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Is Music Universal Or Not? Depends On What You Mean

Kevin Berger: "In the past two years, the debate over whether music is universal, or even whether that debate has merit, has raged like a battle of the bands among scientists. The stage has expanded from musicology to evolutionary biology to cultural anthropology. … My recent adventures in the fields of music research have instilled in me … a...

How Imagination Drives Answers

The sense of wonder we get when looking at a star-studded sky is a powerful one, even today an intense and even emotional experience, connecting us perhaps with an echo of that ancient amazement shared by thousands of generations before us. But perhaps too this feeling is not enough to understand the origin of this deep-seated, urgent, primordial, almost...

The Young Pipsqueak Professor Who Changed The Way Everyone Thought About Homer’s Epics

"Milman Parry was arguably the most important American classical scholar of the 20th century, by one reckoning 'the Darwin of Homeric Studies.' At age 26, this young man from California stepped into the world of Continental philologists and overturned some of their most deeply cherished notions of ancient literature. Homer, Parry showed, was no 'writer' at all. The Iliad...

Ted Gioia On Finding Creative Success Outside The System

"For many of us in the creative economy, too much energy is spent on working the system. My response has been to operate in contexts where that isn’t such a time drain. I don’t work the system anymore, except as a last resort: I aim instead to bypass it. The better I have gotten at circumventing gatekeepers, the more...

Because Of COVID, TV Production Had To Change The Way It Works. Some Of Those Changes May Stick.

"It has been a year of struggle and experimentation for the television industry, which has had to learn on the fly while trying to create new diversions for an unusually captive home audience. … Some changes could outlast the pandemic. Just as the nature of schooling and office work has been transformed as millions have learned to function remotely,...

Inside James Turrell’s Roden Crater

It is Turrell’s most ambitious project, but also his most personal. He has spent 45 years designing a series of tunnels and chambers inside to capture celestial light. Yet Turrell has rarely allowed anyone to visit the work in progress. Known as Roden Crater, it stands 580 feet tall and nearly two miles wide. One of the tunnels that...

Play Something, Netflix’s New Weapon Against Viewers’ Decision Fatigue

"Today, the company is launching Play Something, a new viewing mode designed to make it easier for the indecisive among us to quickly find something to watch. … The goal of this new shuffle feature is to eliminate, or at least ease, the Peak TV-era anxiety so many of us feel while trying to find something to watch" among...

Microsoft Is Changing Its Default WORD Font… And A Billion People Will Read Differently

“A lot of customers, they really don’t even think about fonts or look at fonts. It’s only when they zoom in, that they see a g is different! It’s really , once you use them, what feels natural? Are there quirky characters that get in the way? Do the numerals feel right, and readable? I think we’re stretching what’s...

Even Square Dancing Has Gone Onto Zoom

"Contra and square dancing involve lots of other people, not just a single partner. Dancing involves live music, played with precision. It involves callers who stand with the musicians and direct the dancers' moves. It involves a dance floor. These were all issues that had to be figured out. By the summer of 2020, they were." - The Washington...

‘Live Shows Are About To Come Roaring Back To Full Houses’, Says One Critic

Chris Jones: "There's real evidence now of pent-up demand. Consider what is happening in Las Vegas. Cirque du Soleil, which has emerged from bankruptcy protection and put its famous productions of both Mystère and O on sale last week …, has seen colossal demand for tickets. … Comedian Dave Chappelle sold 13,000 tickets for his July 2 concert. The...

That Long-Awaited Final Sondheim Musical? It’s Not Coming

The show, titled Buñuel and based on that filmmaker's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel, had been in development with playwright David Ives (Venus In Fur) and the Public Theater for about a decade, with a workshop held in 2016. Now the Public says that the 91-year-old composer told the theater last year that he...

Florida Boosts Arts Funding by 24%

"The 2021-22 budget plan agreed to by the Florida House and Senate and sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis includes $26.7 million in two of the four budget categories that provide allocations for arts and cultural organizations and individual artists. That marks a 24 percent boost over 2020, when the Legislature approved $20.2 million in three categories." - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

As Western Museums Prepare To Return Benin Bronzes, Nigeria Prepares Their New Home

"The Legacy Restoration Trust … was set up by Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the Edo State government and the royal court of Benin to plan and build the Edo Museum of West African Art in Benin City. … Designed by David Adjaye, the museum will house artefacts from the kingdom of Benin, which British troops invaded...

Medieval Treasures Stolen In 1989 Recovered In Sicily

"After being stolen more than 30 years ago from a village in Italy's Tuscany region, a group of stolen medieval artifacts has been located by police in the home of an antiques collector in Sicily. In that house near Catania, the police discovered a pilfered reliquary that dates back to the 13th century, as well as other objects including...

Paul Kellogg, Director Of Glimmerglass Opera And New York City Opera, Dead At 84

Over 27 years at the helm of the summer opera festival in Cooperstown, NY, Kellogg raised standards, doubled the productions per season, built a new theater, and earned the company a national reputation. In 1996, he took the reins at New York City Opera and began a very productive partnership between the two companies. Unable to fix City Opera's...

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