"Helly Nahmad, a member of the Nahmad family dynasty and the son of art collector David Nahmad, was caught running an illegal gambling ring worth $100 million out of his apartment in Trump Tower in New York. He owns the entirety of the building’s 51st floor, which reportedly cost a collective $21 million." - Artnet
"Ahead of Biden's inauguration, Vulture spoke with multiple late-night writers who either still work or previously worked for Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel, Samantha Bee, Jim Jefferies, and John Oliver about what it was like inside the Trump-joke trenches — and how they see the next administration affecting their jobs. … In every interview, two themes...
Jesse Green: "I admit that I do it too. … But even these comparisons are reductive — in both directions. Shakespeare's characters are much richer and more readable than someone as unforthcoming as Trump. At the same time, we'd be lucky if he were merely Shakespearean; no made-up villain, even Iago, is as alarming as someone for whom all...
"Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities has revealed details of the latest landmark discoveries to emerge from the Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo. The vast burial grounds sit in what was once Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt. … Among the biggest rewards for Egyptologists in this latest round of discoveries was the identity of a queen who died around 4,200...
Last week the Orange County orchestra's musicians and management agreed on a four-year contract, running through the 2023-24 season. "Crucially, the agreement lays out a way for the musicians to be performing together again, recording new programs from their home venue. … Some of the contract's considerations: musicians' pay, allowances for streaming programs, COVID safety protocols, and the possibility...
"National Endowment for the Arts chairwoman Mary Anne Carter has resigned as head of the federal agency, telling her staff in a letter sent Friday that 'a new team should have a new leader.'" - MSN (Washington Post)
The UK's national broadcaster is funded by mandatory license fees, charged annually to every household that owns a television set. But as more and more Britons, especially younger ones, consume all their video via streaming on their computers and phones, fewer and fewer of them have televisions to pay license fees on. And so, says a report from the...
"We will definitely find you … and we will hang you side by side." So said a column in Sovietska Belarus, the more-or-less official newspaper of the post-Communist dictatorship. The targets were Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, who fled to the UK as political refugees in 2011 but have continued to work long-distance with Belarus Free Theatre, which they...
The focus of the "medicalization of unhappiness" debate was whether unhappiness should be considered a scientific problem. That issue has given way to the "politicization of unhappiness." Whatever unhappiness Americans feel in their private lives has spilled over into the public realm, with ramifications far beyond whether people who take drugs to feel happy should be doing so. -...
It’s really, really important to have critics who, at their best, can deliver lighting bolts that say, “This is a horrible idea. Don’t do it.” “Don’t put a Holiday Inn glass box on top of Chicago’s Union Station.” (It didn’t happen.) Or, ‘The lakefront in Chicago is divided by the chasm of race, address it.” Over the last 22...
"A Secretary of Culture would serve not as advisor to the president but as a conscience to government itself. Mr. or Madame Secretary would set a national tone of cultural ambition. If you are worried about politicizing culture, don’t be. Artists are rebels. Any benighted culture czar who happens to come along will have to contend with socially nourishing...
The paradox of change is that while it impacts us on a very subjective, personal level and each of us perceives it very differently, on another level it also unites us because of its universal aspects, aspects that can help us define our common humanity. - 3 Quarks Daily
From far away, The Whale museum on the southern coast of Norway looks like, well, a whale — the tail of a whale emerging from water, to be more precise. But upon closer inspection, visitors will find that this architectural marvel is actually a scenic viewpoint and an educational center where they can learn about the local marine life....
"It's just emptiness. How great must a composer be to allow himself to write about nothing?" The pianist has a go at persuading Joshua Barone. - The New York Times
