“Ultimately, democratic politics are a numbers game. Politics are what concern everyone, which is why “everyone” talks about politics. Art, by contrast, is what concerns one person, intimately. Culture is a matter of power; art is a matter of beauty. It’s also a matter of freedom—of spiritual freedom, of free-spiritedness—and so it’s also political, though not in any immediately recognizable way and, above all, not in any way that lends itself to the think-piece brand of discourse. The power of beauty, the impact of beauty on a single person, eludes discussion and invites silence, even as it incites something radically different from analysis: ecstasy. That’s the force behind the side of criticism that, if it’s any good at all, converges with the work of art by being itself a literary, poetic, philosophical inspiration.”
Archives for August 2016
Debating The University Of Chicago’s “Intellectual Freedom” Letter
“To those who regularly campaign against what they see as political correctness, and to plenty of others, the letter was the message they have been waiting for—and that they think students need. But to many others, the letter distorted programs on which many students rely, ignored the hostility many students feel on campus, and belittled the sincerity of faculty members who work to make higher education more inclusive.”
Edinburgh Festivals Boast Another Record Year For Ticket Sales
“The fringe issued 2,475,143 tickets for participating shows across Scotland’s capital, a 7.7% increase on 2015 despite the number of registered events and performances falling marginally on 2015 levels. The Edinburgh International Festival issued a record 169,300 tickets for paying events, posting £4.2 million in sales, marking the first time it has topped £4 million. The number of tickets issued is up from 163,500 in 2015, when the festival posted ticket sales of £3.9 million.”
Guardian Editorial: “Unacceptable” That Our Orchestras Aren’t Being Led By More Women
“London has five permanent symphony orchestras, all full of female players. Yet of the 20 conducting posts at these orchestras, just one is held by a woman – and the temporary post held by the London Symphony’s assistant conductor Elim Chan ends this season. It wouldn’t be acceptable in other professions. It isn’t acceptable here either.”
Report: New Whitney Museum Is Racking Up Enormous Water Bills
“The Meatpacking art mecca that only opened in May 2015 has managed to generate a titanic water bill and is already behind on payments. The bill, including interest, had grown to $208,964 as of Sunday. According to city records, no payment has been made in the past 12 months.”
Bronx Museum Names Replacement Board Members After Board Leaders Quit In Protest
“Following the abrupt resignation last week of its top trustees, the Bronx Museum of the Arts on Wednesday announced two interim appointments — Joseph Mizzi as interim chairman and Joan Krevlin as a vice chairwoman. (Marilyn Greene continues to serve as the other vice chairwoman.)”
No. 1 On The Music Charts? What Charts? Measuring Has Become A Mess!
“In recent years the task of tabulating a record’s success and popularity has grown more complicated. What used to be an album sale is now an “equivalent album sale.” Each component — that is a song — of a release — otherwise known as a project — is measured and weighted using industry-approved equations. Simple math? Far from it.”
Actors In The Doctors Exam Room – A Thriving Market To Play “Standard Patients”
“Word of mouth, and stories in trade papers like Backstage, swell the ranks of actors eager to become Standard Patients. Compensation ranges from $25 an hour in Manhattan to slightly more for assignments involving long commutes to outer boroughs; actors mobilized as “secret shoppers,” who infiltrate clinics to monitor the behavior of entire medical staffs, are paid from the moment they arrive until they leave, including, sometimes, hours of waiting around.”
Those Studies That Found That Smiling Can Improve Your Bad Mood? Well …
“This concept has been a standard in self-help for many years: Fake it till you make it; sulk until you hulk. Act the way you want to feel, and the rest will fall into place. … Smiling can make you happy or decrease your stress.” Now the studies on which the concept was based have been re-tried by researchers, and the old results haven’t been replicated. Daniel Engber lays out the history.
NEA Study: Number Of Americans Reading Literature Has Declined
“According to the NEA, the share of adults who report reading literature has steadily fallen in recent years, from 47 percent in 2012 to 45 percent in 2013 and 43.1 percent in 2015.”
That Crazy Woman Who Released Hundreds Of Crickets In A New York Subway Car? It Was Performance Art, And She’s Under Arrest
“In case you haven’t seen the viral video of the incident – which, it turns out, was filmed by [her] friends – it is 18 minutes of mayhem.” (And she had considered using cockroaches.) Now that she’s in trouble, she’s very, very sorry.
New Canadian TV Regulations Weaken Incentives To Make Canadian TV
“Canadians who grasp that their money, intended to support Canadian storytelling, is going into the pockets of non-Canadian writers and actors – for-hire players with no connection to Canada – should be infuriated and scandalized. Very few will be in a lather about it, though. The problem for the “creatives” affected by the CRTC decision is multifold.”
Even Ancient Egyptian Mothers Punished Their Rotten, Ungrateful Children In Their Wills, 3,000-Year-Old Document Shows
“The document, called The Will of Naunakht, tells the story of a woman who decided only some of her eight children should be recipients of her estate and clearly disinherits others for not taking care of her in her old age. … Those who contested the will in the future could be recipients of a severe punishment – ‘a hundred blows’ and [confiscation of] his property.”
How The Principles Of Dance Apply To The Corporate World
“I think of the choreographic practice as the embodied movement of ideas through space and time, a definition that holds equally well if you’re making dances for stages (which we do frequently) or if you’re facilitating a difficult meeting. We’re superattuned to how folks perform in organizations, and I mean “perform” on all registers. How folks speak, who interrupts whom, that nobody seems to like sitting next to Ted – these are all important data points for us.”
A Sign Language That Developed On Its Own In A Desert Village, And The Race To Study It Before It Vanishes
“In al-Sayyid, a Bedouin village in a remote corner of Israel’s Negev desert, … out of 4,000 residents, some 150 are deaf … Both hearing and deaf members of the community speak al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, a local language that developed in the village as its deaf population grew.”
Truth, Martyrdom, And Shostakovich (Richard Taruskin Takes On Julian Barnes’s Novel)
“This book, I think, is a beautifully written botch, and it has me wondering anew about truth. People have been doing that, of course, for a long time – at least since Pilate confronted Christ. And the wrangling over what the truth might be about Shostakovich and his experiences under Stalin has been going on, it sometimes seems, almost as long.”
‘Birth Of A Nation’/Nate Parker Controversy Leaves Oscars Race Wide Open
“Months ago, insiders would have called Birth of a Nation a Best Picture lock … if everything went right. It hasn’t. … What remains to be seen is whether the film can still have an impact, and whether Oscar voters can separate the art from their feelings about the artist … But based on the buzz we’re hearing, we can start to take a closer look at the movies and performers that are expected to contend in the six biggest Oscar categories.”
Italy Fought Hard To Keep Venice Off UNESCO’s Heritage In Danger List, Despite Actual, Serious Danger To Venice
“UNESCO’s World Heritage Site Committee meeting in Istanbul this July voted not to put Venice on its list of World Heritage in Danger sites, but instead to postpone the decision until the 2017 meeting. This was despite the highly critical conclusions of UNESCO’s own recent State of Conservation report on Venice.”
Why Stephen Sondheim Won’t Be Writing Us Any Sonatas Or Symphonies
“I did that in college,” he tells Anthony Tommasini. “Theater is as big an interest in my life – interest meaning something I love – as movies or as music. They’ve always been equal. And therefore it occurred to me: Why not combine music and theater? That’s called musical theater! … [Besides,] I was brought up by Oscar.”
How Harvard’s American Repertory Theater Came Back From The Brink
“The past several years have marked a revival for the Cambridge theater, which in 2008 was mired in financial and artistic distress. Since then, the ART has doubled its revenue as it launched 10 plays and musicals that ended up in New York, a record pace for the theater. The shows have won a bevy of Tony awards, notice that’s led to regular sellouts of its 534-seat Loeb Drama Center.”
Met Museum And Tate Join New Online Video Portal For Museums
This week Sotheby’s launched the online “Museum Network,” which will host video tours and other content from such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate galleries, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan.
Israeli Ministry Of Culture Sued By Artists Over Politicized Funding Decisions
“Artists and cultural institutions are feeling increasingly intimidated under the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, especially since Miri Regev, an Israeli army brigadier-general, became the country’s minister of culture in 2015. … Threats to funding based on policies that limit freedom of expression could be a ‘death blow to culture institutions that rely heavily on public funding’, says one of the petitioners in the lawsuit.”
President Obama To Guest-Edit Wired Magazine
“[This will be] the first time Wired (or any other magazine) has been guest-edited by a sitting president. The theme of the issue: Frontiers. … For this completely bespoke issue, he wants to focus on the future – on the next hurdles that humanity will need to overcome to move forward.”
‘Hamilton’ Has Run Out Of #Ham4Ham
“Many of the original cast members of Hamilton have left this summer, and now one more of the show’s pillars is saying goodbye, at least for now: #Ham4Ham. The mini-concert series, which has been taking place outside the Richard Rodgers Theater several times a week at the show’s lottery, will take a break after one last performance on Wednesday.”
The Changes Begin Under Atlanta Ballet’s New Artistic Director
“Change is afoot at Atlanta Ballet under artistic director Gennadi Nedvigin, with a new ballet master and company members, plus a major upswing in one dancer’s career.”