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Washington’s Freer Sackler Galleries Want To Be Called Something Else
Don’t call it a name change, though. Museum officials say it is a rebranding that clarifies the missions of the joint institutions. And, they say, it has absolutely nothing to do with international protests over the Sackler family’s connection to the opioid crisis. – Washington Post
Why Vinyl Records Are Cool Again (And Getting More Expensive)
For some, buying records is no longer about owning the same piece of music as everyone else but owning a version of it that few others have. It reflects a change in contemporary relationships to owning music, says Sevier. “Owning a limited or special edition is doubling down on the closeness you feel to an […]
Cultural Appropriation? Let’s Understand Exactly What It Is
Increasingly there’s this repeated story in our country where actually a whole lot of people don’t get to profit off of the creative insights that they have. That is totally racially structured. That is totally class-structured. So this connection between race and wealth that I’m trying to establish is that the rules of who gets […]
Dilbert Creator Proposes “Mulligans” For A Kinder Internet
He lays out two such rules in his new book, Loserthink. His first proposal, which he calls the “48-hour rule,” states that everyone should be given a grace period of a couple of days to retract any controversial statement they’ve made, no questions asked. “We live in a better world if we accept people’s clarifications and we […]
Archaeologists Find Giant Viking Ship Using Radar
Archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar found a big mound carved into a western Norwegian island — along with the remains of a “huge” ship as long as 55 feet, Paasche told The Washington Post, in a discovery that may tell new tales about how the ships evolved to become fearsome and agile vessels more than 1,000 […]
Reset: 50 Classic Songs About LA? Things Are Changing
Some of Los Angeles’ selling points need to be reset. The idea of endless summers has shifted in the age of climate change. “It Never Rains in Southern California” has morphed into Bad Religion’s “Los Angeles Is Burning.” The carefree allure of rolling down the Ventura Highway used to be a cool thing to sing […]
Singing With Murderers And Playing With Refugees: Music As A Lifeline
A video report on a prison choir in Argentina, founded by a psychologist to bring hope and encourage non-violent behavior, and an orchestra made up of migrant musicians in Rome. – Al Jazeera
This Author Has a Beef With Amazon
Richard Kostelanetz has produced many titles in his Archae Editions line of books over the past eight years via Amazon’s print-on-demand publishing service. But a few weeks ago they suddenly disappeared from the Amazon site. … – Jan Herman
Why Do We Only Equate Innovation And Creativity With Cities?
Few people, particularly those cognizant of current writing on cities, culture, and technology, would blink at the sentence above. “Urban innovation,” the “smart city,” and the “triumph of the city”—these have become familiar as buzz phrases and even book titles. But what about peripheral regions, rural areas, and small towns—can’t they be smart and innovative? […]
Queering History: How LGBTQ Artists, Playwrights, And Novelists Are Reimagining The Past
Jesse Green: “On the whole, queer art, which fully emerged from the closet in the 1960s and 1970s — around the same time people in great numbers did — has mostly concerned itself with its own moment, as if to say, ‘Here I am.’ … [Yet] another approach has been emerging in tandem. … The […]
Turner Prize’s Shared Winners Decision Says Something Important About Today’s Arts World
Phil Kennicott: “The artists’ appeal, and the jury’s willingness to grant it, says a lot about the kind of art these particular artists make, which is political, documentary, socially engaged and deeply intertwined with activism. This wasn’t just about refusing the idea that one of them take home the 25,000 pound first prize while the […]
Using Digital Media To Preserve Indigenous Australian Storytelling
“For millennia, Indigenous Australian communities have been passing down histories, knowledge, language and customs, largely through oral storytelling. But in a world of digital addiction, where even the most remote parts of the country are being infiltrated by smartphones, telling stories via screens is the new necessary: a way to both preserve tradition and reach […]
The Armenian Refugee Who Changed Jerusalem With His Ceramics
Armenian pottery has become synonymous with Jerusalem, so it’s a shock to learn that the city’s ceramic tradition, beyond major monuments such as the Dome of the Rock, is just 100 years old and that it was inspired by a single Turkish-Armenian master craftsman. – Times Of Israel
Song Lyrics Website Says It Caught Google Stealing Material ‘Redhanded’, Sues For $50 Million
“Lyrics site Genius on Tuesday sued Google and LyricFind for $50 million, alleging they have been misappropriating its transcriptions for years. … [Genius] used a digital watermark to see if other sites were copying its product — and it spelled ‘redhanded’ in Morse code.” – The Hollywood Reporter
The Seattle Man Who’s Memorizing Joyce’s Unreadable Finnegan
At 25, he picked up Finnegans Wake and tried to read it. He did not get far. He was stopped by a 100-letter word in the middle of the first page. How do you read a 100-letter word, he wondered? “But I’m in music school at the time, practicing the piano every day, and I […]
Arthur Miller Did An Adaptation Of ‘Pride And Prejudice’ (Who Knew?)
“In the Theatre Guild Archive of the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas survives a script, marked ‘as broadcast,’ of Miller’s adaptation of Jane Austen for radio. Miller’s radio play, with Joan Fontaine as Elizabeth Bennet, aired on Thanksgiving eve, 18 November 1945.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
Where Are The World’s Best Non-Native English Speakers?
According to a new report from an international education company that tested 2.3 million volunteers in 100 countries, the level of English as a second language is highest in Northern Europe, Singapore, and South Africa and lowest in the Arab world and parts of Asia. – The Economist
Stephen Garrett, First Director Of Getty Museum In Los Angeles, Dead At 96
“Garrett helped transform J. Paul Getty’s pet project museum, which the billionaire originally operated out of his own home, into what is now arguably the wealthiest art museum in the world.” – artnet
Following New York’s Lead (Gingerly), Philadelphia Gives Library Card Holders Free Access To Cultural Institutions
Like NYC’s Culture Pass, the new Experience Pass will let Free Library of Philadelphia cardholders reserve one free entry per year at some of the city’s cultural institutions. But the famous ones aren’t taking part (yet): the best-known of the 11 participating institutions are the Museum of the American Revolution and the Magic Gardens on […]
Remember That Big Golden Sculpture Hanging In The Lobby Of The New York Philharmonic’s Hall? It’s Gone, And Lincoln Center Says It Won’t Be Back
The abstract artwork, titled Orpheus and Apollo and created by sculptor Richard Lippold specially for Philharmonic Avery Fisher David Geffen Hall when it opened in 1962, was taken down for “maintenance and conservation” in 2014, something that all too few people had noticed. Now Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic have indicated that, when the venue’s […]
‘What I’ve Learned From 10,000 Nights At The Theatre’: Guardian Critic Michael Billington’s Farewell Essay
“British theatre is incredibly resilient, yet radically different from when I took up my post at the Guardian in 1971. Even the job of being a critic has altered in all sorts of ways. … But if the process – and the people who get to write the reviews – has changed, the role of […]
Howard Cruse, ‘Godfather Of Queer Comics’, Dead At 75
“While [he] was not as famous as underground comics stars like R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman, his artistic influence was nonetheless felt strongly, especially among other gay cartoonists. In the early 1980s he was the first editor of Gay Comix, a series of occasional comic books … He then developed Wendel, an adventurous strip about […]
Call for Applications: Master of Arts in Arts Administration at Florida State University (FSU)
Are you passionate about the arts? Are you in search of a career full of meaning and opportunity? If so, have you considered a career in Arts Administration?
Galleries And Museums Are So Crowded Now The Experience Is… Not Artistic
Venture to many blockbuster exhibitions, particularly on a weekend, and you’ll often be met with overwhelming crowds. Is there a surfeit of public interest in art? Are galleries packing in the crowds to maximise profit? And how best to meet the growing demand for public art without turning museums into amusement parks, complete with heavily […]
Study: Calling To Thank Donors Doesn’t Result In Them Giving More
About 28% of the donors to the public TV stations who got thank you calls gave to the same charity within the next year. And 28% of the donors who didn’t get the calls did as well. Likewise, about 31% of the donors to the national nonprofit gave to that group again, whether or not […]