters of Mouse House history could have been an opportunity for Disney. And, as this Slate column points out, you might be floored by just how many, er, "teachable moments" are hiding in that library already.

And because we promised you eye candy

Ekow Nimako's always playing with Lego. (At least, we've covered plenty of his projects before.) But he's never built anything quite like this. This Tuesday at Toronto's Aga Khan Museum, he'll unveil an all-Lego city — his utopian vision of a Ghanaian metropolis.

30 years ago, the Berlin Wall came down. This wave of 120,000 ribbons marks where it stood. (Installation by Patrick Shearn. The piece was on view Nov. 4 to 10.)

These dreamy new paintings by Stephen Appleby-Barr are helping me embrace the winter weather. (See his work at Toronto's Nicholas Metivier Gallery to Dec. 6.)

Watch this episode of Art 101 before clicking. (See more of Mark Liam Smith's paintings at Montreal's Galerie Youn, Nov. 21 to Jan. 18.)

You've got to see this

That's a wrap on Season 2 - In the Making is done for another season, and for the finale, we're following Rebecca Belmore — one of the most acclaimed artists to ever come out of this country and the first Indigenous woman to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale. Before you press play on the episode, hear from director Amar Wala. Says Amar: "I knew this one would need to be special."

More than a memorial tattoo - Gregory Williams runs Haida Inkk on Haida Gwaii, and when someone comes into his studio asking for a memorial tattoo — a common request no matter where you live — the job's always an honour and a privilege. It's also a request that he understands on a very personal level. After Gregory's daughter died of cancer, tattooing became a way of keeping her spirit alive. Watch a clip from This Ink Runs Deep.

The making of In Pose - Another week, another trip to the NSCAD Lithography Workshop. This time around, meet Brendan Fernandes as he develops a piece referencing the Pulse nightclub tragedy in Orlando, Fla. (Missed last week's newsletter? Here's some background on our new series of NSCAD videos.)

Follow this artist

Maria Nguyen (@dtnart) - Maria's a Toronto-area illustrator whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the Guardian and The Believer. (I could go on.) But when she gets a chance to draw for herself...things get creepy. As she recently told us: "I love horror just because I love exploring what makes you feel really uncomfortable, and I think fear is that emotion that makes us all super uncomfortable. It's pure instinct when we react to fear."

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Until next week!

XOXO, CBC Arts