Amazon Pulls Out Of Plans For Queens – When Company Culture Doesn’t Need Local Grief
Amazon had a deal and could have simply gone ahead. But the company had no allegiance to Queens and no need to be where it wasn’t wanted. “Amazon’s retreat from Queens shows us the dynamics of a new local power game — one in which giant tech companies play on the same field with governments, as equals, with equal influence over our economies and communities.” – Axios
The Tart, Testy ‘Vinegar Valentines’ Of The 19th Century
In the Victorian Era, if you wanted to break up with someone around Valentine’s Day, or if you simply wanted to let that special someone know how much you detest them, there were cards available at the stationer’s to suit your purpose. – Atlas Obscura
Arts Philanthropy Is Losing Out
Unfortunately, big-ticket philanthropy is in the middle of a protracted sea change that is already having a direct effect on the arts. Thirteen years ago, the Journal reported that younger new-money donors were increasingly choosing to give it not to fine-arts organizations but to humanitarian causes like AIDS research and education reform. In 2013, Bill Gates put his seal of moral approval on this new tendency by declaring in an interview with the Financial Times that donating money “to build a new wing for a museum rather than spend it on preventing illnesses that can lead to blindness” was, in his words, “slightly barbaric.” – The Wall Street Journal [paywall]
This Theatre Keeps 180,000 Bees On Its Roof
Sian Alexander, executive director of the Lyric Hammersmith theatre in London, writes about how, as part of the organization’s Green Strategy, three hives were installed on top of the building (with a substantial harvest of honey as a result). – Arts Professional
Study Suggests That Small Teams Of Scientists Are More Innovative Than Large Ones
In the largest analysis of the issue thus far, investigators have found that the smaller the research team working on a problem, the more likely it was to generate innovative solutions. Large consortiums are still important drivers of progress, but they are best suited to confirming or consolidating novel findings, rather than generating them. – The New York Times
‘Leonard Bernstein’s Black America’
“[Lenny] marched in Selma with Harry Belafonte, he brought black conductors to Tanglewood in the ’50s and in the ’60s integrated the Philharmonic by hiring violinist Sanford Allen. To raise money for civil rights organizations, he also hosted jazz in the afternoon at his house, and when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, he called for André Watts to play Beethoven at the memorial.” Here’s a one-hour audio documentary by WQXR host Terrance McKnight on Bernstein’s activism for racial equaliy. – WQXR (New York City)
Did Dan Mallory Also Plagiarize His Best-Selling Novel? (Along With His Other Problems)
The parallels are numerous, and detailed. Both novels feature anxiety-ridden, middle-aged female narrators who are afraid to leave their homes, and they witness something suspicious while spying on neighbors. The stories have nearly identical plot twists in the final act. “It is the EXACT same plot like down to the main characters’ back story,” one person wrote in an Amazon review comparing the two books. “Sorry but there’s no way the amount of stolen material is a coincidence.” – The New York Times
The Naked Pharaoh Speaks! Anthony Roth Costanzo On How Playing Philip Glass’s Akhnaten Has Changed Him
“In fact I have the show to thank for discovering electrical muscle stimulation (EMS), which uses electric current to amplify your workout and actually builds muscles much faster than I could on my own. I liked it so much that I gathered investors and started one of the first EMS companies in America (seriously).” – The Guardian
See What The Sydney Opera House Would Have Looked Like If They’d Chosen A Different Architect
The Herald offers visualizations, in situ on the tiny peninsula in Sydney Harbor, of half a dozen of the runners-up in the competition to design what was meant to be Australia’s new national opera house. (Personally, we think the panel made the right choice.) – Sydney Morning Herald
Why Tamara Rojo And Akram Khan Were Brave Enough To Redo ‘Giselle’
Rojo: “I wanted to do a classical ballet from a new point of view, and I wanted the hardest one … I had seen the Björk film Dancer in the Dark, and I kept thinking: This is Giselle, and it is possible to tell this story in a new context.”
Khan: “When Tamara asked me, I did think a bit: Are you mad? I had barely seen a ballet, and knew nothing about Giselle.” – The New York Times
Minnesota Public Radio Opens New Online Portal For Immigrants
“Sahan Journal is the brainchild of Mukhtar Ibrahim, who began his career as MPR’s first Somali-American reporter before joining the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He … said he wants Sahan to be ‘a one-stop shop for all things immigrant in Minnesota.'” – Current
Art Dealer Mary Boone Sentenced To Prison For Tax Fraud
“After pleading guilty in September to filing false tax returns that claimed she had taken in millions of dollars less than was the reality, Mary Boone — an art dealer with roots in New York’s 1970s-era SoHo scene and galleries in the present in Midtown and Chelsea — was sentenced on Thursday to 30 months in prison in New York’s Southern District Court. – ARTnews
Chicago Symphony Musicians Vote To Authorize Strike
“Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians voted on Wednesday evening to authorize a strike that would begin on March 10, if contract negotiations are not resolved. … At issue are pension, health care and salary.” – Chicago Tribune
Boston Symphony And Principal Flute Elizabeth Rowe Settle Equal-Pay Lawsuit
“A landmark pay-discrimination lawsuit filed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s star flutist, Elizabeth Rowe, has been settled out of court after successful mediation between the two sides. ‘While the details of the resolution are confidential, all those involved in the process are satisfied with the result,’ according to a joint statement from the BSO and Rowe issued by the orchestra Thursday afternoon.” – Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA)
Publisher Betty Ballantine, Who Helped Create The Modern Paperback, Dead At 99
“Paperbacks had existed in the U.S. since colonial times, but in the 1930s were limited mostly to poorly made ‘pulp’ novels. … [Betty and her husband Ian] started out as importers of Penguin paperbacks from England and founded two enduring imprints: Bantam Books and Ballantine Books, both now part of Penguin Random House.” – Yahoo! (AP)
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This Year’s Serpentine Pavilion Will Look Like Floating Clouds Of Slate
Architect Junya Ishigami’s design for the outdoor structure “will be part rock face, part smog cloud, as if a landslide from an open-cast slate mine had been cut from a hillside and transported to the leafy royal park.” – The Guardian
Playback Theatre As Therapy For Traumatized Syrian War Refugees
“The [program] was organized by Fighters for Peace, which was founded in 2014 by former Lebanese militia members who took part in their country’s destructive 1975-90 civil war and are now peace activists. They have been using playback theater for years as part of their campaign to promote peace and try to prevent another breakout of war in Lebanon.” – Yahoo! (AP)
Government Audit Slams France’s National Workshop For Historical Furnishings
“The Mobilier National, which was set up in the 17th century to decorate royal palaces and continues to restore and supply fine furniture and tapestries for the Elysée Palace and Versailles, needs to be ‘radically reformed’, according to a report by its auditors. National audit office inspectors, which found large quantities of alcohol in Mobilier National’s workshops, said staff were often absent and used tools and equipment to ‘moonlight’ on their own projects.” – The Local (France) (AFP)
Dolly Parton Expands Her Free-Books-For-Kids Program To A Fifth Country
“Ireland becomes the fifth country to benefit from Parton’s generosity, joining the US, UK, Canada and Australia. It’s another welcome step forward for a charity” — the Imagination Library — “that recently celebrated giving away its 100 millionth book (yep, you read that right: One Hundred Million books).” – Melville House
Falling Into The Rabbit Hole Of The Internet (Never To Be Seen Again)
Previously these communities were imposed on us, along with their mental weather. Now we chose them – or believed we did. A person might join a site to look at pictures of her nephew and five years later believe in a flat earth. – London Review of Books
Why We Dance: Six Seattle Dancers Explain
Staying in love with dance takes grit. Choosing to pursue a lifelong relationship with dance involves the risk of physical injury, financial instability and the ups and downs inherent in a creative passion-driven career. – Crosscut
Leonard Pitts: On Writing About Race In America
“A simple thought experiment illustrates the point. If asked to define black literature, you would likely—and promptly—invoke Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison or some other dark-skinned giant of the written word. But what if you were asked to define “white” literature? The mind quails and resists, does it not?” – LitHub
We Need A Different Way Of Thinking About Digital Art
The art market is tied to the system of uniqueness. It is still hard to sell digital files on sticks. But uniqueness contradicts with the nature of digital work, as digital files are identical and can be copied endlessly. This cries out for a new attitude towards digital art and its value that does not lie in uniqueness. It is the opposite. It lies in the accessibility of the works for everyone, from every part of the world. – The Observer
The Viral Influencer Market – How Organizing Attention Works
Sociologists Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport have studied the ways that protest tactics and schemes have spread out of political culture and into other spaces, especially entertainment. They coined the phrase “ubiquitous movement practices” to describe how petitions, boycotts, and the like—once tactics used solely for political goals—are now deployed across all kinds of social and cultural concerns from trying to ensure Family Guy remains on the air to trying to get the Postal Service “to issue a Marx Brothers stamp.” – The Atlantic
ABT To Perform On Cruise Ships
The company will offer guest performances on selected Celebrity Cruises vessels. Said executive director Kara Medoff Barnett in a statement, “American Ballet Theatre’s mission is to bring the best of ballet to the widest possible audience. We are thrilled to redefine ‘widest’ to now include audiences at sea.” – Orlando Sentinel