Today’s Stories
YouTube Stars’ New Big Thing? Excessive Over-The-Top Consumerism
After over 200 studies, we know that the more people endorse materialism, the worse their wellbeing. They’re less empathic, less prosocial, more competitive. They’re less likely to support environmental sustainability. They’re more likely to endorse prejudicial and discriminatory beliefs.” And you know, that sounds like what’s wrong with YouTube. –Wired
Google Is Building A Massive New Smart City In Toronto. Here’s What It Will Look Like
Sidewalk Labs, the smart-city startup from Google parent company Alphabet, has released its master innovation and development plan to turn a sizable swath of Toronto’s Lake Ontario shoreline into “the most innovative district in the entire world.” – CityLab
Arts Council England Plans To Include “Relevance” In Funding Criteria
“Most of us already lead creative and cultural lives: we join book clubs, we take craft classes, we stream music,” the strategy document says. “The task for the Arts Council is to enable more people to take advantage of more opportunities to develop and express their creativity, and to support them to engage with the widest possible range of culture.” – Arts Professional
Large Study: Students Who Study Music Do Better In Other Subjects
“It is believed that students who spend school time in music classes, rather than further developing their skills in math, science, and English classes, will underperform in those disciplines. Our research suggests that, in fact, the more they study music, the better they do in those subjects.” – Pacific Standard
NRA Shuts Down Production Of NRA TV, Amid Financial, Political Crisis
The development is the latest in what has been a tumultuous year for the N.R.A. It has struggled to right its finances; faced investigations in Congress and by Letitia James, the New York attorney general; and witnessed a leadership struggle that pitted Oliver North, the N.R.A.’s former president, against Mr. LaPierre. – New York Times
What Makes A Successful Theatre Artistic Director? Voices, Courage…
Joseph Haj: “When I see artistic directors who have a five-show season directing three of the shows, I think: nobody’s that interesting, nobody. I don’t care how beautiful and thrilling a maker you are, your community deserves and wants a variety of aesthetics and voices and approaches. I don’t want a season that looks too much like me.” – HowlRound
The Hottest Attraction At England’s Biggest Rock Festival Is Not A Band
It’s a 140-ton, 100-foot crane that used to lift freight at the docks in Bristol. Now — decked out with multiple speakers that shoot flames into the air, all powered by a generator that runs on recycled frying oil — it’s the center of the nighttime dance floor at the Glastonbury Festival. – The Guardian
Opponents Of LACMA’s Design For A New Campus Start To Organize
The group is primarily concerned about the latest design’s 10% reduction in size and museum director Michael Govan’s plan to disburse objects from the permanent collection to future satellite exhibition spaces in South Los Angeles and elsewhere. – Los Angeles Times
Thinking About Music As Not Just The Notes But The Cultural History In The Performance
Jeremy Dutcher incorporates in his live and recorded music an unusual and affecting act of legacy, playing transcribed wax recordings from 1911 by an early anthropologist of a tribal elder singing and speaking, and following the melodies with his own heldentenor voice and mellifluous keyboard compositions. – San Francisco Classical Voice
This Museum Wants To Repatriate Its Benin Bronze. That’s More Complicated Than They’d Expected
A Q&A with two curators at the museum at the Rhode Island School of Design about the issues of provenance, law, and diplomacy around the future return of the museum’s 18th-century sculpture of the head of a traditional Edo king. – Hyperallergic
Amazon Responds To NYT Story That Says It’s Lax On Policing Fake Books
Amazon remains defiant that it is doing more than enough to combat the issue. In its blog post, the company claimed that in 2018 alone it “invested over $400 million in personnel and tools built on machine learning and data science to protect our customers from fraud and abuse in our stores.” – Publishers Weekly
Webster Vs. Worcester: America’s Dictionary Wars
As the desire for an authoritative dictionary of American English developed in the first half of the 19th century, there was a serious battle between the partisans of Noah Webster — who was passionate and devoted, yes, but whose definitions could be, well, idiosyncratic, and whose ideas about spelling reform were mocked — and the more scholarly Joseph Emerson Worcester. Who won? Not Webster, though it may look otherwise. – Aeon
When A Philosopher Is Forced Not To Think
Being a philosopher on brain rest is like being a point guard on hand rest. The major asset for your profession is suddenly not working reliably. – The New York Times
Breakdancing Is About To Become An Olympic Sport
“Breakdancing moved a step closer to the 2024 Olympics on Tuesday, and now organizers can look to book a street venue in Paris. Called breaking in Olympic circles, its medal debut was last October at the Buenos Aires Youth Summer Games. The street dance competitions will have 16 athletes in each of the men’s and women’s medal events in Paris.” – Yahoo! (AP)
When Norman Mailer Covered The Moon Landing (It Wasn’t Pretty)
“Mailer on the moonshot: loads of words, loads of money. A big deal for Life magazine. And for Mailer? Grim opportunism. Out of tune, bardically bereft, plucking (as it were) flaccid strands of sheep’s gut, he was ripe for anticlimax. But he needed the cash.” – The Atlantic
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Is It Time To Boot Renoir From The “Great Artists” Canon?
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Sviatoslav Richter Was One Of The World’s Great Pianists. But Then He Met A Lobster
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Oregon Bach Festival’s Executive Director Out, Two Years After Firing Of Artistic Director Matthew Halls
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The Sultan Of Oman Is Trying To Establish A Major Opera House
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Some Good News From Nôtre-Dame: Near-Exact Replica Of Clock Destroyed In Fire Found
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Director of Collections and Research – National Museum of Wales
National Museum Wales – Amgueddfa Cymru – is the most important cultural institution in Wales and a leader in the UK in public engagement and cultural participation. It holds internationally … [Read More...]
Arts Professionals: Would You Like to Work with a Ghostwriter on Your Memoirs?
Before you dismiss the idea... Read Lillian Shelton's "A Shelton Story: Memories of a Secrest Series of Events," which I ghostwrote. In it, Lillian draws on her memories of directing the … [Read More...]
The Chamber Music Society seeks a Public Relations Manager
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center seeks a creative, high energy, collaborative Public Relations Manager to design and execute all public relations outreach for this premier international … [Read More...]
Beta Blockers (And How I Became Utterly Hooked On Them)
Shannon Paulus discovered them in college and found them a sort of miracle cure for pre-performance anxiety, just as so many performers have. Then she learned the hard way about the dangers of dependence on them. She recounts how she got herself hooked and unhooked — and looks into a company that’s making it way too easy to get a prescription for them online. – Slate
Marvel Comics Moves Into Theatre With Series Of Plays For High Schools
“As if dominating movie theaters weren’t enough, Marvel is about to move into high school theater as well. The publisher has announced a partnership with theatrical publisher Samuel French to offer three one-act plays featuring Marvel characters created specifically for the high school market under the umbrella banner Marvel Spotlight.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Bass Spiro Malas Dead At 86
“A stalwart at New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, [he] was celebrated for his acting ability. His voice was modestly scaled, but he used it cannily, always finding ways for voice and gesture to illuminate character.” – Opera News
In Times Like These, Are Jewish Jokes Still Funny? Let’s Ask The Comics Who Tell Them
“As anti-Semitic rhetoric and hate crimes resurge, is it still funny for us to be our own punching bags? Is it safe? In joking about money, neuroses, and the demasculinized Jewish man, are we subverting stereotypes or playing into them? We spoke with 13 Jewish comedians about telling Jew jokes in the age of Trump and how to turn cultural punch lines into sources of power.” – Vulture
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Cinema Is Not An Oxymoron. It’s A Real Genre
“Haredim – a Hebrew word meaning ‘those who tremble at the word of God’ that encompasses a multiplicity of ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects – tend to isolate themselves from secular society, which they see as a threat to their traditional way of life. They generally appear to shun film and television, so it is a surprise to discover that many have been making films with considerable zeal, viewed by both religious and secular audiences, for some time.” – The Guardian
Baltimore Symphony Nearly Doubled Its Debt In Less Than Two Years
“The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra owed its vendors $2.1 million as of late April … That’s almost an 81% increase over the $1.2 million the orchestra owed to merchants as of Sept. 25, 2017.” – The Baltimore Sun
Some Good News From Nôtre-Dame: Near-Exact Replica Of Clock Destroyed In Fire Found
“With original drawings lost and no digital records, photographs of the historic clock were the only clue experts had about how they might rebuild it. Then French clockmaker Jean-Baptiste Viot stumbled across an almost identical version while completing an inventory last month at Sainte-Trinité church in northern Paris.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Joyce Pensato, 78, Artist Who Gave Cartoon Characters De Kooning-Like Intensity
Robert Smith: “She subverted both sides of the high-low equation, ridiculing and exaggerating Abstract Expressionist technique while imbuing popular culture characters with raw, uncontrollable feelings that were more real and gripping than the angst of the Abstract Expressionists.” – The New York Times
Auction Of Caravaggio Discovered In Attic Called Off
“Judith and Holofernes, which was found under an old mattress in the attic of a house in the French city of Toulouse, was snapped up by a foreign buyer, the auction house selling it said on Tuesday.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Anna Burns’s ‘Milkman’ Gets Another Major Award, The Orwell Prize
The novel, which has already won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has received the first-ever Orwell Prize for political fiction. The more-established Orwell Prize for political non-fiction writing went to Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing. Both books concern the Troubles in Northern Ireland. – The Guardian