Samsung has confirmed that its “smart TV” sets are listening to customers’ every word, and the company is warning customers not to speak about personal information while near the TV sets.
Publisher Mysteriously Pulls Book About The Church Of England Before Publication – Was It About The Secret Sex Lives Of Bishops?
Bloomsbury withdrew That Was the Church That Was, a look at the post-war decline of England’s established church by Guardian journalist Andrew Brown and sociologist Linda Woodhead, following a “legal complaint” about which the house would say nothing more. So naturally journalists began investigating …
Don’t Quite Get What A Play Is ‘About’? Don’t Worry – Theatre Isn’t A Puzzle
Lyn Gardner: “It’s liberating for a theatregoer not to worry too much whether you’ve worked out exactly what it’s about. If you want to solve something, buy a Rubik’s Cube, not a theatre ticket. Not knowing exactly what it’s about doesn’t mean your response is invalid.”
Sofia Coppola To Direct Her First Opera
The American filmmaker (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette) “is to make her opera debut this year with a production of La Traviata at the Opera of Rome – a star-studded coup for the beleaguered venue, which has long been overshadowed by La Scala in Milan.”
Yale School Of Art Names First Woman Dean
The university “has hired curator Marta Kuzma, the vice chancellor and rector of the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden, as the next dean of its School of Art. Kuzma will be the first woman to serve in the position in the school’s 147-year history. Kuzma takes the place of curator Robert Storr, who took the reins in 2006 after four years as a professor at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.”
Art Institute Of Chicago Recreates Van Gogh’s Bedroom, Rents It Out On AirBnB
“Visitors will experience an immersive journey back to Van Gogh’s Yellow House, which is located outside of the museum’s campus in Chicago’s neighborhood of River North. The bedroom runs for just $10 a night and is part of a larger apartment. Dates will be released through the posting monthly and fill up quickly.”
What’s Wrong With Our Debates About Cultural Appropriation
When well-meaning white people say, “Help me define cultural appropriation so I know what to do and not to do,” what they are actually saying, even if they aren’t aware, is, “Help me understand how to continue in this system of privilege and oppression without feeling bad.”
Why Academic Researchers Are Supporting The Mass “Theft” Of Their Work
“Websites like Sci-Hub and Library Genesis have a lot of support from the academic community, including from the authors whose work is being traded for free in shadowy corners of the Internet.”
Bill Introduced In Congress To Help With Visas For Foreign Artists
Legislation to make the artist visa process more reliable and affordable was introduced in the U.S. Senate today by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The Arts Require Timely Service (ARTS) Act, S. 2510, would improve opportunities for international cultural activity by ensuring that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) processes artist visas on time.
Zebel: How The Arts Could Have Greater Impact On Our Culture
“We have an opportunity right now, to really change how our culture values art, creativity and artists themselves. I believe we can do it by being an integral part of building new, more equitable and sustainable structures and systems that work for not only artists, but for lots of other people as well. To capture this opportunity, we need to look beyond small artist-specific solutions to systems level problems, and instead engage in the bigger, most urgent questions of our time.”
High Five! On The Nature Of Awesomeness And Suckiness
In an essay that makes actual sense of phrases like “the ethics of awesomeness” and “[the] existential disposition to suck,” philosopher Nick Riggle explains why being awesome doesn’t simply mean excellence and someone or something isn’t merely bad when it sucks.
In Defence Of Pretentiousness
“Pretentiousness is always someone else’s crime. It’s never a felony in the first person. … The pretentious flaws of others affirm your own intellectual or aesthetic expertise. Simultaneously, their fakery highlights the contours of your down-to-earth character and virtuous ordinariness. … It is axiomatic that pretentiousness makes no one look good. But pretension is measured using prejudiced metrics.”
‘The Only Thing We Know Is That We Have No Clue’: Eight Oscar Nominees On Awards Season
“From an upstart ingenue like Alicia Vikander, tapped for Best Supporting Actress for The Danish Girl, to a veteran producer like Steve Golin, who has two films (Spotlight and The Revenant) competing for Best Picture; from a writer like Andrea Berloff, who co-scripted the unexpected blockbuster Straight Outta Compton, to documentary director Liz Garbus, nominated for her defiant and heartbreaking What Happened, Miss Simone?, all the assembled were equally eager to share their insights about the craziness (and necessity) of Oscar campaigning.”
Ballerina Violette Verdy, 82
“Prized for her vivacious charm, instinctive musicality and sparkling, light-footed technique, Miss Verdy danced in the works of more than 50 choreographers. But she is most closely linked with George Balanchine, with whom she worked from 1958 to 1976, in the heyday of his New York City Ballet.”
Staging A Comeback: How The Nonprofit Arts Sector Has Evolved Since The Great Recession
“Our purpose here is to consider preexisting conditions that made the arts sector particularly vulnerable to the recession, as well as to evaluate actions taken by arts leaders – first to stabilize their organizations, then to experiment with new approaches to delivering their missions.”
Reviving Alwin Nikolais, The First Multimedia Master Of 20th-Century Dance
“Before Pilobolus, before Momix, before Mummenschantz, there was Alwin Nikolais, … [who] created shape-shifting, otherworldly visual wonders through original experiments with bodies, space, light and sound, and his work was hugely popular and influential from the 1950s until the 1990s. Today, however, it’s not well known to general audiences.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.09.16
Engagement Is a Means, Not an End
So much interesting stuff has been written recently about engagement and related topics, I barely know where to begin. The Irvine Foundation has published a series of mini-essays responding questions about engagement. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-02-09
Black History Month (1) — Roland Hayes
I thought I’d do a few blog posts to honor Black History Month. Which I don’t think is honored enough in the classical music world. And where better to start than with Roland Hayes, … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-02-09
A Milwaukee Walk: Photo Companion for My WSJ Review of the Milwaukee Art Museum
As promised in my last post, below is my illustrated companion for In Wisconsin, a Museum Reborn – my review in today’s Wall Street Journal of the reinvented Milwaukee Art Museum, which gave me a very warm welcome … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-02-09
Short and to the point
I love aphorisms and epigrams, perhaps because I have no gift for coining them. The brilliantly precise concision that allows writers like La Rochefoucauld, Chamfort, and Karl Kraus to say big things on the smallest possible scale, … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-02-09
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