Provincial governments and public-health authorities have, understandably, been focused on science getting us out of this – but, less understandably, they’ve neglected allowing (never mind encouraging) artists to explore the possibilities of how outside-the-box creativity could make this pandemic (or future ones) less isolating and more livable. - The Globe and Mail (Canada)
This stunning state of affairs stands in bold contrast to the initial PPP and the more recent restaurant relief funds, which were on their way to businesses within days. - Variety
"Most drivers are on the road for weeks, sometimes months at a stretch, living a nomadic life and often sleeping and eating in their vehicles. Their trucks become their travel companions and their homes, and the drivers go to great lengths to beautify them. … Hand-painted symbols, elaborate patterns, and quirky slogans with bold typography coalesce into vibrant, idiosyncratic...
"In the prevailing scientific worldview, counterfactual properties of physical systems are unfairly regarded as second-class citizens, or even excluded altogether. Why? It is because of a deep misconception, which, paradoxically, originated within my own field, theoretical physics. The misconception is that once you have specified everything that exists in the physical world and what happens to it—all the actual...
Percussionist Sam Wilson of Riot Ensemble writes about Georg Friedrich Haas's Solstices, in which he has the hardest job: "A pianist can feel where their keys are even if the music is extremely complex; a violinist has a constant physical connection with their instrument; a trumpet player always knows where the valves are. For me, holding up four sticks...
"He brought back enough loot from his conquests to fill what would soon become the Louvre Museum. And his ravenous and methodical art seizures — a cultural legacy now being highlighted in 200th-anniversary commemorations of his death — paved the way for similar French excesses in sub-Saharan Africa a century later. Yet many of those works were returned after...
The capital of the United Arab Emirates, whose government wants to diversify its economy away from oil and catch up with Dubai as the UAE's major draw for foreign visitors, is adding $6 billion over five years to its budget for the cultural sector. While some of the funding will support media, music, and cultural heritage, much of it...
Making Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights helped Chu figure out what he’s trying to say with his films. Through them, he’s arguing for telling fresh stories via beloved, old-school Hollywood styles. But he also wants to do more than entertain; he wants to help audiences reflect on their own connections to what’s happening on screen. - The...
"As the inventive design director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1960s and '70s, turned the presentation of art into a gasp-inducing genre of theater" — most famously in the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition of 1978-79 — "giving the staid institution mass appeal and inspiring widespread changes in the style and spirit of museum exhibitions."...
With Cannes on the verge of reigniting international festival activity and Telluride keen on reclaiming the Oscar influencer throne, festivals are mobilizing to become the frontlines for an industry that must assess an uncertain future. - IndieWire
"The exquisite set of Raphael tapestries currently on display in the grand gallery of Madrid's royal palace has survived five tumultuous centuries of wars, rebellions, bombs, bullets and fire – only to find itself menaced by the more quotidian threat of opportunistic pigeons and their droppings. … The need to ventilate the gallery, which gives on to the...
"SOCIAL! the social distance dance club advertised a COVID-conscious rave this spring, where people were free to let loose together in the Park Avenue Armory's Drill Hall. David Byrne MC'd the evening's festivities, but the real dance happened before the party. The choreography was as follows." - The Brooklyn Rail
Graeme Wood, who studied both languages himself, talked with a Princeton professor (who did not wish to be named) who says that the department expects no drop in the actual number of students who study Latin and Greek — but that there may be majors who don't need to learn the languages, just as not all English majors need...
"The change since last spring, as measured by the return of surging morning-to-midnight crowds, is head-snapping. While just 106,900 tourists visited Las Vegas in April 2020, according to the Convention and Visitors Authority, some 2.6 million people visited this April — a big rebound, but still almost a million shy of what the city was attracting before the pandemic."...
