Today’s Stories
The Conservation Challenge Of A Piece Of Fruit
Honestly, how is the Guggenheim supposed to conserve something like a banana duct-taped to a wall? Ah: The artwork contains no actual banana. “Comedian, as sold, does not include a banana or tape. What one buys is a ‘certificate of authenticity,’ a surprisingly detailed, 14-page list of instructions, with diagrams, on how the banana should be installed and displayed.” – The New York Times
How Chaotic Will Tonight’s Virtual Emmys Actually Be?
The Creative Arts Emmys wrapped with an awards snafu after five nights of awards, but Primetime Emmys are coming to the screen, or screens, on Sunday night. Picture 130 video feeds at once, many of them operated remotely or by the nominees. “It’s honestly pretty nifty, but it contains the potential for so, so much chaos.” – Vox
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Loved Opera, And Opera Loved Her Back
When Justice Ginsburg’s death was reported Friday night, tributes poured in from everyone associated with the art form. “She saw her first opera — a condensed version of La Gioconda — in 1944, when she was 11, and was immediately hooked, becoming the kind of aficionado who goes to dress rehearsals, and then opening nights, and then closing nights, too, for good measure.” – The New York Times
While TikTok Makes A Deal, A Judge Keeps WeChat Around, For Now
Early Sunday morning, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco said in an order that the Commerce Department’s prohibitions against the popular Chinese messaging app “burden substantially more speech than is necessary to serve the government’s significant interest in national security, especially given the lack of substitute channels for communication.” – Reuters
Best Seller Inception Loop
How do you write a best seller? Long years of hard work and editing? Sheer lightning and writing skill? All of this, and also by getting published by Penguin Random House. – The New York Times
Royal Academy Claims It Needs To Sell A Michelangelo To Fund 150 Jobs
Should the Royal Academy sell the “Taddei Tondo,” nickname for Michelangelo’s The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John? “The 515-year-old sculpture had been given to the London gallery in 1829 following the death of its owner, Lady Margaret Beaumont, as an inspiration to students in the academy’s schools.” The debate is contentious. – The Observer (UK)
Anne Stevenson, Poet And Biographer Of Sylvia Plath, 87
The poet completed 16 poetry collections and won prestigious prizes, including from the Lannan Foundation for lifetime achievement. But she’s most well-known for a biography of Sylvia Plath, which veered from the accepted narrative of Plath’s husband, poet Ted Hughes, “portraying Ms. Plath as ‘a wall of unrelenting rage’ prone to outrageous behavior, while depicting Mr. Hughes as generous and caring.” – The New York Times
Can You Spot A Social Media Troll?
It’s getting harder and harder. “As the tools for online media evolve faster than the public’s visual and media literacy, this was bound to happen.” – Hyperallergic
RBG’s Filmmakers Reflect On Their Access To Her Extraordinary Life
Julie Cohen and Betsy West spent years making the documentary RBG. Cohen learned a lot: “When you think of power and toughness, you expect that you’re talking about a big, loud, forceful man and Justice Ginsburg was none of those things. … She was tiny, she had a soft voice, she was an introvert. And yet there was just no question that she had power and that power came both from the wattage that was her brain but also from her level of determination.” – Los Angeles Times
A Treasure Trove Of Rare Stolen Books Has Been Found Under A House In Rural Romania
The $3.2 million cache came from a 2017 heist at a London warehouse, one of books so rare and with such niche interest that “one source, in Smithsonian, said that ‘a wealthy collector known as ‘The Astronomer’ may have hired the thieves to steal the books for him.'” Turns out it was an organized crime group in Romania. – LitHub
The Struggling Pacific Northwest College Of Art Gets A Merger Bailout
After a $34 million remodel of a new (to the college) building attracted no additional students, the Portland arts school was struggling. Luckily, PNCA had been in talks about a merger with Willamette University, based in Salem and about 50 miles away, for years. – The Oregonian
A Rare Edition Of Shakespeare’s Final Play Is Found In A Scottish College In Spain
It’s a 1634 volume that a researcher into Adam Smith found in the archives of the Real Colegio de Escoceses, which in the 17th century was a seminary and “an important source of English literature for Spanish intellectuals.” – BBC
The Carpenters Of Notre Dame’s Rebuild Display Some Expert Medieval Techniques
“With precision and boundless energy, a team of carpenters used medieval techniques to raise up — by hand — a three-ton oak truss Saturday in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, a replica of the wooden structures that were consumed in the landmark’s devastating April 2019 fire that also toppled its spire.” The feat was intended to show that officials made the correct decision to rebuild the cathedral using the same methods as builders did 800 years ago. – St. Louis Post-Dispatch (AP)
The Fading Upright Pre-WWI Pianos Of Australia
In Darwin, people are leaving them on the curb as they clean out their houses before “cyclone season,” but in Hobart, the older ones are more common, and perhaps slightly more tunable. A piano tuner says, “Unless it’s a Steinway it’s not worth fixing.” – ABC (Australia)
Doubt Is Horrifying, And It Also Leads To Clearer Thinking
At least, that’s what Kirkegaard believed. “In order to philosophize, you must have doubted everything.” – Aeon
Britain’s Kannah-Mason Family Wants To ‘Demystify’ Classical Music
The siblings, including the cellist who played at the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, just recorded an album “aimed squarely at children. It is all part of their mission to demystify classical music, especially for young people.” – BBC
Get Reading Because Here Are The National Book Award Nominees
If you need to make plans for staying inside, safely, this winter, there’s a lot to choose from here – and very little overlap with the Booker lists. – The New York Times
Let’s Talk About The True Subject Of ‘Cuties’
And it’s not, despite the hysteria of an orchestrated backlash, pedophilia. “What I found was a film about rage. That sudden, inchoate, unidentifiable female fury that rises in so many girls, often self-destructively, when they realize that certain rules are not about protecting them but controlling them.” – Los Angeles Times
Readers Are Turning, In Droves, To Octavia Butler’s Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
There’s nothing like it – and it feels eerily prescient, too. “The Earthseed books are instructional in a way that other apocalypse fictions are not. They are not prepper fiction, though reading them will teach you a thing or two about go bags and the importance of posting a night watch. According to people who love the books, myself included, they offer something beyond practical preparations: a blueprint for adjusting to uncertainty.” – Slate
Finally: What The New LACMA’s Galleries Will Look Like
Other than necessary mechanical systems and bathrooms, the building’s entire second story will be devoted to galleries, a total of 110,000 square feet of exhibition space. The galleries are composed of two dozen rectilinear spaces — basically, boxes — arranged in clusters and surrounded by interstitial spaces that will also display art. – Los Angeles Times
Time To Rethink How We Classify Science Fiction
Realism is not a binary. It is at a minimum a spectrum. If you charted fictional realities on a football field, you’d find that work on the 45-yard “Realism” side is closer to the 45-yard “SFF” marker than it is to, say, Sally Rooney over the 8-yard line. But even a spectrum doesn’t accurately capture the vast ocean of fiction that takes our reality and heightens, stylizes, distorts, or warps it in different ways. – LitHub
Do The Arts Oversell Their Benefits?
“If we read, for example, that the arts are ‘crucial to reducing poor health and inequality’ as claimed in a press release from University College London on the release of the WHO report, our critical antennae should begin to vibrate. We all know that the major social determinant of poor health is poverty, and that decent food, housing, education and employment are the crucially important determinants of health. Can we really regard the arts as being ‘crucial’?” – ArtsProfessional
MPR Fires DJ After Reporter Quits Over The Story
“Eric Malmberg will no longer be a DJ on The Current,” said a statement from MPR President Duchesne Drew. “Our hosts have to be able to attract an audience that wants to listen to them and trusts them and over the last 36 hours those conditions have changed for Malmberg.” – The Star-Tribune (Mpls)
MPR Reporter Quits, Accusing Bosses Of Sitting On Harassment Story
Marianne Combs claimed that MPR News’ legal team cleared her story, but the editors still refused to air it. “They described him as ‘a real creep,’ but worried that airing a story about his behavior would invite a lawsuit,” she said. – The Star-Tribune (Mpls)
Is Morality A Gut Decision Or The Product Of Reasoning?
To ask whether people reason about moral issues, we need to answer two kinds of questions. Firstly, what kinds of moral principles and beliefs do people hold at the outset? And secondly, do people form moral judgments based on those prior principles and beliefs – that is, do humans form moral judgments that align with their moral principles and beliefs? It turns out that they do, from a surprisingly young age. – Psyche