How Sonos Is Building The Audio Internet
"Over time, everywhere that you might want to enjoy music—in different rooms of your house as well as outside the home—we want to have a product that serves that scenario really well, and also any content that's relevant to you. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to summon that up wherever you are. All of our work is going into those areas. And again, when I say content it's not just music. It's sonic culture umbrella in general: podcasts, entertainment, TV soundtracks, things like that." … Read More
As Streaming For All Media Grows, Physical Books Are Holding Their Own
The oldest form of physical media is actually holding up quite well. According to PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2018–2022, the consumer market for physical, printed books is holding its own in an increasingly digital world (see “Print Presses On”). Between 2018 and 2022, sales of physical video games, home video, and music are expected to decline each year, in some instances by double-digit percentages. By contrast, sales of physical books are expected to grow modestly, by about 1 percent annually, every year. … Read More
Streaming Services Are Inadvertently Recreating The Cable TV Model
The digital landscape is already fragmented, and it’s continually fragmenting further, as content creators choose to become content providers. In the process, it’s beginning to resemble cable television. Each new app or content library looks like a different channel to consider, and each one is essentially a premium cable offering that requires a separate subscription to view. Services that previously acted as content aggregators are losing outside content with the launch of each new service. Instead, they are creating their own content to maintain value in a crowded marketplace. … Read More
Is The American Guitar Industry Making A Comeback?
According to the National Association of Music Merchants, a trade organization in the music industry, the demand for American-made guitars rose year-over-year with unit sales increasing by 7.03%. And overall, the total retail value of guitars sold — $1.3 billion in 2017 — indicates a rebounding industry. … Read More
Cause For Concern: When Tech Companies Ban Beyond Alex Jones…
It's a serious mistake to frame the debate about content moderation around right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones's Infowars and not around the thousands of other moderation decisions that have been made by such online giants as Apple, Facebook, Google-owned YouTube and Spotify. … Read More
Big Public Radio Merger
Minneapolis-based Public Radio International will merge with PRX, a Boston audio technology company, the firms said Wednesday. The combined organization will reach an audience of 28.5 million people each month in broadcast and online, and have 56 million monthly podcast downloads. … Read More
The U.S. Poetry Establishment Is Finally Becoming Diverse – And Audiences Are Responding
"Skim the table of contents of the major literary journals, ... and even general-interest weeklies with vast reach such as The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. Scan the recipients of the prestigious and sometimes lucrative fellowships, awards, and lectureships ... The face of poetry in the United States looks very different today than it did even a decade ago, and far more like the demographics of Millennial America. ... These outsiders find themselves, at the very start of their careers, on the inside — and not just of a hermetic realm of poetry ... At literary festivals, many of these poets are drawing big crowds." … Read More
How Tate Gallery Revitalized Liverpool
"Coming from the Left, my idea of economic regeneration was to do with factories and shipyards - the idea that art could be an economic driver didn't figure for me. But, looking back, that was out of date. I would never have guessed that tourism, looking at things and shopping could have become economic drivers, but they have. In some parts of Liverpool, you are more likely to hear Spanish than Scouse." … Read More
How Susan Sontag Staged ‘Waiting For Godot’ In War-Torn Sarajevo
Twenty-five years ago this Friday, Sontag's production of Beckett's play premiered in the besieged, hungry, surrounded-by-snipers Bosnian capital. Two actors who participated and a local journalist who was there recall how it happened. … Read More
Excitable: The Age Of The Rampant Exclamation Point!
Are we doomed to live in a world where every sentence will need to have a minimum of three exclamation points in order to be read as anything less than outright hostile? … Read More
What’s The Most Important Idea Ever To Come From India? Nothing
Which is to say, zero. "The invention of the zero was a hugely significant mathematical development, one that is fundamental to calculus, which made physics, engineering and much of modern technology possible. But what was it about Indian culture that gave rise to this creation that's so important to ... the modern world?" … Read More
Solving The Book Storage Problem
In recent years, there’s been a rejection of the stodgy old alphabet in favor of organizational principles driven by color, size and genre. I blame online shopping. Aesthetics in literature are important, but literature as aesthetics makes me nervous. When did a candle-topped pyramid of paperbacks become a symbol of depth? If you line up your novels in rainbow order but don’t Instagram them, were they ever really there? … Read More
A ‘Spotify For Cookbooks’ Is Coming
"Like Spotify, for a fixed monthly fee ($8.99 in the U.S.), users can browse CKBK's collection of more than 500 cookbooks and 100,000 recipes, which [co-founder Matthew] Cockerill said was just a starting point. 'We have a huge pipeline of content that we will add to the service as it grows,' he said." … Read More
Is Luck Just A Subjective Judgment?
Pick up any newspaper and you’ll find stories – survivors of terrible plane or automobile crashes, or patients with dread diseases who live past their predicted expiration date. Invariably they are described as hugely lucky. That’s puzzling on the face of it; you’d think that somebody really lucky wouldn’t have got cancer or been in a terrible wreck to start with. Such cases raise interesting questions about the nature of luck. Is it something real or is it purely subjective, just a matter of how we happen to feel about the things that happen? … Read More
MoviePass Is Re-Enrolling Customers Who Cancelled – Without Asking Them
August 15 is the effective date for the troubled company's revised subscription plan, which limits customers to seeing three movies per month and excludes certain hit films. "Some fed-up users who decided to cancel their MoviePass subscriptions are receiving confusing emails that suggest the company has enrolled them in its new, modified plan without their consent." … Read More
Premium Classifieds
Chief Financial Officer
Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the American theatre, seeks a dynamic and entrepreneurial Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to assume a pivotal role in the overall management … [Read More]
Executive Director of the Office of Arts and Culture
The City of Phoenix seeks an experienced, innovative and collaborative leader to fill the position of Executive Director of the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture. This executive-level position … [Read More]
Chief Development Officer, Miami City Ballet
The prestigious and internationally acclaimed Miami City Ballet seeks a Chief Development Officer to establish a best-in-class fundraising operation, advance the development strategies of the company, … [Read More]
Farewell To Sharknado, ‘The Silliest Movie Franchise Ever’
It's here: The Last Sharknado: It's About Time. Stuart Heritage offers a valedictory, if that's the word: "[The first Sharknado] had an irresistibly silly premise (a tornado made of sharks threatens America), a knowing line of stunt-casting (Ian Ziering and Tara Reid) and a big fat wink instead of any emotional stakes ... As tends to be the case with successes like these, sequels were greenlit that only helped to diminish the punchdrunk silliness of the first film. Slowly, the films began to eat themselves." … [Read More]
How Should Arts Orgs Present Work Whose Creators Are Now Seen As Morally Reprehensible? Here’s A Case Study
Journalist Cynthia Durcanin at how the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston have handled this year's Casanova exhibition, whose curators weren't exactly expecting the #MeToo movement when they started planning the show in 2014. … [Read More]
David Hallberg Explains Why He And ABT Launched Their New Choreography ‘Incubator’
"A new commission [from ABT] is a risk best handled by the choreographers who can produce works that offer seasoned polish and dependability. ... And although, in the history of large commissions, there inevitably exists a freedom of creative impulse, that freedom must not reach too deep, for the fall off the cliff is steep and far. There is simply too much at stake: time, money, reputation. I have always wondered, Where then do choreographers get the freedom to potentially fail?" … [Read More]
Cleveland Museum Of Art Unveils First ‘Diversity, Equity And Inclusion Plan’
"Two years in the making, the plan outlines broad changes in how the museum will hire and train employees, buy goods and services from vendors, collect and exhibit art, and educate students. The goal is to eliminate barriers for historically underrepresented groups in every aspect of the museum's operations." … [Read More]
Star Actor Asks His Twitter Followers If It’s Okay To Play An Irredeemable Racist
Vincent D'Onofrio posed the question over the weekend and a 3,800+-tweet thread arose, including a number of responses from fellow actors and further contributions from D'Onofrio himself. As Patricia Hernandez reports, "opinions were all over the place." … [Read More]
Architects Are Protesting Museum Of Contemporary Art San Diego’s Expansion Plans
"At issue is the removal of elements of MCASD's 1996 expansion, since it's the only project in San Diego County designed by Venturi Scott Brown (VSB), a Philadelphia firm worshipped in the architecture world." The objections are to both the changes to VSB design elements in the building and the disruption of the museum's carefully constructed spatial relationship with the street and downtown La Jolla. … [Read More]
What New York City Ballet Is, And Isn’t, Looking For In An Artistic Director
The company has released a five-page job description (described by a board member as a "wish list") for a replacement for Peter Martins. Michael Cooper offers a few excerpts from the document and analysis of what these "wishes" include (a "humane leader") and leave out (being a choreographer). … [Read More]
Peter Martins, Former New York City Ballet Chief, Convicted Of Drunk Driving
The 71-year-old, who retired from City Ballet late last year amid controversial charges of violent bullying and sexual harassment, was found guilty for an incident that happened in late December. This is his second conviction on a charge of driving while impaired. … [Read More]
Jazz Singer Morgana King, Who Played Brando’s Wife In ‘The Godfather’, Dead At 87
The general public was aware of her mostly as Carmela Corleone, who sang in the wedding scene, but she used a multi-octave voice and powerful stage presence to make a long career as a jazz singer; she numbered Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Dinah Washington among her admirers. … [Read More]
Iraq’s National Symphony Orchestra Hasn’t Been Paid For Eight Months, But It Plays On
"The ensemble has lost more than half its members since the start of the year, when the government issued a directive barring state employees with two jobs from receiving two salaries. The anti-corruption measure was suggested by the World Bank and should affect only about a third of the orchestra's musicians, but because of delays in carrying out the reform wages have been withheld from the entire group." … [Read More]