“In its first study on author income since 2009, the Authors Guild delivers some jarring, if unsurprising, data. The survey, which will be released next week, indicates, among other things, that the majority of authors would be living below the Federal Poverty Level if they relied solely on income from their writing.”
‘Theatre Is Never Going To Be Edgy In The Way I Want It To Be,’ Says Martin McDonagh
“It’s too expensive for a start. And, the audience seems to be complicit in the dullness. It’s like going to a fancy meal in a fancy restaurant with the attitude that, I’m here and I’ve paid the money so I’m going to enjoy it even though it tastes like shite. … To be honest, I have no desire to go out and see a play. The whole nature of that experience just puts me off.”
Why National Geographic Decided To Sell Its Iconic Magazine
“The money it gets from the asset sale to Fox will give National Geographic a potentially more stable foundation. It will swell the society’s endowment to more than $1 billion and provide the cash flow for it to double its annual spending on philanthropic activities in research and exploration.”
It’s Time To Admit It: Stephen King Is, And Deserves To Be, Part Of The Literary Canon
Scott Timberg: “Since his lifetime achievement citation from the National Book Awards in 2003 – which saw some resistance from the literary world that is harder to imagine now – he … [is] now a solid citizen in the literary world, which seems to satisfy King and also make the literary establishment feel populist. It’s a transition that’s hard to imagine bestselling peers like Dean Koontz or Jackie Collins making.”
Jeremy Corbyn’s Great (And Passionate) Arts Policy
The new leader of Britain’s Labour Party puts arts front and center: “Culture and the arts play an essential role on individual and community wellbeing. If we are to achieve our goal in government of supporting people in leading more enjoyable and fulfilling lives, funding for the arts must be central to that offer. “
Jobs Report: Applications For Performing Arts Jobs Sharply Down In UK
“There have been a third fewer applicants per job in performing arts compared with last year, a recruitment website has found. The drop comes despite the number of jobs being posted by arts organisations actually increasing in 2015.”
Here’s A Map Of The History And Spread Of World Culture
Can you track how culture and ideas spread around the globe? One way to try is to map the birth- and death-places of significant thinkers throughout history. Where did the big brains migrate and interact? This short visualization maps them.
Vinyl Record Sales Are Soaring. What Does This Mean?
“Some top vinyl-pressing plants operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in an attempt to keep up. Because of the format’s sharp decline in the 1990s, many plants were shuttered, leaving the few players that survived to cash in. Others have cropped up to service the boom, but still, the grand total of U.S. vinyl-pressing plants of varying sizes hovers around 15.”
Jewel Talks About A Career Of Sexual Harassment In The Music Business
“I’ve had men hitting on me, sadly, since I was really young. At 8, I had men putting dimes in my hands saying, ‘Call me. It’d be so great to f— when you’re older.’ And just horrible stuff.”
Russia Wants Rachmaninoff’s Body Back (Test: Do You Know Where It Is Now?)
Russian cultural minister Vladimir Medinsky claimed that Americans have neglected the composer’s grave while attempting to “shamelessly privatize” his name. But Rachmaninoff’s descendants have balked at the idea of moving the body, pointing out that he died in the U.S. after spending decades outside of Russia in self-imposed political exile.
Google Wanted To Scan Every Book On Earth. So What Happened?
“On one hand, Google has scanned an impressive thirty million volumes, putting it in a league with the world’s larger libraries (the library of Congress has around thirty-seven million books). That is a serious accomplishment. But while the corpus is impressive, most of it remains inaccessible.”
Sherman Alexie’s Racial Bias Examined
In response to the controversy over his decision to include “Yi-Fen Chou’s” poem in the Best American Poetry anthology even after discovering that Yi-Fen Chou was actually a pen name that a white poet named Michael Derrick Hudson used in order to get published, Alexie admitted that, to him, dumping the poem would have undermined his decision to use racial bias in his selection process. Excluding the poem, he said, “would have cast doubt on every poem I have chosen for BAP. It would have implied that I chose poems based only on identity.”
What Artificial Intelligence Could Be
“Nowadays, robots work alongside humans in hotels and factories, while driverless cars are being test driven on the roads. Behind the scenes, AI engines in the form of smart algorithms “work” on stock exchanges, offer up suggestions for books and films on Amazon and Netflix and even write the odd article. But AI does not have the greatest public image – often due to sci-fi films that display dystopian visions of robots taking over the world.”
Think A Robot Can’t Replace Your Job? Here Are The Odds
“About 35% of current jobs in the UK are at high risk of computerisation over the following 20 years, according to a study by researchers at Oxford University and Deloitte.”