Jenny Odell is tired of all the exhortations to be a better you. Even the acres of digital detox books now flooding stores masquerade as reconnecting with what’s real while all the while suggesting you’ll get even more productive after the detox. Her suggestion. Stop. Be a better you. – The Baffler
Keeping Endangered Mexican Languages Alive On A California Radio Station
“Radio Indígena (indígena means indigenous in Spanish) is one of the first indigenous Mexican radio stations in the United States. The community-run station [in Oxnard] boasts 40 hours of original programming every week, broadcasting music and talk shows in a handful of indigenous languages, as well as Spanish programming too. The station is a welcome cultural lifeline for thousands of farm workers who speak Mixteco or other indigenous Central American languages.” – NBC News
Germany’s Largest Book Wholesaler Goes Bankrupt; Germany’s Publishing Industry Freaks Out
“When German book wholesaler and distributor Koch, Neff and Volckmar (KNV) filed for bankruptcy in February, Europe’s largest book market was deeply shaken. Coming hot on the heels of a controversial merger between two leading book chains — Thalia and Mayersche — KNV’s plight added massively to the already fraught mood in the industry. If no buyer is found for the family-owned business, the implications could be severe … for the German book industry as a whole.” – Shelf Awareness
Christopher Knight: LACMA’s New Vision For Itself And Its Building Should Be Rejected
“A ‘yes’ vote from the supervisors means that more than 50 years of the county project to build the last great encyclopedic art museum in the United States is over. It has driven five former LACMA directors, scores of curators and professional staff, countless past benefactors, an array of trustees and untold others in building the institution, virtually from scratch, since 1965.” – Los Angeles Times
Meet The Woman In Charge Of Dance Theatre Of Harlem
“On this episode of Women in Charge, Allison Benedikt talks to Virginia Johnson, artistic director and founding member of Dance Theatre of Harlem. They talk about how she shifted from principal dancer to founding member to artistic director. Johnson also shares stories about what it meant to grow up as a black ballerina and what progress is being made in the dance culture now.” (podcast) – Slate
Designing An Arena Specially For Video-Game Tournaments
The Fusion Arena, a $50 million, 65,000-square-foot venue dedicated to esports, is set to open in 2021 in Philadelphia’s sports district. Primarily, “[it] will host home games for the Philadelphia Fusion, the professional nine-person team in the 20-team Overwatch League, … but the arena will also host occasional outside events.” – CityLab
Philadelphia’s Historical Society Of Pennsylvania Lays Off 30% Of Staff
Philadelphia’s Historical Society Of Pennsylvania Lays Off 30% Of Staff
“Citing operating deficits and a lack of financial stability, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania announced Monday that it would lay off 10 staff members, about 30 percent of the total, trim programming and services, and focus on its role as a library and archive.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Zadie Smith On What It’s Like To Experience Alvin Ailey
“Off we went — and it was a ravishment. Nothing prepares you for the totality of Alvin Ailey: the aural, visual, physical, spiritual beauty. Up to that point, most high-culture excursions (usually school trips) had felt like sly training for a lifetime of partly satisfying adult aesthetic experiences: nice singing but absurd story, or good acting but incomprehensible 400-year-old text, and so on. To be permitted to hear the thickly stacked, honeyed gospel of “Wade in the Water,” while simultaneously watching those idealized, muscular arms — in every shade of brown — slowly rise and assume the shape of so many ancient amphoras! Heaven.” The New York Times
Has Social Media Killed Satire?
“Today, with the pollution that new technologies have brought to our information ecosystem, this distinction is no longer so easy to make. And this is the real problem, and danger, of satire: not that it mocks and belittles respect-worthy pieties, not that it “punches down,” but that it has become impossible to separate it cleanly from the toxic disinformation that defines our era.” – The New York Times
What Becomes A Literary Festival These Days? Reinvention
Martin Colthorpe, director of ILFDublin : “The pressure for festivals to evolve beyond the readings-and-discussion format is a hot topic right now, with the sheer portability of words allowing for a wide interpretation of what counts as a literary event.” – Irish Times
Shapeshifter: The Shed As Shell – Relevance TBD
Justin Davidson: “The idea of a building that could be dismantled, rearranged, and reassembled has not generally fared well in the world of building codes and construction trades. The Fire Department does not take kindly to the idea that a staircase that’s there today may vanish by tomorrow. The arts, too, have rigidities of their own. Impresarios may not care to pin down a work with a label like “theater,” but the stagehands’ union wants to know whether a show falls under its jurisdiction.” – New York Magazine
How To Measure The Value Of The Arts In Prisons?
California has done a study on recidivism rates, trying to determine whether arts programs make a difference. Evidence is that they may not. But is this the right measure? – Washington Post
Big Tech’s War To Dominate The World
Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are waging a war of all against all—a war for all of your time, all of your money, all of your worldly interactions and desires. They want to be your one indispensable partner for navigating life, and to get there, they must destroy one another. If the government doesn’t step in, the American public will become collateral damage. – The New Republic
Wonder Why Some Cities Just Work? Meet Barcelona
The city’s ability to invent and reinvent itself over and over again is no accident. Yes, the location is wonderful. But the city’s layout and design have conspired to serve as a template that can be endlessly recycled. – Vox
Breakthrough? Scientists Show They Can Reverse Memory Decline With Electrical Stimulation
After the intervention, working memory in the older adults improved to match the younger group and the effect appeared to last for 50 minutes after the stimulation. Those who had scored worst to start with showed the largest improvements. – The Guardian
Nonprofit Uses Hip-Hop Dance To Teach Young Women Of Color How To Code
“‘Coding is repetition, and dancing is also repetition,’ said Franklyn Athias, senior vice president of IP services at Comcast Cable and the coding instructor at danceLogic [in West Philadelphia]. ‘Yes, one is exercise, but you got to learn the routine. It’s the same thing with coding, you still got to learn the routine.'” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Why Tell The Gwen Verdon/Bob Fosse Story Now?
There is something undeniably glamorous about their story—the prince and princess of American dance—and something undeniably magical in the work they crafted together. In 2019, this story should be an act of reclamation, at least for Verdon; of her agency, of her contributions, of her pain. But instead of focusing on her interiority, on developing her feelings of betrayal and resentment as more than Douglas Sirk-esque melodrama, it often shows her dancing around and on top of her emotions. – The New Republic
UK Gov’t Considers Punishing Social Media Companies For Failing To Take Down ‘Harmful Content’
“The ‘harms’ that companies could be penalised for include failure to act to take down child abuse, terrorist acts and revenge pornography, as well as behaviours such as cyberbullying, spreading disinformation and encouraging self-harm. Senior social media executives could be held personally liable for failure to remove such content from their platforms.” The move comes just a few days after Australia’s Parliament passed a similar law. – The Guardian
Two Young Suspects Charged With Burning Down Shakespeare Theater In Stratford, Ct.
“Two teenagers were charged Monday with setting the January fire that destroyed the Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, Conn., a 1,500-seat venue … [that] was ultimately reduced to a smoldering mound of mangled steel.” – The New York Times
After 20 Months, Director Kirill Serebrennikov Freed From House Arrest
“A Moscow city court judge overturned a decision by a lower tribunal last week to extend his arrest for three more months … The 49-year-old head of Moscow’s Gogol Centre theatre — who supporters say is facing politically motivated [embezzlement] charges — has been detained since August 2017. He will now be able to work and communicate, as long as he stays in Moscow.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Orchestra Violinist Collapses, Dies Onstage Mid-Concert
“The Symphony of Southeast Texas violinist Yu Zhao Gu, 60, died of a heart attack that struck during the symphony’s Saturday evening performance while sitting beside his wife and stand partner, Ying Zhao, at the Julie Rogers Theatre in Beaumont.” – Beaumont (Tex.) Enterprise
‘Relevance Is Becoming The New Litmus Test’: England’s Arts Funder Will No Longer Give Grants Based Solely On Excellence
“Arts Council England has revealed it will now decide what to fund based principally on how ‘relevant’ it is to audiences – and it will ‘no longer be enough’ to produce high-quality work alone. This was one of 11 points … [that] will be the driving factors for the funding body’s next 10-year strategy.” – The Stage
Why Printed Books Are Better For Teaching Kids To Read Than E-Books
Electronic books are becoming increasingly popular for storytime, but the researchers found the bells and whistles, such as sound effects and animation, can sometimes distract young children. – CBC
TV Viewers Are Skipping Ads. So Networks Are Changing Formats
How? Like micro-blocks – short ad breaks that are short enough -15-60 seconds that the networks hope viewers won’t fast forward through them. – Variety
The Shed Is A Huge Experiment: Let’s See What Happens
So far the Shed has raised an astonishing $500m. As is traditional in the US, where public funding for the arts is minimal and institutions rely on philanthropy, the names of the biggest donors are prominently displayed in the foyer. These include companies such as Coach and Google, who have neighbouring offices and stores. “We’ve got [wealth] right there in our face,” says Alex Poots, “and as long as they keep being generous, this kind of ecology is a transformer for arts. Call the Shed the Robin Hood, but let’s see if it works.” – The Guardian