“It would be easy to dismiss a surfeit of depressed artists as the most minor of national considerations, given the loss of jobs across the spectrum, but it is important to examine how we got to this point, and why there should be an onus on our politicians to take more care in their consideration of our collective fate.” – MAX
How Learning Pods Are Picking Up The Education Slack
San Francisco has set up free hubs. So far, 1,100 students are enrolled in the free hubs, where community groups provide full-time academic support and activities at 55 city sites, including recreation centers, libraries and other locations. – San Francisco Chronicle
What Will The Opus 3/San Francisco Conservatory Deal Mean For Classical Music?
Any such acquisition would be without precedent, but the size and history of Opus 3 makes the announcement headline news not only in the world of music and art but also among business executives and attorneys. Few details are contained in the original announcement and the source of financing what must be a multimillion-dollar acquisition remains confidential — at least for the time being. – San Francisco Classical Voice
Curator Of Hay Festival Abu Dhabi Accuses Royal of Sexual Assault
“Caitlin McNamara was the curator of the first sister festival in Abu Dhabi, which was feted as an opportunity to promote freedom of expression, human rights and women’s rights in the UAE. … She [has] accused Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan” — the Emirates’ minister of tolerance — “of sexually assaulting her on 14 February, 11 days before the festival began.” – The Guardian
Shonda Rhimes On Leaving Disney/ABC: Her Disneyland Pass Didn’t Work
Rhimes proceeded to call a “high-ranking executive” at the company to figure out the issue, but he showed no interest in giving television’s most prominent showrunner a $154 ticket to the park. “Don’t you have enough?” he allegedly responded. Rhimes collected herself, hung up, and called her lawyer with a simple directive: She was going to move to Netflix, and she’d “find new representatives” if that couldn’t be accomplished. – The Hollywood Reporter
Arts Council England Gives Out Another £76 Million In COVID Relief
This round of money to 588 organizations, part of the government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund, “comes under a week after the council awarded £257 million ($333 million) to 1,385 organizations. … For the latest round of funding, institutions are eligible to receive up to £1 million in individual grants.” – Artnet
Restaurant Culture Upended – Michelin, Beard Cancel Awards
The James Beard Foundation has halted its annual restaurant awards for at least another year and is in the midst of a messy foundation-wide reckoning. The World’s 50 Best has shifted its focus from restaurant ranking to industry recovery. And Michelin, the most storied name in the restaurant-awards game, announced that it has indefinitely delayed the release of its 2021 guides in America. – Grub Street
The Google Anti-Trust Case Marks An Important Turning Point For Tech (And We Who Use It)
Today’s suit is an important rejection of the claim that the internet can only operate efficiently with monopolistic gatekeepers. Explicit in the Justice Department’s suit is that the internet is less innovative when power concentrates in a small handful of companies. – The Atlantic
Jersey City Proposes New Community-Based Way To Support Artists
Here’s how it works. Individuals and/or organizations can apply for funds, proposing a specific use case and budget for how the funds would be used. Each council member appoints a community member who reviews applications, which helps mitigate the probability that politics is injected into the equation. These community members will assess the applications and award funds. One of the important implicit benefits of that approach is that it engages community members and civic participation. – Forbes
Man Arrives At Versailles By Taxi Late At Night, Tries To Break In
According to the Versailles prosecutor’s office, the man arrived by taxi to the castle grounds around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday evening. Police were alerted soon after to the threat by the taxi driver, who described the man as “carrying a sheet and taking himself for a king.” – ARTnews
Another Of Yemen’s Historic Mud-Brick Palaces Is ‘At Risk Of Collapsing’
“The seven-story Seiyun Palace in Hadramawt province, currently a museum, fell into disrepair after the country descended into civil war in 2015. That left it vulnerable to the heavy rains and flash floods that hit Yemen this summer, killing dozens of people” and ravaging the medieval mud-brick buildings of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. “An engineer said the [Seiyun Palace] was now ‘dangerous’ and appealed for help.” – BBC
“Central to the Museum’s Collection”: Arnold Lehman Blasts the Baltimore Deaccessions
“The fiduciary responsibility of a museum’s board of trustees is not to use its institution’s collection as an ATM, but rather to search out all other means to secure the future, including important changing social dynamics, while protecting the collection.” – Lee Rosenbaum
The Atlantic Magazine In The Confounding Era Of Trump
The Atlantic is a magazine not precisely of the center but rather of a set of liberal civic ideals; more than any other publication, its purpose seems to be the continual renewal of educated Americans’ commitment to high-mindedness. The past four years have severely tested those ideals. – The New Republic
Bubble-Master: The Doctor Who Helps Make Dance Companies Safe
“Bubbling has gained traction in the dance world as companies and organizations try to find ways of bringing artists together to create work in a safe environment. That involves rules, medical protocols, tests and vigilance, and it requires a presiding authority to decide what those should be. Enter Dr. Wendy Ziecheck, a Manhattan internist, who trained with George Balanchine’s doctor and was the medical director for the Rockettes before taking this unlikely new career path.” – The New York Times
Which Native American Writers Get To Do What With Which Native Stories? The Case Of Rebecca Roanhorse
Just two years after her debut novel was published, Roanhorse has been racking up awards and praise in the science fiction/fantasy field, even drawing comparisons to George R.R. Martin and N.K. Jemisin. But she draws on Diné (Navajo) myth and legends as source material, and she herself is Diné only by marriage (her people were from the New Mexico pueblos); while some Diné are thrilled by her work and her success, others have attacked her furiously for appropriation. – Vulture
For The First Time Since 1965: No Charlie Brown And The Great Pumpkin On TV This Year
ABC has been the main home of Great Pumpkin and all the major Peanuts specials for the past 20 years, having snatched them away from their original home on CBS in 2000. But Great Pumpkin is not currently on ABC’s advance programming specials through early November, and while a network rep indicated that could change, it would be odd for ABC not to schedule the specials by now, unless there were contractual issues. – New York Magazine
California Lays Out Rules For When Disneyland Can Reopen (It’ll Be A While)
“All theme parks — which includes Disneyland in Anaheim and Universal Studios Hollywood — may resume operations in Tier 4, Yellow, which is much further down the road. At that point, the guest limit is 25% across the board and indoor dining establishments can only operate at 25% capacity. The announcement drew a swift, negative reaction from executives at Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood, Legoland and others.” – Deadline
New Director Of Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts Throws Some Shade At His Predecessor (And At France)
Stéphane Aquin, a native Montrealer who is currently chief curator at the Hirshhorn in D.C., takes over his hometown’s flagship museum next month after the ouster of Nathalie Bondil, a prominent Frenchwoman who had raised the MMFA’s profile and reputation overseas. “One thing I’m keen [on] is to establish our relevance in North America,” said Aquin. “We are not a suburb of Paris.” – The Art Newspaper
Sexting Lawsuit Against Ex-New York City Ballet Dancer Gets Even More Lurid
Chase Finlay, the former City Ballet principal who resigned just as news broke that he had shared nude photos of ex-girlfriend Alexandra Waterbury with male colleagues, has now filed an official response to her lawsuit against him. (Waterbury’s suits against the company and the male colleagues were thrown out by a judge last month.) In his filing, Finlay accuses Waterbury of everything from careerism to attempted extortion to assault and battery. – New York Post
Why American Families Are Addicted On “The College Experience”
“That shocking stability is exposing a long-standing disconnect: Without the college experience, a college education alone seems insufficient. Quietly, higher education was always an excuse to justify the college lifestyle. But the pandemic has revealed that university life is far more embedded in the American idea than anyone thought. America is deeply committed to the dream of attending college. It’s far less interested in the education for which students supposedly attend.” – The Atlantic
Despite COVID, Japan Has Record-Breaking Weekend At Movie Box Office
“The movie, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, based on a smash-hit Japanese comic book, … outperformed all expectations, more than doubling the country’s record for the largest opening weekend, with over 3.4 million people shelling out nearly $44 million on tickets. In what may be a first for Japan, the movie had the biggest opening in the world last weekend — more than all other countries combined — despite having debuted only domestically.” – The New York Times
San Francisco Conservatory Acquires Opus 3 Artists
Under the terms of the agreement, which is effective immediately, Opus 3 will continue to operate as an independent, for-profit corporation under the leadership of President and CEO David V. Foster, while San Francisco Conservatory president David Stull will chair a management team overseeing the alliance between the two entities. – San Francisco Chronicle