A study undertaken over the past season by the Utah Symphony and University of Utah researchers found that a new seating arrangement could reduce the spread of aerosols by a factor of 100. The key principle? The equivalent of making a smoker sit by the window. - Smithsonian Magazine
The dance festival in the Berkshires is coming back from last summer's cancellation, the first in its 89-year history, and the destruction of its Doris Duke Theater by fire last November, while its other theater, the Ted Shawn, is under renovation. - MSN (Washington Post)
Picasso's Head of a Woman and Mondrian's Stammer Windmill, taken from the National Gallery of Greece in 2012 in a seven-minute robbery, were seized in Keratea, a country town outside Athens. A suspect has been arrested and has reportedly confessed. - BBC
The Adoration of the Magi hanging in a country house near Rome was assumed to be a copy. But, five years ago, the owners sent it to restorer Antonella di Francesco after it suffered an "accidental trauma" — and, as she worked on the canvas, she gradually realized that it was the real thing. - CNN
About six weeks after announcing that, as a COVID safety measure, it would eliminate intermissions when it resumes live performances — and just over a month after critic Chris Jones issued the cry "Let the people pee without missing a note!" — the company has reversed course. - Yahoo! (Chicago Tribune)
"Penn Live Arts is the new moniker for the group and series long known as the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. The switch comes as the major arts presenter evolves to become more closely integrated with Penn students, faculty, and curriculum, and as it plans to increase the number of presentations it does in locations beyond its campus...
Wanting to copy the happiest people in the world is an understandable impulse, but it distracts from a key message of the happiness rankings—that equitable, balanced societies make for happier residents. - The Atlantic
Musiio is just one of many hi-tech firms changing the way songs are categorised, playlisted and promoted, to eventually reach the ears of millions. They’re fast, efficient and get attention for unheard-of acts. - The Guardian
In New York, he began producing at an astonishing rate. He contracted to write a story a week for the Sunday World, and he continued to write for magazines. In 1904 alone, he published sixty-six stories. - The New Yorker
“I was informed on Wednesday of this week that the board has decided to go a different direction in the AD role and that my resignation was required by . This was an unexpected development." - Oregon Arts Watch
Meritocracy, for all its flaws, may well be, like the democracy it has sometimes served, better than the alternatives. At the very least, we should be cautious about consigning it to the dustbin of history too soon. - Literary Review
By the eighteenth century the asterisk was being deployed as a sort of censorship, covering up letters to represent a d**n vulgar word without actually b**y spelling it out. But, as W. Somerset Maugham points out, this has become somewhat outmoded. - Lapham's Quarterly
Do we want conflicting disconnected atoms or thriving autonomous individuals? And what role do culture and society have in their formation? - 3 Quarks Daily
Dysfunction is baked into the video game production process, as it currently exists. The big-budget games industry is dominated by a few large companies, the publishers. - The New Republic
