“The ‘recumbent stone circle’ in … Aberdeenshire, was reported by the site’s current [owner] with unusual features including its small diameter and proportionately small stones. Historic Environment Scotland … celebrated it as an authentic discovery and continued their research until being contacted by the former owner who said they had built the stone circle in the mid-1990s.” — Yahoo! (Press Association UK)
How Are You Going To Pay For Things You Want To Use?
Increasingly it comes down to one of three things: Money, data or attention. “Money is the cleanest transaction and usually, but not always, comes with a few strings attached. Data is at the other end of the spectrum, a resource that is harvested with our technical permission but rarely granted by us fully willingly, as the choice is often a trade-off between not sharing data and not getting access to content and services. The weaponisation of consumer data by the likes of Cambridge Analytica only intensifies the mistrust. Finally, attention, the currency that we all expend whether behind paywalls or on ad supported destinations. With the Attention Economy now at peak, attention is becoming fought for with ever fiercer intensity.” – Music Industry Blog
UK’s Oldest Ballerina (Age 81) Gets A Standing Ovation
When Barbara Peters was awarded her Grade seven last year the Royal Academy of Dance told her she was the oldest ballet dancer in the UK. Peters recently received the top Grade eight award from the Royal Academy of Dance with a pass rate of 73 per cent, with no concession made for her age. – The Independent (UK)
One Of The Hearts Of The Met Museum’s Ancient Greek Collection Was Arguably Looted En Masse
Writer Thomas O’Dwyer makes the case that The Cesnola Collection — assembled by an impoverished Italian aristocrat who emigrated to the States, fought in the Civil War, got himself appointed consul in Ottoman Cyprus for both the U.S. and the Russian Empire, and then got himself named the Met’s director — is comparable to the Elgin Marbles and was similarly criticized at the time. — 3 Quarks Daily
Can Translations Be Anything More Than Compromises?
Doesn’t translating a work of literature inevitably involve moving things around and altering many of the relations between the words in the original? In which case, either the original’s alleged perfection has been overstated, or the translation is indeed, as pessimists have often supposed, a fine but somewhat flawed copy. – New York Review of Books
It’s Popular To Dump On “Rich” Cities. Why?
Well, there’s bad traffic. And unaffordable housing. Unaffordable everything. And income inequality. And forget about getting anything done. But why should this be? Rich cities should be places where things get better. The fact they don’t lies with policy. – James Russell
Gallery Sues Former Employee For Stealing “Trade Secrets”
It alleges that Bona Yoo, a former director who is now working at Lévy Gorvy gallery as a sales director, “surreptitiously copied valuable trade secrets” from Lehmann Maupin’s computer systems before she left and “maliciously corrupted” or deleted important information from the gallery’s database. Yoo’s plan, according to the lawsuit, was designed to impede the gallery’s business while simultaneously allowing her to use the information for her own financial gain at another gallery. – Artnet
Surprise: 300-Year-Old Painting Uncovered In Fashion Boutique Remodel
Boutique renovations, like most renovations, are often delayed. They frequently run over budget. But rarely are they delayed and over budget because a mysterious artwork more than three centuries old has resurfaced. – The New York Times
‘A Criminally Underappreciated Moviemaker’: In Praise Of Elaine May
Describing her as “a terrific director of actors whose comedy can lacerate,” New York Times co-chief film critic Manohla Dargis reviews May’s career, from her 1971 directing debut, A New Leaf, through The Heartbreak Kid and Mikey and Nicky, to the notorious Ishtar (1987), an expensive quasi-flop generally considered to have ended May’s directing career but which Dargis calls “a loony, loopy blissout … whose time is now.” — The New York Times
UK To Get Third National Classical Radio Station
“Scala Radio, a station designed to have a more casual and youthful approach than its established rivals [BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM], with a focus on film scores and work by modern composers alongside the likes of Mozart and Holst,” will debut March 4 on DAB radio and online. — The Guardian
Guy Who Bought Banksy Mural On Welsh Garage Will Build Urban Art Centre Around It
Art dealer John Brandler, who paid an unannounced sum in the hundreds of thousands of pounds to the garage’s owner, says that he met with officials from the city of Port Talbot (where the mural was painted) and the Welsh Assembly to discuss a site for the new gallery. — The Art Newspaper
Toronto Venue First Known As O’Keefe Centre Gets Its Fourth Name
Opened in 1960 as the home of the Canadian Opera Company and National Ballet of Canada as well as a venue for rock, jazz and other concerts, the O’Keefe Centre was renamed the Hummingbird Centre in 1996 under a sponsorship deal. After another such deal in 2006, it was called the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts. Now, thanks to the large credit union of the same name, it will be Meridian Hall — at least through 2034. — Ludwig van Toronto
What Happens When MLK Is A National Icon (But Your Politics Don’t Really Agree)
That Mike Pence and other standard-bearers within this movement can regularly lean on King’s legacy is a consequence of how the civil-rights leader has been canonized. When President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law, in 1983—reversing his own objections to the holiday, and earlier ones to King himself—he signaled that America had accepted King in its pantheon of similarly revered leaders, people such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. But in order to do so, King’s legacy had to be repackaged in a way similar to theirs. – The Atlantic
Record Numbers Of Readers Buying Poetry In The UK
Statistics from UK book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan show that sales grew by just over 12% last year, for the second year in a row. In total, 1.3m volumes of poetry were sold in 2018, adding up to £12.3m in sales, a rise of £1.3m on 2017. Two-thirds of buyers were younger than 34 and 41% were aged 13 to 22, with teenage girls and young women identified as the biggest consumers last year. – The Guardian
Proposed New London Concert Hall Makes A Bold Statement
The £288 million it will cost will all come from private donations, and the hall’s backers know critics will say now is not the time for such an expensive building. “Now is never the time to do anything new,” said Sir Simon Rattle, the LSO’s music director and public face of the project. “This is not something that we are trying to do with public money, this is something we are attempting to do ourselves and we are trying to make a difference.” – The Guardian
Eye-Popping Plans For London’s New Center For Music
Images show a place of open foyers dotted with informal performance spaces, where mezzanines, stairs and escalators create a vertical parade of places to see and be seen. Architect Diller describes these open lobbies as “the theatre of the theatre … informal by day and very glamorous by night”. – The Guardian
China’s White-Hot Movie Industry Is Cooling
China’s box office hit new heights in 2018, raking in about $9 billion, but it was also a year of drastic regulatory changes and a government tax crackdown that have spooked investors and put projects across the country on hold. — Variety
A KGB Museum… In Chelsea
The tour starts with a mock-up of a chief officer’s work space. A mannequin wearing a K.G.B. chief officer’s uniformis at a desk with a flag of Soviet Russia behind him. To the mannequin’s left sits a bronze desk lamp, which, according to the curators, sat in a villa belonging to the former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. – The New York Times
For MLK Day: Recap of My Visit to the National Museum of African American History & Culture
Visitors who had scored timed entry passes for a Martin Luther King Day pilgrimage to the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in DC were out of luck: Its doors remained locked today, due to the federal government shutdown. However, last February, I tweeted about (but never got around to posting on) the NMAAHC … — Lee Rosenbaum
2018 jazz, blues and beyond deaths (with links)
Not a happy post, but a useful one: here are the hundreds of musicians and music industry activists who died in 2018, as compiled by photographer-writer Ken Franckling for the Jazz Journalists Association. — Howard Mandel
Shortly Before Its Annual Conference, Workers At The Grantmakers In The Arts’ Hotel Went On Strike. What To Do?
It was a tough decision says Edwin Torres, the organization’s new leader. Do we live our values or not? So GIA arranged to move its sessions to cultural venues all over Oakland. It made, says Torres, for a more interesting experience… – Barry’s Blog
Decisions, Decisions. Turns Out Many Of Us Aren’t Good At Triaging
One of the paradoxes of life is that our big decisions are often less calculated than our small ones are. We agonize over what to stream on Netflix, then let TV shows persuade us to move to New York; buying a new laptop may involve weeks of Internet research, but the deliberations behind a life-changing breakup could consist of a few bottles of wine. – The New Yorker
Hell As An Incentive
The “bad place” has been detailed extensively – these are all the bad things that will happen to you if you don’t behave. Hell has been a moral consequence, it has been a spur to behave better. And increasingly we’re being warned of the possibilities of versions of it visiting earth. The point is, the concept of hell is a powerful idea that has framed our thinking. – The New Yorker