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Claim: Our Music Theory Education Is Racist

"When we restrict ourselves to Western art music, we forgo the opportunity to speak about basic yet essential musical elements such as groove, timbre, improvisation, and post-production in styles where these are powerfully foregrounded. Today’s leading theory texts cover more or less the same material as those we used as students. Why then do we as a discipline remain...

What If We Put Everyone Into A Giant Multi-Billion City?

The entire population of the earth could live in a giant sustainable city occupying a fraction of the earth's surface, freeing the rest of the world for rewilding and the return of stolen lands, according to a new movie by architect Liam Young. - Dezeen

Is America Turning Out Too Many PhD’s?

The overproduction of Ph.D.s has been an issue for years in the U.S., which has a higher rate of doctorate holders than almost any other rich country. - Bloomberg

The Ballet World In Degas’s Paintings Was A Mean, Sordid Place

"In Paris, its success was almost entirely predicated on lecherous social contracts. Sex work was a part of a ballerina's reality, and the city's grand opera house, the Palais Garnier, was designed with this in mind. A luxuriously appointed room located behind the stage, called the foyer de la danse, was a place where the dancers would warm up...

What Editors Do

Lish’s job on Carver is perhaps too extreme to serve as an example of the role of the editor, but what any kind of boundary breaking always does is to draw attention to the boundary itself—in this case between editor and writer, who together with the text form a kind of Bermuda Triangle within whose force field everything said...

‘One Of Last Great Shared Texts In Our Culture’ (And It’s A 70-Year-Old Comic Strip)

"In a highly polarized culture … the most recent and arguably final example of a great American work of art loved broadly and without reservations by the masses, the elite, and everyone in the so-called middle. Is Peanuts the last American artwork with universal appeal? And what is the spiritual message it conveys that engenders that appeal?" -...

How To Use Boredom To Your Benefit

Technology might have moved on, but the role of boredom in motivating change is no different for us in the 21st century. Yet not all change is equal. - Psyche

Ellen Burstyn On Her Fame (She’s Been *Very* Fortunate)

"It was never really my intention to be a movie star," says the actress, who's probably about to get her seventh Oscar nomination at age 88. "I've never been one of those celebrities who got chased down the street by shouting throngs. People are always very nice to me. It hasn't been at all unpleasant." - The Guardian

How Equitable Pay Leads To Better Theatre

"Since pay equity leads to higher quality work, any company interested in having the best product to share with their community will center pay equity within their company because the benefits to the business are undeniable." - Howlround

What New Anti-Money-Laundering Rules Will Mean For The U.S. Art And Antiquities Market

One of the provisions added to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 makes antiquities dealers subject to the Bank Secrecy Act. One of the key rules requires identifying the individuals behind LLCs — meaning that it will be much harder to buy and sell items anonymously. There's a strong likelihood that the law will be applied to the...

How The UK Art World Will Change Post-Brexit

The symbolic implications of the UK leaving the European Union has hit the art world hard. But the deal will also have a concrete impact on the way the it does business. - Artnet

Could Percussion Ensembles Become The String Quartets Of The 21st Century?

After all, "in 2009, critic Allan Kozinn declared in The New York Times, 'If you think about it, drums are the new violins,' pointing out the newfound ubiquity of percussion on new music programs." And with the 21st-century blossoming of contemporary classical repertoire in the U.S., percussion groups are getting ever more pieces to play and ever more opportunities...

How Pete Docter Is Healing Pixar After #MeToo And #TimesUp

Things might have seemed iffy for the multibillion-dollar animation powerhouse after its founding creative director, John Lasseter, abruptly left in 2017 amid allegations of grabbing and kissing unwilling women. Disney, Pixar's owner, turned to Docter, who had been at the studio his entire adult life and directed Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out — and was then in the...

‘Obscenities, Inanities And Treason’: A Critic On The Riot At The U.S. Capitol

Philip Kennicott: "The whole drama, the body language, the flags and the onslaught, was borrowed from other dramas — genuine displays of revolutionary fervor against autocrats, authentic acts protesting illegitimate governments. But was a charade. Not civic or selfless, but corrosive, destructive and illegal. … One moment in today's appalling mayhem was telling. As they filed through Statuary...

MD High Court Rules Rap Lyrics Can Be Used As Evidence Against Defendant

"Three weeks before trial, Montague used a jailhouse telephone to record a rap verse, which was then uploaded to Instagram. , the State of Maryland introduced the telephone recording of the lyrics as evidence of Montague's guilt, and was convicted and sentenced to a combined fifty years . Maryland's highest court … affirmed conviction, finding that...

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