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- The Machine That Gave Birth To Mass Media
Before the late 1800s, printers had to arrange letters one-by-one on metal plates, a slow and painstaking process. Media maven Jeff Jarvis points out that, once the Linotype machine appeared toward the end of the 19th century, books and periodicals could be printed quickly enough to meet booming public demand. – The Christian Science Monitor
- UK Artist Visas Are Being Sold Fraudulently
Several companies have been helping migrants apply for UK visas under the government’s Global Talent program by creating fake art portfolios, complete with fake published art criticism and art news. – ARTnews
- Will A SciFi Booker Win Bring More Attention To The Genre?
Author and critic Olivia Laing agrees it’s taken the literary world “an embarrassingly long time to clock that you don’t need realism to write about how it feels to inhabit late capitalism and unravelling modernity”. – The Guardian
- Three-Day Strike At French Riviera’s Leading Opera House
The number-one issue for the choristers, instrumentalists, and ballet dancers at the Opéra de Nice is low pay. Union spokespeople say some of their members net as little as €1,600 a month — in a resort city where housing costs are unusually high. – Riviera Radio (Monaco)
- Are We Scapegoating Our Phones?
Against the suggestion that the furor over phones is no different from past outcries over new technologies, some point to novel features of social media—exploitative algorithms or “infinite scrolling”—to argue that this case is different. – Boston Review
- Artnet Makes Controversial Partnership With Kalshi
On Wednesday, Artnet announced that it had partnered with Kalshi, the prediction-market platform that lets users bet on everything from election results to sporting events. Artnet will become Kalshi’s official art partner, helping select markets and supplying the auction data used to determine which bets pay out. – ARTnews
- How Aztec Historians Saved Their People’s History From Spanish Bonfires
There were codices of Nahuatl hieroglyphics before the conquistadors arrived, but they were all either burned by militant Catholic priests or lost to time. Secretly, though, indigenous scholars collected oral history and wrote it down, usually in Nahuatl using the Spanish alphabet, and a surprising amount has survived until today. – History Today
- Indonesian Copyright Bill Would Require Payment For News Aggregation From Tech Companies
The bill does not distinguish between aggregation and republication. Tech platforms would have to pay even when they surface news link previews or story snippets in their products, including AI search products. The law would also force platforms to compensate publishers when their journalism is used to train AI models. – NiemanLab
- Refugees And The Imagination Of Borders
Each of us had imagined a life that exceeded the border and acted upon that imagination. In that sense, the prison did not simply contain border-crossers; it brought together people whose aspirations had collided with the territorial imaginary of the nation-state. – Aeon
- Shady Companies Make Fake Portfolios For Rich Migrants Who Want UK “Global Talent” Visas
For a hefty fee, these companies will fabricate forged portfolios, with fake images of work and forged review clips, for applications for the Global Talent visa, which can lead to permanent residency in three to five years and is one of a very few UK visas which doesn’t require demonstrated fluency in English. – BBC
- What It Looks Like When The Internet Stops Working
Your bank’s app is down. The pharmacy cannot pull up your prescription. Your paycheck is late because the payroll company unplugged its system to be safe. None of it is a catastrophe on its own. All of it, every week, is a different country from the one we live in now. – Washington Post
- Exporting Paris Opera Ballet To The World
“For me, the French school of ballet is the best in the world. Thanks to this program, our ballet school in Santiago has been transformed — not just in terms of its technique, but in terms of its way of thinking.” – The New York Times
- Kennedy Center Switches Ticket-Buying To TicketMaster
For decades, the Kennedy Center has used a not-for-profit platform called Tessitura to handle its ticketing. But the Kennedy Center plans to partner with the ticketing behemoth Ticketmaster. – NPR
- When Postmodern Dance Meets Ping-Pong
“Those quarter-size Ping-Pong tables can be merged to make half-size or full-size ones, and that’s a pretty good metaphor for what (choreographer Cherrie Yu’s) Daily Diversions does: It takes Ping-Pong apart and puts it back together.” – The New York Times
- Novelist, Filmmaker, And Photographer To Stand Trial For Selling Looted Gold Ingots
“Eleanor ‘Gay’ Courter, an author of best-selling fiction, nonfiction, and memoir; her husband, Philip Courter, a film director; Yves Gladu, a professional underwater photographer; his wife, Brigitte; and his sister-in-law, Annette May Pesty, have been charged with conspiracy. Some also face charges of money laundering and receiving stolen goods.” (All are over 75.) – ARTnews
- UK’s National Theatre Will Get £15 Million For “National Theatre Nationwide” Scheme
“The programme will combine National Theatre touring productions with workshops, schools tours and skills development activities. Young people will be able to explore acting, directing, playwriting and backstage roles. … Thousands of subsidised £10 tickets will be made available to young people, while productions aimed specifically at school audiences will visit 400 schools.” – WhatsOnStage (UK)
- Researchers Are Using The “Grand Theft Auto” Games To Improve Road Safety
“From testing cycle-safety technology to teaching self-driving vehicles to avoid hazards on the roads, researchers have been jerry-rigging the Grand Theft Auto games into experiments that promise to make accidents and injuries on roads less likely.” – BBC
- Not Budging “The Bean” Was Not Enough: London Crowd Will Attempt To Move Marble Arch
Inspired by last weekend’s attempt by Chicagoans to move the Anish Kapoor sculpture Cloud Gate seven inches to the left, Londoners will gather on Saturday and try to push John Nash’s 1827 monument seven inches left. The stated reason for these two efforts is the same: to free anyone trapped inside. – Ocula
- Home Of Pianist Cyprien Katsaris Ravaged By Fire
A blaze apparently caused by a short circuit tore through his Paris apartment last Sunday, destroying his piano as well as a large collection of scores and manuscripts. – ResMusica (via Google Translate)
- PBS North Carolina To Take Over Struggling PBS Charlotte
Pending FCC approval, Central Piedmont Community College, PBS Charlotte’s licensee, will transfer ownership of the station’s broadcast license and equipment to the University of North Carolina system, licensee of the statewide PBS North Carolina network. The Charlotte outlet lost 22% of its budget when federal funding was rescinded. – Current
- Managing Director & Co-Leader, Fountain Theatre
The Fountain Theatre (Los Angeles, CA) is excited to hire a full-time Managing Director who will co-lead the organization alongside the Artistic Director and report directly to the Board of Directors.
The Managing Director (MD) is accountable to ensure the overall operational structures, procedures, and policies to help the organization advance its mission. This is achieved most directly by managing the majority of the year-round staff members who support the various functional needs of the organization including financial management, development, marketing, facilities oversight, and personnel coordination that support annual programmatic and partnership objectives.
The core accountabilities within this position include strategic and tactical responsibilities that encompass the following five core operational areas:
(1) Finance
(2) Fundraising & Sales
(3) Marketing & Communications
(4) Personnel Oversight
(5) General ManagementThis is a full-time position with an annual salary compensation range between $94,000 – $100,000
Please apply here: https://www.fountaintheatre.com/now-hiring
- Russia Is Recruiting War Veterans as Ballet Dancers
Good Morning,
At least 50 Russian regions now require employers to reserve jobs, usually 1 percent, for veterans of the war in Ukraine. Meduza, the exiled Russian news site, found a state theater seeking ballet dancers and a regional philharmonic seeking choir soloists under the quotas. Employers may not ask about PTSD (Meduza).
In 1976 David Bowie told Playboy that “Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.” A new book by British musician Daniel Rachel shows how much company he had, from Lennon’s Hitler salutes to Motörhead’s Lemmy collecting Nazi memorabilia. Alex Ross notes that pop takes credit when its influence is progressive and calls it harmless fun when it isn’t (The New Yorker).
Art Basel Paris closed two days early in October ahead of protests and will cut booth fees 20 percent. Small galleries were hit hardest; they rely on the weekend to close sales (ARTnews).
The Phoenix Symphony, which laid off all 66 musicians last month, is performing again. The emergency money lasts only through December 31 (Phoenix New Times).
The Onion, a few thousand short of 100,000 print subscribers, wants to buy naming rights to a college bowl game to get there. The New Orleans Bowl turned down its mid-six-figure offer (Nieman Lab).
All of today’s stories below.
- Tenor Antonello Palombi, 58, Found Dead In Hotel Room
Though he had an active career spanning four continents, he’s best known for stepping in mid-performance as Radames in Aida at La Scala after Roberto Alagna stormed off the stage because he was booed. Palombi’s body was found during a wellness check after he failed to show up for rehearsal in Mainz, Germany. – OperaWire
- Postcards Were Social Media Before Social Media
People themselves made the choices. They selected the postcards they bought, the people they wrote to, and the images they collected. More than a century before platforms started automating this process, political communities were already creating selective environments of their own. – Eurozine
- Alden Ehrenreich’s Huron Station Playhouse Is The “Coolest New Theater Venue” In L.A.
“Artistic director Alden Ehrenreich turned a historic 1906 Pacific Electric Railway power station into an artistic playground with hipster vibes, alluring music, a younger-than-usual audience and high-end soap in the bathroom.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- The Connections Between Rock Music And Fascism
Such a superhuman magnification of the individual is unsettling to behold at close range. I witnessed the internal mechanics when I followed Radiohead on tour in 2000. Members of the band were variously thrilled, unnerved, and scared by what they were unleashing—a healthily complex reaction. – The New Yorker
- In Medieval Times, Curiosity Was A Negative
Curiosity was seen as a largely vacuous interest in novel or forbidden information. The curious person was thought to reach for what was hidden and secret, beyond their proper purview, and thereby isolate themselves from spiritual and social community. – MIT Reader
- On Poets And Reputations
The maker of an anthology can’t help being aware of the contemporary reputation of poets. But he knows, too, that this enterprise, this book, will be a chance to amend that reputation. – Hudson Review
- San Francisco Ballet Is Releasing A Virtual-Reality “Nutcracker”
In a partnership with Google, immersive media company YB and augmented reality company XREAL, SFB is presenting Nutcracker: The Immersive Experience, a specially recorded performance of the company’s production (choreography by Helgi Tomasson) for home viewing on VR platforms. – San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
- Why Do Things Exist?
This very obvious fact about the world – that things exist – can shift from seeming mundane and trivial to very surprising, even downright weird. – Aeon
- How America Developed A Culture Of The Telephone
Advertising could turn people into customers, but helping phone owners form what Bell called a “telephone habit” required a different tool. – JStor
- New Play Festival Says It Will Now Program Year-Round
The South Carolina New Play Festival (SCNPF) announced that it will move from a summer-only festival to a year-round festival with a summer and winter season. – Greenville Business Magazine
- Phoenix Symphony Is Back Onstage For Now, But Its Problems Aren’t Over
The $2 million raised after the orchestra was abruptly furloughed last month is only enough, according to the musicians, to keep the Symphony running through the end of 2026. An 11-member commission of musicians, management, and civic leaders is trying to develop a “sustainable” plan to keep the PSO operating. – Phoenix New Times
- Broadway Box Office Rebounds
Overall the industry gross rose 24 percent and attendance 15 percent thanks to the addition of the two new shows, as well as the rebound from Halloween and marathon weekend. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Can These Economists Build A Better Case For Public Arts Support?
These discussions, championed by at least one economics research and advisory firm in partnership with a major Australian arts festival, are instead thinking about the arts activities as powerful economic ‘enablers’ and strategic assets which help facilitate wider cultural, economic and social objectives. – ArtsHub