A hard-R-rated primer to what gets said in the language of Molière when one is really f***ing p****d off, what you can use to affectionately tease your buddy in Bordeaux and what not to say unless you want to make an enemy for life. (And gosh, you can click here for a guide to what it’s safe to say in front of Grand-maman.) – The Local (France)
Milwaukee Symphony’s New Principal Tuba Is 19 Years Old
Robert Black comes from a family of brass players in suburban Chicago; his mother is a high school band teacher. He’s currently finishing his sophomore year at Rice University in Houston remotely and says he’s committed to finishing his B.A., though he may transfer to a Wisconsin school. – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Subsidize Old News Media? That Will Stifle Innovation
“The standoff between Big Tech and the Australian government has resulted in 90 per cent of what Big Tech has agreed to pay media so far going to the country’s three largest media companies. That means the vast majority of that cash is destined for purposes other than sustaining actual journalism jobs, and tilts the playing field away from smaller publishers – which is bad for democracy.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Maybe Human-Centric Design Isn’t The Best Way To Design?
“What if situating the human at the heart of design isn’t enough to steer innovation in the right direction? What if it’s precisely what we should avoid? Human-centred thinking has marked drawbacks. We can trace the desire to focus on the human – and the human alone – to an anthropocentric logic that has guided technological development for centuries and, ultimately, led to the current state of ecological crisis. Viewed in this light, the rise of AI represents a chance to forge new, less extractive but still productive relationships with the organisms and entities with which we share the planet.” – Psyche
What Galleries Learned About Selling Art Online This Year
Online Viewing Rooms have certain advantages: collectors like the price transparency many fairs have demanded, and gallerists enjoy saving money on costly flights, hotels, and dinners. On the downside, the novelty of the online fair wears off quickly given the relative lack of excitement that accompanies staring at a screen. – Artnet
Italy Has Too Much Tourism. How To Fix? The Uffizi Has A Plan
Enter the Uffizi Diffusi project. Meaning “scattered Uffizi,” it’s a reimagining of Italy’s “scattered hotel” concept, in which individual “rooms” are located in different houses of a village. In this project, artworks stored in the Uffizi’s deposit will be put on show throughout the surrounding area of Tuscany, turning Italy’s most famous region into one big “scattered” museum. – CNN
Reviving Mosul’s Cultural Museum, Six Years After ISIS Destroyed It
It was six years ago last week that extremist forces rampaged through the place, smashing ancient Assyrian sculptures with sledgehammers, burning books, looting anything sellable, and wrecking the building. Here’s a look at how a consortium assembled by the Smithsonian, the Louvre, the World Monuments Fund, and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage is assessing the extent of the damage (yes, still) and making plans to repair it. – Artnet
Why Working Digitally Will Be Here To Stay In The Theatre
“There are so many benefits to all this stuff, It’s going to make theatre more accessible. It’s going to help tackle the issue of diversity. It’s going to enable us to tell stories in completely new ways. And I know from experience that it actually encourages live audiences to come to the theatre. It’s actually going to support the industry.” – The Stage
The Toronto Star Bets The Future On A Casino
Torstar’s new owners say they are branching into online gambling to help pay for those continuing efforts. “Doing this as part of Torstar will help support the growth and expansion of quality community-based journalism,” co-owner Paul Rivett said. – CBC
The Unkindness Of Booing
“In nearly 50 years of musical life, I can count on the fingers of two hands the occasions on which I’ve heard boos erupt in the concert hall or opera house. Some of those memories are far from pleasant.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Dance Through The Mailbox
Audience members sit on stools in separated cubicles surrounding the stage, each with its own door and letter-drop slots through which they can watch the dancers. – Reuters
‘Lolita’ Is A Horrifying Story. How Does It Keep Getting Past Obscenity Laws, Let Alone Cancel Culture?
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which now seems almost anodyne, was the subject of a criminal prosecution in 1960, but Lolita, which came out the previous year and still has the power to shock, was not. Why? Actor Emily Mortimer, whose father was a barrister who defended more than one client in obscenity trials, uses what she learned from him (“First, it’s very funny. My dad always said you could get away with anything in court as long as you made people laugh”) and others to explain the power of Nabokov’s achievement. – The New York Times
What Have Theatre Artists Been Doing This Past Year? Eight Tell Their Stories
“This notion that we have to do something, that we have to find other ways to work. I was like, ‘Hello, this is an opportunity to just stop. Everybody just stop. Can we really not do that?’ I would say my track record is 50-50, but I’m more interested in looking than forcing things out.” – Los Angeles Times
Remembering Lawrence Ferlinghetti
One contradiction stands above the rest. The man who cofounded City Lights bookstore and press and wrote the million-selling poetry collection Coney Island of the Mind, a seminal text in the Beat canon alongside classics like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, did not consider himself a Beat. – Rolling Stone
On Zoom, Vimeo, PBS, Or An iPod, If A Theatre Company Does It, Is It Still Theatre?
Says the artistic director of a Twin Cities company, “I believe that theatre is storytelling and we are creating a new hybrid art form. It’s not quite theatre in that it’s video and not onstage, and it’s not exactly film or television because it’s live — but I still call it theatre.” Here’s a look at what exactly she and some of her counterparts are trying. – American Theatre
Boy Scouts To Sell Off Norman Rockwell Collection To Pay For Abuse Claims
In a reorganization plan filed in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware this week, the Boy Scouts listed nearly 60 pieces of art by Rockwell whose sale would help raise money for a settlement fund of at least $300 million for sexual abuse victims. – The New York Times
At The Detroit Symphony’s Virtual Orchestra Hall, Inside The Head Of A (Virtual) Listener
Michael Andor Brodeur: “I’m ‘here’ to virtually attend a rehearsal of Stride, a stirring newer work from the British composer Anna Clyne. And Clyne is ‘here’ with me as well, watching along through the eyes and ears of Ted — a standard-issue mannequin head, purchased off the Internet and outfitted with a 360-degree camera and an array of microphones by creator, audio engineer and Clyne’s husband, Jody Elff.” – The Washington Post
Roger Englander, Pioneering Producer Of Classical Music On TV, Dead At 94
At NBC in Philadelphia, he produced the first-ever telecast of a complete opera, Menotti’s The Telephone, and he followed up by putting together Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera ever written for television. Englander went on to produce what might be the most influential classical music programming ever aired on American TV, Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. – The Washington Post
Requiring Audiences To Present Vaccine Passports — Would It Be Feasible?
On the surface, it certainly seems as if asking ticket buyers to show proof of COVID vaccination would be a good, quick way to performances running again and performers back to work — and in Chicago, at least, venues and presenters are considering the option seriously. Yet, writes Chris Jones, the idea poses potentially serious problems, both practical and ethical. – Yahoo! (Chicago Tribune)
Six Dr. Seuss Books Withdrawn For ‘Hurtful And Wrong’ Portrayals
“Six Dr. Seuss books — including And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street and If I Ran the Zoo — will stop being published because of racist and insensitive imagery, the business that preserves and protects the author’s legacy said Tuesday.” – AP
Alan Bowness, 93, Former Director Of Tate Galleries And Co-Founder Of Turner Prize
“The internationally renowned scholar was the first trained art historian to become director of London’s Tate Gallery, a position he held from 1980 to 1988. During his tenure, he spearheaded the creation of a ‘Tate of the North,’ the project which became Tate Liverpool. … In 1984 he helped establish the Turner Prize, one of Britain’s most influential art awards.” – ARTnews
MIT Has Figured Out How To Read Unopened 17th-Century Letters
In those days before mass-produced envelopes, important letters were intricately folded and then sewn shut; until now, modern-day scholars couldn’t read such items without cutting open the stitching and damaging the delicate old paper. MIT scientists have now developed a way to do digital x-ray scans of the letters and use virtual reality software to derive images of what they’d look like if opened. – The New York Times
Unknown Titian Painting Identified In English Village Church
“The Last Supper was gifted to St Michael and All Angels Church in Ledbury, Herefordshire, in 1909. Art historian Ronald Moore believes he has now discovered Titian’s signature on the canvas during restoration work.” – BBC
UK To Spend Another Half Biillion For Arts Sector’s COVID Recovery
The government is topping up the £1.57 billion ($1.9 billion) Culture Recovery Fund announced last July with an extra £300 million ($416 million), with an additional £90 million ($125 million) for English national museums and heritage sites and £18.8 million ($26 million) for local community-based projects. Alongside that funding designated for England, arts groups in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland will get £77 million ($107 million), an amount roughly proportionate to their share of the total UK population. – Variety