Yearly Archives: 2021
The Secrets Of 1,000-Year-Old Riddles
The oldest surviving collection of riddles assembled in English is in the Exeter Book, copied around the turn of the first millennium CE. They...
Writing Good Trivia Questions Is Even Harder Than Answering Them
Thorsten A. Integrity (né Shayne Bushfield) of the trivia site LearnedLeague explains what he has to consider: Is this too hard? Too easy? Is...
Phil Schaap, 70, Who Knew About Jazz History Than Anybody
From his teens, he astonished the great musicians he met with his recall of details, and for five decades he shared that knowledge as...
Jazz Venues In New Orleans Weren’t Hurt Too Badly By Hurricane Ida — But...
One historical site was blown to bits, but most performance spaces came out with only some roof and water damage. Yet the performers themselves...
As Sea Levels Rise And Floods Proliferate, Museums Spend Millions To Protect Themselves
Some museums, like the Whitney, learned the hard way (during construction, Superstorm Sandy dumped six million gallons of water into the basement); others (like...
Alberto Vilar, High-Profile Arts Donor Turned Famous Fraudster, Dead At 80
He proudly (extremely proudly) donated millions to the Met, Covent Garden, Kennedy Center, and others, his name prominently displayed — until the tech stocks...
Police Disassemble Hong Kong’s Tienanmen Massacre Museum
The June 4 Museum, as it's called, had been closed to the public (presumably on Beijing's orders) since June. This morning, police were seen...
Ontario University Brings Back The Organ
"It's a bit of a hipster thing, the organ in its day was the technological marvel that the computer is today, and there's a...
Swiss Bank Suspends Ai Wei Wei Account
"The bank informed me that it was terminating my account in Switzerland. They did this, they wrote, in accordance with a new policy of...
Taliban Destroys Musical Instruments At National Institute
Amid Taliban rule, shocking visuals have been reported from Kabul's National Music Institute as the Taliban has reportedly destroyed musical instruments including piano and drum...
“Culture Wars” Are The Wrong Frame For Where We Are Now
Conventional wisdom has it that cultural divisions now matter most, and that plenty of people feel they have nothing in common with liberal, supposedly...
What’s Happened To Books In The Digital Age
“So what happens when the oldest of our media industries collides with the great technological revolution of our time?” - Los Angeles Review of Books
Why A Women’s Prize For Fiction?
Ever since the prize was first mooted in the early 1990s, many have wondered whether the prize is necessary, patronising, or even fair. A common position...
The Awesome Power Of TikTok To Sell Backlist Books
"A large community of TikTok users have carved out a corner called 'BookTok'. BookTok influencers are predominantly teenagers and young women, … (and) when...
How “The Wire” Changed Television Viewing
Unlike the then-popular CSI-style investigative American cop show, The Wire embraces the cold-hearted nature of ancient Greek tragedy. - The Conversation
Broadway’s Costume Shops Rush To Prepare For Reopening Nights
"As Broadway rolls out its return, costumers are again busy with the meticulous, mess-making handiwork that makes the industry sparkle onstage. … 'When you...
Ten Years After The Self-Published “Fifty Shades Of Gray,” Self-Publishing Has Evolved
The phenomenon of self-publishing is often linked to online book production methods. However, there is a much richer history of self-publishing that goes further...
Making Sound Art From The Bells Of Notre-Dame De Paris
"Artist Bill Fontana is currently working to record the sounds that the (cathedral) 'hears' through its ten monumental bells, with plans to livestream the...
A Plan (And A Bill) To Create A New Federal Writers Project And Hire...
A reborn FWP might enable us to confront five of the more pressing problems afflicting America today, a quintet we might think of as...
Adult Swim At 20: How The Cartoon Network’s Cheapo Experiment Made Good
"By all accounts, it was a minor miracle that Adult Swim ever made it off the drawing board. … It seems right that one...
San Francisco To Get Its Own Institute Of Contemporary Art
Ali Gass, formerly the head of the ICA San Jose and the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, has raised $2.5...
This Woman Dancing In A Park Is The Actual Poster Girl For NYC’s Reopening...
The City Hall commissioned poster, captioned "NO STOPPING NEW YORK," shows Kanami Kusajima dancing in Washington Square Park. But she uses a small speaker,...
Ancient Chinese Heritage Sites In Henan Imperiled By This Summer’s Floods
The province has five UNESCO World Heritage sites and 420 sites with national heritage status. Record rain in July led to floods that killed...
The Motion Picture Academy’s Museum Is Opening Way Past Schedule — Thank Goodness
"After spending more time in development hell than any other project in Hollywood, the museum was plagued by more production and budgetary setbacks than...
Houston Ballet’s Resident Choreographer Departing After Three Decades
After more than 30 years as Resident or Associate Choreographer with the Houston Ballet," said Christopher Bruce in a statement, "both the company and...
