ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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The Transitory Influence Of Hemingway

So what can Hemingway tell us about what American writers owe to Hemingway? Whatever that debt is, it’s a lot, according to the various writers and literary scholars who appear as talking heads in the documentary, but they (Edna O’Brien, Tobias Wolff, Mario Vargas Llosa) are fairly long in the tooth, and few young fiction writers would now claim...

Art At Scale: Putting All Of The UK’s National Collections Online

Art UK brings together over 3,000 public collections on one shared, economically efficient platform, allowing them all to reap the benefits of scale and technology in one of the largest arts partnerships put together in the UK. Art UK's Partner Collections have access to the Art UK Shop, enabling them to generate income without making any capital investment or...

Behold The World’s Largest Collection Of Magazines

" Hyman's collection now stands at around 150,000 editions of roughly 5,000 titles. They form the bulk of HYMAG, a dedicated magazine library housed in a former factory in Woolwich, south-east London. It's an overwhelming sight. … It is not just the words that are important, Mr. Hyman stresses, but what surrounds them: the advertisements, the page layouts, the...

How Reporters Are Fighting To Save The Storied Tribune Newspapers From A Hedge Fund

The worried reporters would need to recruit community allies. Hire a public relations firm to sway public opinion. And most crucially: Figure out how to find rich people who might be persuaded to finance a rescue plan. - Washington Post

Video Game Technology Helps Recreate Sound Of 16th-Century Scotland’s Chapel Royal

"Researchers have captured how they believe choral music would have sounded when played and sung in the now-ruined chapel at Linlithgow Palace, west Lothian, which was the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots and where James IV visited for Easter celebrations around 1512. … Gaming technology … allow specialists to model how acoustics would have been affected by long-destroyed...

Are Virtues Of The Past Casualties Of Progress?

If we cannot slow down and grow cautiously, evenly, gradually into our new technological and political possibilities and responsibilities—even the potentially liberating ones—the last recognizably individual men and women may give place, before too many more generations, to the simultaneously sub- and super-human civilization of the hive. - Commonweal

As Performances In Italy Remain Banned, Competitive Ballroom Dancing Waltzes On

" are preparing for the Italian Championships in Rimini in July and as such are allowed to keep practicing, given that the government considers their activity in the national interest. It's the same allowance that has enabled other federally recognized competitive athletes to keep training in Italy even during the latest round of virus-related closures." - AP

Producer Scott Rudin, “Monster” Boss

Even as others have been canceled or have dialed back their aggression, Rudin's behavior has continued unabated, leaving a trail of splintered objects and traumatized employees in his path. - The Hollywood Reporter

Recreating A 2,000-Year-Old South Indian Lyre

The yazh is a seven- or 14-stringed harp, built over a wooden bowl resonator covered with hide like a drum, that's referenced in Tamil scriptures dating back to the Sangam period (6th century BCE to 3rd century CE). There are replicas of the yazh in museums, but none are playable. In a Q&A, Chennai-based instrument maker Tharun Sekar talks...

The Tensions Between Meritocracy And Equity

"Between those who see meritocratic admissions as giving fair rewards to hard work and ability, and those who demand that schools focus on students’ identities rather than individual performance, there appears little room for compromise. But the two positions have unexamined common ground, coexisting in the consciousness of students and teachers." - Tablet

‘What If Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare, But Someone Else Wrote Him First?’

That's how one scholar summarizes the theory that the plays of William Shakespeare were written, yes, by the glover's son from Stratford-upon-Avon — but adapted from scripts and prose works by the courtier and Latin translator Sir Thomas North. Here's a look at the evidence. - Smithsonian Magazine

Manfred Fischbeck, Who Built Audience For Avant-Garde Dance In Philadelphia, Dead At 80

"For more than 50 years, was an indefatigable contributor to the contemporary experimental dance scene in Philadelphia and around the world. … Mr. Fischbeck; his former wife, Brigitta Herrmann; and fellow innovator Hellmut Gottschild founded and directed Group Motion Multimedia Dance Theater in 1968. The Philadelphia dance troupe, internationally known for its avant-garde performances and outreach to enthusiasts,...

Right-Wing Populists In Europe Are Going After Public Broadcasters

"In some countries, such as Hungary and Poland, illiberal governments are turning them into mouthpieces for the ruling party. In others, such as Germany and Sweden, populist movements accuse them of bias in favour of the establishment and the left. Modelled on Britain's BBC (now facing political pressures of its own), Europe’s public media were set up to anchor...

Bayeux Tapestry May Be Too Damaged To Travel To UK

There was quite some excitement in January of 2018 when President Emmanuel Macron announced that the 950-year-old, 2,300-foot-long needlework depicting the Norman Conquest would be lent to Great Britain in 2023, when its home museum would be closed for renovation. But a report following examination of the Tapestry finds that (as curators warned when the loan was announced) the...

California’s Arts Institutions Will Reopen June 15 (Won’t They?)

"California officials shocked the performing arts community Tuesday when they announced plans to fully reopen the economy June 15 if certain vaccination and hospitalization benchmarks are met, leaving leaders of theaters, music groups and more scrambling to revisit plans for spring and answer a long list of questions." - Los Angeles Times

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