“The Oscars are a big show that will be seen by millions of people and will bring national attention to Los Angeles. That can be made to be very useful, and it’s worth thinking clearly about how to do that." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
The renowned music school outbid Temple University for the former Arts Alliance building, very near Curtis's home on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, after an interested real estate developer dropped out. The final auction price was $7.5 million. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Similarly in San Francisco, hundreds of music and theater organizations (the latter in major decline recently) are struggling to survive despite the well-established fact that they have a beneficial economic impact on the city and the Bay Area. - San Francisco Classical Voice
Criticism can oppose; it can also cajole, provoke, consider, inform, and suggest. More than being punitive or dismissive, public criticism can provide an opportunity to collectively look at a thing differently, and writing such a piece can be a collaborative venture. It can also be interrogative. - Hyperallergic
The city government is facing possible bankruptcy due to a £52 million budget gap over the next five years. Among the drastic measures being seriously considered are winding down and ending the Cultural Investment Programme (which distributes funding grants to arts institutions) and closing three local historic sites. - The Guardian
The danger of blaming the Ivy League for today’s overreliance on blunt ranking-and-sorting instruments is that we may be tempted to wait for the Ivy League to fix it. Instead, let’s agree that we also need leaders who flourished in local community colleges, regional universities, apprenticeships. - The Atlantic
"A group of civic, business and community leaders calling themselves 'Team Culture' wants to reimagine major parts of downtown — filling vacant, often shadowy spaces with light and art." - Chicago Sun-Times
There is a particular ugliness, a virulent ignorance, to the reaction in this case that speaks to a broader sense of unease in the culture. Call it anti-artist or anti-imagination or even anti-success, but it boils down to this... - The Globe & Mail
Shakespeare helps me envisage the unimaginable, and a speech from “The Tempest” has been running through my mind since images of charred sections of Pacific Palisades and Altadena started circulating. - Los Angeles Times
Two activists from the group Just Stop Oil used orange chalk to scrawl "1.5 is dead" (referring, in degrees Celsius, to the rise in global temperature beyond which scientists believe climate damage can't be reversed) on the naturalist's grave marker on the floor of Westminster Abbey. - BBC
The museum, in Hilo (scene of three deadly tsunamis in the past 80 years), has laid off its staff and cut opening hours, but the director and volunteers are fighting to keep it open in the face of a post-pandemic drop in visitors and desperately needed building repairs. - Hawai'i Public Radio
Spanish language factchecker Laura Zommer says, “Far from censoring, fact-checkers add context. ...We never advocate for removing content. We want citizens to have better information to make their own decisions.” - Wired
“‘It’s staggering and heartbreaking — I don’t know any other way to put it,’ said Ken Bernstein, principal city planner at Los Angeles City Planning’s Office of Historic Resources. ‘This is widespread destruction of significant architecture and places that are cherished in our communities.’”- Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
