Carolina A. Miranda: "Let's retire the outmoded idea that the most important factor in a city's cultural landscape is the presence of some white knight bearing a checkbook and grandiose ideas about turning bulldozed Los Angeles neighborhoods into the Champs-Élysées (as Broad once described his vision for Bunker Hill). In fact, a moneyed philanthropist can wreak havoc on public...
"Revenues of public television and radio stations declined by $147 million, or 5%, in fiscal year 2020, which included the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, according to CPB's latest State of the System analysis. The steepest losses in fiscal 2020 were in underwriting, foundation funding and investment income, … individual giving revenue was the only income source...
" nearly five decades at the head of the company shaped it into one of the world's most prominent and recognizable publishers of children's literature" — including the Baby-Sitters Club, Captain Underpants, Hunger Games and Harry Potter books — "and an influential education and media company." - Publishers Weekly
The first production on Broadway that hadn't been previously scheduled and postponed will be Paradise Square, a show about the origins of tap dance, set in the 19th-century Manhattan slum called Five Points and featuring songs by the pre-Civil War composer Stephen Foster, directed by Moisés Kaufman and choreographed by Bill T. Jones. Drabinsky, a three-time Tony-winning producer in...
"Fewer art and cultural heritage works were stolen in Italy in 2020 compared with the previous year, according to the annual report of the Carabinieri TPC, the country's police force dedicated to recovering stolen art." (Well, except for antiquities, it seems.) "The drop was partly caused by the pandemic, which also forced dealers in stolen art online, but is...
"The looting of ancient art in Italy is … at least as old as the Roman empire, which not only contended with its own tomb raiders — or tombaroli, as they are known in Italy — but also pilfered riches from other nations. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has offered these thieves new opportunities to raid closed archaeological sites, churches...
There is the possibility that technology can come to influence or reflect our values in ways that are beyond our control. For example, wearable technologies (such as fitness trackers or smart watches) provide us with a stream of biometric information. This information changes the way in which we experience ourselves and the world around us. - 3 Quarks Daily
The revelation of “Circus Days and Nights” is existentially simple and direct. Cut through a thin layer of tawdriness and cheap tinsel that may be on its surface, and you discover that a circus can exist only thanks to absolute trust. The life of every acrobat lies in unerring balance. Balance is the religion of circus life. Trust and...
Set to open in autumn next year, and operate virtually, online until then, the £4.5m Farrell Centre will occupy a former 19th-century department store close to the university’s architecture school, on a prominent corner facing the civic centre. It is planned to host exhibitions, events, office space for startup companies working in the built environment, and, most importantly, a...
"The policy change at Princeton presumes the existence of various potential contributions that classics students knowing no Latin or Greek could have been making to classroom discussions before now. What are those contributions?" - The Atlantic
It argues that streaming via services such as Spotify and Apple Music be legislated more like radio. “The law has not kept up with the pace of technological change and, as a result, performers and songwriters do not enjoy the same protections as they do in radio,” the letter states. “Today’s musicians receive very little income from their performances...
Seeking a grand symbol of New York’s revitalization after a brutal pandemic year, Mayor Bill de Blasio is planning a large-scale performance by multiple acts and has called on Clive Davis, the 89-year-old producer and music-industry eminence, to pull it together. - The New York Times
Today, it’s possible to capture the average growth of the stock market through passive index funds, which if balanced with some government bonds, have realized 10% returns over the last 100 years. It’s hard to fathom why an endowment would spend so much time and money on actively managing its investments to do considerably worse than that. - Hyperallergic
"As part of the new programs strategy I developed in 2019, we reconceptualized our mission as providing emancipatory learning experiences about Palestine. A learning experience may be an exhibition, a virtual-reality simulation, a family open day, school visits, a young designer’s summer school, symposia, publications, concerts, a play. Learning experiences can also be aesthetic experiences, inasmuch as they affect...
“For most people, the last class they had devoted to clocks and time was early in primary school,” Kevin Birth, a professor of anthropology at the City University of New York who has been studying clocks for more than 30 years, told me recently. “There’s this thing that is central to our entire society, that’s built into all of...
