“If more and more working people were reading the classics, if they were closing the cultural gap between themselves and the middle classes, how could intellectuals preserve their elite status as arbiters of taste and custodians of rare knowledge? They had to create a new body of modernist literature which was deliberately made so difficult and obscure that the average reader did not understand it.” – JSTOR Daily
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Was Asked, ‘Are You An African Writer?’ Here’s Her Answer.
“I have no objection at all to being African, in fact it is all I know how to be and so I cannot possibly be anything else. And so my answer to the question “Are you an African Writer?” was no, and not because I am not proudly African. … I said no because I have increasingly been troubled by the subtle and not-so-subtle constraints that the question implies.” — New Statesman
Mark Wigglesworth: Why Singing Opera In English Is A Good Idea
“The idea that opera can only work in its original form is a dangerously small step from saying that Italian or German opera can only be done well by Italians or Germans. Operas are enriched by the breadth of styles that perform them and a variety of approaches is beneficial overall. There’s no one way to enjoy opera, and we should celebrate this inherent diversity. Now is not the time to make it narrower. That’s not accessibility, that’s elitism.” – BachTrack
Five Trends That Will Shape The Visual Art Market In 2019
The rise of Taipei, a realignment in New York, Saudi money… the art world has never been so internationally dispersed… – Artsy
A String Bass That Actually Fits In A Manageable Travel Case
“The TravelBass breaks down into separate components for transport in a custom case, and is assembled for play when double bassists reach their destination. Its makers – out of Parma, Italy – reckon that roving musicians should be able to take it on aircraft as carry on luggage in a custom hard case … designed to survive life in the cargo hold.” — New Atlas
Beauty Isn’t Explained By Science. But Science Needs To Understand Beauty
If there is a universal truth about beauty — some concise and elegant concept that encompasses every variety of charm and grace in existence — we do not yet understand enough about nature to articulate it. – The New York Times
Internet Protocol Mappers Led Police Back, And Back, And Back To This Random Couple’s House
So you think your phone, or tablet, or computer, was stolen and then landed at an address in South Africa? Er, no. This was all a big mistake. “John and Ann’s house must have just missed MaxMind’s cut-off for remediation. Theirs was the 104th most popular location in the database, with over a million IP addresses mapped to it.” – Gizmodo
Mystery Over Why Easter Island’s Giant Heads Are Where They Are Is Solved
The heads are unforgettable, standing watch over Easter Island’s windswept plains. Clearly they served some function, but was it more than ceremonial? The answer, say scientists, is yes. And a practical yes at that… – The Guardian
The Silent Film Era Produced 10,000 Movies. The Vast Majority Have Been Lost Or Destroyed
Because early motion pictures were released on nitrate film, which is dangerously flammable and susceptible to decay—only to become even more flammable as it deteriorates—the majority of these films are no longer with us today. While the exact number of lost films is unknown, a study commissioned by the Library of Congress ballparks the surviving number at a scant 14 percent. – Smithsonian
How Verdi Took Care Of His Friends: A Retirement Home For Opera Singers
Using his own fortune, Verdi built the retirement home for opera singers and musicians, a neo-Gothic structure that opened in 1899. The composer died less than two years later, but he made sure the profits from his music copyrights kept the home running until the early 1960s, when they expired. Today guests pay a portion of their monthly pension to cover basic costs – food and lodging — while the rest comes from donations. – NPR
The Market Economy Model Has Crippled All Sorts Of Professions
We are all customers now; we are all supposed to be kings. But what if ‘being a customer’ is the wrong model for healthcare, education, and even highly specialised crafts and trades? – Aeon
A Year After The Emmett Till-Whitney Biennial Furor, Dana Schutz Is Back At Work
“Now, Ms. Schutz admits that she is ‘guarded’ about the controversy …, saying only that [painting Open Casket] was an attempt to ‘register this monstrous act and this tragic loss.’ But she acknowledged that may have been an ‘impossible’ task.” Even so, she doesn’t regret having painted the piece or the subsequent conflict: “It’s good those voices were heard.'” — The New York Times
Was Modernist English Literature Deliberately Written To Keep The Riff-Raff Away?
Yes, argues scholar Jonathan Rose. “The intelligentsia was driven to create literary modernism by a profound loathing of ordinary common readers. The intellectuals feared the masses not because they were illiterate but because, by the early twentieth century, they were becoming more literate, thanks to public education, adult education, scholarships, and cheap editions of the great books.” — JSTOR Daily
When J Edgar Hoover’s FBI Declared Writers Enemies Of The State
Reading through dossier after dossier on 16 American writers contained in Writers Under Surveillance: The FBI Files, what strikes you immediately is the terrifying absurdity of Hoover’s obsession with anyone who didn’t follow his patriotic party line and dared to express critical concern about the national psyche in well-written words. – New Statesman
Oscars Will Go On Without A Host This Year: Report
“As it stands, no new offers are out, nor are any expected to be made to a single potential host to fill the void left by [the] Kevin Hart [debacle]. … [Instead,] producers will select a crop of A-listers to introduce various segments instead of relying on one marquee name to kick things off in a monologue filled with Trump zingers, said the insiders.” — Variety
So Now Detroit’s Cool Again, Who Gets To Call Themselves A Detroit Artist?
“I mean if you are a Cranbrook student or AIR, you are not a Detroit artist. If your studio practice is based in Pontiac, you are not a Detroit artist. If you just moved to Detroit, you are not a Detroit artist. Why is this false narrative being pumped? We all have a place of origin why aren’t you repping that? I got one real question though, Where were you when we were shooting in the gym?” – Hyperallergic
Artists Protest Dublin’s Abbey Theatre: “We’re Being Paid What We Earned 20 Years Ago”
“Actors feel they’re being shoved to the bottom of the food chain again. The Abbey’s success is at our expense. They have managed with this model to reduce our already poor remuneration to pre-millennium levels.” – Irish Times
Billion-Dollar Foundation Dedicates Itself To Racial Equity. Founder’s Heirs Protest
Some of the 340 heirs of John Andrus, whose estate created Minnesota’s Surdna Foundation, back in the 1930s, are protesting the foundation’s funding of progressive causes and its decision to devote itself to racial equity. What would Andrus have wanted? – Chronicle of Philanthropy
Why Did All The Bells On Philly’s Avenue Of The Arts Stop Ringing?
In 1996, when a multimillion-dollar renovation of South Broad Street was completed, sound artist Robert Coburn attached 39 small bronze bells to lampposts along the newly-christened “Avenue of the Arts.” For a year or so, they played melodies fed from an electronic terminal, but they’ve been silent for two decades now. A reporter found out why. — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Why Did This 11th-Century Woman Have Lapis Lazuli In Her Dental Plaque?
The likely answer not only opens up a new avenue for archaeology, it indicates that a highly-skilled medieval art associated with men (chiefly monks) had female practitioners as well. — The Atlantic
How Did A Quiet Belgian Director Become ‘The Most Important Auteur On The International Stage Circuit’? Three New York Times Critics Debate Ivo Van Hove
“In this edited conversation, Ben Brantley, co-chief theater critic for The Times, and the critics Elisabeth Vincentelli and Jason Zinoman aim to make sense of Mr. van Hove’s ascent, from Off Broadway to a Tony Award, David Bowie to All About Eve.” — The New York Times
Study: Older People Share More Fake News
Older users skewed the findings: 11 percent of users older than 65 shared a hoax, while just 3 percent of users 18 to 29 did. Facebook users ages 65 and older shared more than twice as many fake news articles than the next-oldest age group of 45 to 65, and nearly seven times as many fake news articles as the youngest age group (18 to 29). – The Verge
Hollywood’s Next Stage Theatre Closes After 30 Years
It was a theatre committed to helping theatre artists work. The theater would allow people to come in with their scripts and put them up with no upfront costs, which is an unusual approach in the L.A. theater scene. In return, the theater would take half of the door proceeds. – LAist
Did Tony Soprano Die? The Two Guys Who Wrote ‘The Sopranos Sessions’ Hash It Out
Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall, who were the TV critics at Tony’s hometown paper (The Star-Ledger) when the series ran on HBO and who have just released a major book about the show for its 20th anniversary, lay their arguments over this subject on the line. — Vulture
