“All-you-can-eat Internet services such as Netflix and Spotify have been rewriting the rules for the consumption and production of movies and music. If Oyster and its kin do the same for books, they will only be reprising a role that their commercial ancestors played 200 years ago.”
Archives for November 2014
This Is Where The Next Generation Of America’s Wealthy Arts Supporters Is Coming From
“For decades, arts organizations outside the U.S. have raised money by registering their nonprofits here, such as the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra or the Royal Shakespeare Company’s RSC America. Now U.S. arts groups are flipping the script, but with a twist.”
Who Defined Ideas In The 20th Century? These People
The New Republic makes a list of 100 innovators and thinkers who led thinking in the 20th Century.
Writer P.D. James, 94
“Ms. James was one of those rare authors whose work stood up to the inevitable and usually invidious comparisons with classic authors of the detective genre, like Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham.”
Is Our Art Reflecting Our Time?
“I would never tell artists that they had to address social issues in their work, because as soon as you tell artists that they have to do something, they turn around and poop on the floor. Tell them, instead, that these questions are difficult, that the story is missing something without them, that they are another dimension, and then see what happens.”
Families Try To Recover Art Seized By Cold War-Era East German Government
“While the loss and anguish of Nazi art looting is well known, a second series of German art seizures, decades after World War II, has largely gone unnoticed. Between 1973 and 1989 the East German police, known as the Stasi, seized more than 200,000 objects in hundreds of raids, according to experts and official archives.”
Jian Ghomeshi Arrested And Charged With Sexual Assault
“Former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi will plead not guilty to charges of sexual assault and choking, his lawyer says. Ghomeshi was released on $100,000 bail after he was arrested and appeared in a downtown courtroom Wednesday. The 47-year-old has been charged with four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcome resistance – choking.”
Rare Shakespeare Folio Discovered In France
“The book was discovered this fall by librarians at a public library in St.-Omer, near Calais, who were sifting through its collections for an exhibition on English-language literature. The title page and other introductory material were torn off.”
David Hockney On What Artists Do
“When I’m actually painting, I feel like I’m 30 again. It’s only when I stop painting that I realize I’m not anymore.”
Giant Public Art Commission Collapses In Charges, Resignation
“An irregularity in the awarding of one of the most significant local art commissions in years has resulted in the resignation of a Houston Arts Alliance executive and stunned a sculptor who was preparing to create the biggest project of his career.”
NY Subway Performers Being Arrested By Police
“Although performing on the platform and mezzanine is legal (there is no permit or permission needed), subway performers have experienced an unprecedented amount of harassment from NYPD officers this year.”
What Data Sets Can Tell Us About The Arts
“Data may be big and getting bigger, but it’s not exactly thick on the ground in the performing arts. There is no IMDB for string quartets, composers, ballets, or even plays (though in theater there are some who are trying to make one). Where clear data sets exist, there’s a lot we can learn from them, and we should definitely encourage our big institutions to make more of their data transparently available to the public.”
So Why Did Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Archives Go To Texas?
“The Ransom Center already has extensive archives on writers Jorge Luis Borges, William Faulkner and James Joyce. Other Nobel laureates included in its collection are Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. Monday’s announcement had raised eyebrows in Colombia.”
Janice Price Named CEO Of The Banff Center
“Luminato has an annual budget of $11 million. The Banff Centre, one of Canada’s largest arts organizations, has an annual budget of over $50 million. That includes major funding from the Alberta government. And Banff is hungry for expansion to enhance its profile way beyond the Rocky Mountains.”
Inside The Secret Culture Of Our Passwords
“In our authorship of them, in the fact that we construct them so that we (and only we) will remember them, they take on secret lives. Many of our passwords are suffused with pathos, mischief, sometimes even poetry. Often they have rich back stories.”
How New York’s Iconic Strand Bookstore Survives In The Internet Age
“Though there are signs of life in the independent-bookseller business — consider the success of McNally-Jackson — few secondhand-book stores are left in Manhattan. Only two survive in midtown, and the necrology is long. Skyline on West 18th Street, New York Bound Bookshop in Rockefeller Center, the Gotham Book Mart on West 47th — closed. Academy Books is now Academy Records & CDs. So, then: Why is there still a Strand Book Store?”
Study: Link Between Mental Sharpness And Cultural Activities In Seniors
“Internet use and engagement in various social activities, in particular cultural activities, appear to help older adults maintain the literary skills required to self-manage health.”
Sabah, Iconic Arab Singer, Dead At 87
The Lebanese diva, whose career as musician and actress spanned six decades (and at least nine marriages), “was famous across the Arab world for her powerful voice, musical talent and joyful brazenness … Ultimately, she participated in at least 25 plays, four radio musicals, 85 films and sang 3,000 songs.”
Legendary London Cabaret Shut Down After Bouncers’ Baseball Bat Attack
“Madame Jojo’s – home to some of London’s most diverse nightlife for more than half a century” – has had its license revoked by the local council of Westminster. Some activists say that it’s an attempt by the council to gentrify Soho; the council says it’s because of “an organised assault with injury” by the club’s staff.
Venezuela Presents A Hugo Chávez Ballet
“The state-sponsored work, Ballet of the Spider-Seller to Liberator, is to show at a Caracas theater on Saturday in homage to Chávez’s life from poor boy selling homemade spider-shaped sweets in his rural hometown to president for 14 years.”
Shakespeare First Folio Discovered In Small-Town French Library
“The book – one of only 230 believed to still exist – had lain undisturbed in the library at Saint-Omer in the north of France for 200 years.”
Artificial Intelligence, Really, Is Pseudo-Intelligence
“Commentator Alva Noë argues that we don’t need to be alarmed that our machines are rapidly outstripping natural-born human cognitive power: We’ve got a millions-of-years head start.”
Do Choreographers Need Editors?
Judith Mackrell: “In dance, however, there’s no real equivalent, no institutional version of an outside eye to spot a weak narrative, a slack structure or an idea that’s not quite working. … Nor is it even clear who that figure might be. … [Even so,] I think the art form is suffering needlessly from this lack of systematic editorial input.”
Spotify’s Revenue Is Soaring, But It’s Still Losing Millions
The streaming-music service’s revenue last year was more than $1 billion, up 74% from a year before, but it posted an $80 million net loss. (At least that was 30% smaller than the loss in 2012.)
The Theatre Installation That’s Horrifying All Europe
South African playwright Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B mimics the “human zoo” exhibits of colonial “natives” seen in Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. After four years of touring without much controversy, this year Exhibit B has seen “loud debates and furious demonstrations in Europe about the boundaries between artistic freedom and exploitation, censorship and political incorrectness.”