There were two attempts in the second half of 2020 to start British theatres up after the pandemic lockdown, and both were quickly ended as COVID cases rose. "Monday's comeback felt like it was actually permanent, 15 audience members said in interviews, many highlighting Britain's speedy vaccination campaign as the reason for their optimism. (Over 55 percent of the...
"There has been a fear that the large-scale redundancies during the pandemic – an estimated 40% of theatre workers lost their jobs – could be followed by a reopening packed with 'safe' work. Instead, 'bold' is the adjective being used to describe much of what is to come. … The National Theatre's deputy artistic director … says the public...
"Confident nations face up to their history. They don’t airbrush it. Instead, they protect their heritage and use it to educate the public about the past. They “retain and explain,” rather than “remove or ignore”. They don’t do what Liverpool University did and remove William Gladstone’s name from an accommodation block because of his family’s links to slavery." -...
"Black composers have been emerging over the past year at a dramatically accelerated pace that's particularly rare amid the normally glacial progression of the classical music world. Young figures such as Valerie Coleman – whose highly appealing Seven O'Clock Shout for the Philadelphia Orchestra was an instant hit – shouldn't be such a surprise, but what about figures from...
"Teaching kids what to think instead of how to think is dangerous. Advocacy-based teaching deprives them of the skills to reach their own conclusions. Instead they learn to parrot what they know they’re supposed to say to get a good grade. Kids are really good at that, but it doesn’t translate to actually believing what they are saying...
"And it's starting off with a bang: an encrypted Michelangelo painting of the holy family, Doni Tondo (1505-06), just sold for €140,000 ($170,000). The museum will split the proceeds with Cinello, an Italian company that has patented a new way to make digital facsimiles of famous paintings, … produced in the dimensions of the original piece, and purport to...
The acclaimed but controversial bio was dropped by its original publisher after several women came forward with serious allegations of sexual misconduct on Bailey's part. The book is now in the hands of Skyhorse Publishing, which picked up Woody Allen's recent memoir after Hachette cancelled it and has also released titles by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, political dirty...
The longtime co-anchor was dismissed by New York Public Radio "after two separate investigations found he had violated an anti-bullying policy. … Mr. Garfield said he was not yet able to speak fully about the circumstances surrounding his firing but defended his behavior as yelling." - The New York Times
"Researchers examined 11 caves and rock-shelters , which feature art dating from 45,000 to 20,000 years old. … The scientists found that the art, which is made with red and mulberry pigments, is being physically weathered by a process known as haloclasty — when salt crystals form as a result of repeated changes in temperature and humidity." - CNN
"Chatter that Amazon (and other tech giants) have been sniffing around MGM has circulated for some time. But sources indicated that Amazon's interest in acquiring the studio has taken on a new tenor beyond the usual rumor mill." - Variety
"Under the terms of the deal, AT&T will spin off entertainment arm WarnerMedia and combine it with Discovery, creating a TV, film and streaming powerhouse. AT&T's WarnerMedia owns the likes of the Warner Bros. studio, HBO and streaming service HBO Max, as well as the Turner cable networks, including CNN, TNT and TBS. Discovery's reality TV-heavy properties include Discovery...
The first scheduled event is the finale of this year's Tribeca Film Festival on June 19. Only vaccinated people will be admitted. And how will management ensure that patrons are telling the truth about their shots? Said CEO James Dolan, "That's a really good question, I have no idea." - The New York Times
"The challenge is a conversation starter and design exercise. It’s also a needed counter to commercial real estate developers, whose ideas of density tend to be based on a single principle — how many dollars they can squeeze out of every square foot — with little regard for green space or other community needs. (Case in point: those sad,...
"When you aggregate hundreds of predictions, the result is a special, concentrated kind of wrong. Everyone was trying their best, and everyone missed. And these 40-year-old predictions don’t seem wrong in the fun, steampunk way that, say, late Victorian predictions of personal blimps or hot-air-ballooning robots might seem wrong. They’re just saggy middle-aged predictions." - Wired
You can imagine my astonishment when, early one morning, my calculations revealed that within Les Miserables, the principal characters of Fantine, Eponine, Gavrosche and Valjean all died on or very close to a golden ratio point. Further analysis revealed that major changes in the story line (matching to within less than 1%) coincided with all 16 golden ratio points....
