Here’s a brief history, going from a five-by-five palindrome from ancient Rome to Victorian double acrostics to four different kinds of riddle (including the anti-riddle). – The Paris Review
What The Literature Of Plague Tells Us
Jill Lepore: “The literature of contagion is vile. A plague is like a lobotomy. It cuts away the higher realms, the loftiest capacities of humanity, and leaves only the animal. “Farewell to the giant powers of man,” Mary Shelley wrote in “The Last Man,” in 1826, after a disease has ravaged the world. “Farewell to the arts,—to eloquence.” Every story of epidemic is a story of illiteracy, language made powerless, man made brute. But, then, the existence of books, no matter how grim the tale, is itself a sign, evidence that humanity endures, in the very contagion of reading.” – The New Yorker
Shifting Ground: Are You Ready For A New Discourse For A New World?
“These are not the end times, I mean, but nor are they business as usual, and we would do well to understand that not only is there room for a middle path between these, but indeed there is an absolute necessity that we begin our voyage down that path. To the squealing chiliasts and self-absorbed presentists, indulging themselves with phrases like “the end of the world,” I say: “Did it never dawn on you that all of human history has just been one partial apocalypse after another?” And to the business-as-usual mandarins I say: “Thank you for your service in the glorious battles of the past.” – The Point
Jeremy Marre, Whose Documentaries Introduced Britons and Americans To World Music, Dead At 76
“With a minimal camera and sound crew, Mr. Marre visited Jamaican dance halls, Brazilian favelas, Appalachian churches, Egyptian temples, South African workers’ hostels and Bollywood soundstages to film music and musicians on home turf that was often gritty and unglamorous.” – The New York Times
How I Became A Dance Critic
“So am I a dancer? The short answer is no. And people find this answer surprising. Many expect a dance writer to dance, despite not having the same expectations of other fields. For instance, most food critics are not chefs, and most film critics are not actors or directors.” – Broad Street Review
Scottish Opera Lends Set-Hauling Trucks To Help Supermarket Supply Chains
“The opera company’s drivers have been using their cabs to help deliver food to Tesco stores in Scotland, as supermarkets face unprecedented demand from shoppers during the coronavirus crisis. … Alex Reedijk, Scottish Opera’s general director, said the company had been linked up with Tesco after the supermarket chain contacted a local general haulage company asking for help.” – The Stage
If You’re Only Going To Teach Us Online, Say Yale MFA Art Students, Refund Our Tuition
“We are deeply troubled by the far-reaching repercussions of [the school’s closure],” wrote the students to the dean, “which has … severely curtailed the viability of the unrivaled visual arts education that SoA claims to provide. In light of these circumstances, we believe that financial reimbursement must play a part in the university’s forthcoming actions.” Graduate students at other art schools are making similar demands. – Artforum
Six Indie Filmmakers, Their New Movies Shelved, Talk About Cinema’s COVID Apocalypse
“Their sentiments run the gamut from hope to doom (‘I’ve been wondering when the next mass extinction event would come. This is it.’) and collectively form an uncertain picture of the future of film.” – Vulture
Bitcoin And Shares In Art – Is The Idea Dead?
Two years ago this was a hot idea as a way of expanding the art market. You could own shares in works of art. But then bitcoin value cratered and things have stalled… – The Art Newspaper
As Restoration Of Notre Dame Pauses, Thieves Break In
According to a report by Le Parisien, two men face charges for allegedly attempting to steal various stones from the cathedral after the government ordered a pause on reconstruction so as to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. A spokesperson for Notre-Dame told the publication that the thieves likely intended to sell the stones on the black market. – Artnet
Systemic Failure: Virus Shutdown Highlights Precariousness Of Arts Economic Model
The economic fallout of the virus has made the disparity between employed workers and independent contractors clearer than ever. New York has a paid-sick-leave law, but it does not cover contract workers. Many freelance workers in the arts have high self-employment taxes and health-insurance costs; they do not have 401(k) matching programs or employer-backed disability insurance, or severance when work is called off. If artists have health insurance through a guild or a union, coverage is usually dependent on working for a certain number of weeks every year. – The New Yorker
What’s The Purpose Of Daydreaming?
Daydreaming is taken very seriously within scientific circles, where it is more accurately referred to as mind wandering. The level of interest in this area runs more or less parallel to that of the default network, and that is no coincidence either. The neural activity that can be observed when a person is daydreaming is very similar to that found in the default network. The control situation when taking neural measurements is also one in which the brain is not performing any tasks, and so we start daydreaming. We let our thoughts run free and start associating different memories with each other. – LitHub
Gallerist Paul Kasmin, Who Helped Turn Chelsea Into An Art Hotbed, Dead At 60
“In the 30 years since founding the gallery in Soho in 1989, Kasmin developed a program that managed to toe the line between brainy and lighthearted by placing historic postwar artists like Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell, and Stuart Davis in dialogue with established and emerging contemporary figures.” – Artnet
Report: San Francisco Arts Orgs Could Lose $73 Million By This Summer
Every performing arts group in the Bay Area contacted by The Chronicle has canceled its spring season, even as most had barely begun. Now a study reports that arts organizations stand to lose more than $73 million in revenue and donations if the shutdown continues through summer. – San Francisco Chronicle
Hong Kong Museums, Having Reopened, Close Again
“After the city sought to reintroduce normal activity, a wave of new coronavirus cases hit, largely due to returning travelers. The reversal offers a cautionary tale to countries around the world that are eager to ease restrictions on social distancing practices and get business moving back on pace.” – Artnet
Upright Citizens Brigade, Already Teetering, Dumps Entire Staff By Mass Email
“Last week’s layoffs were just the latest addition to a list of controversial upheavals for the company in recent years, including climbing ticket prices in early 2017, the move from Chelsea to the bigger, less convenient Hell’s Kitchen theater in late 2017, mass layoffs in 2018, shuttering the East Village theater in 2019, and constant debate surrounding its choice to not pay performers. … There’s growing sentiment among many people in the UCB community that even if the theaters return post-coronavirus, they may not.” – Vulture
U.S. Supreme Court Throws Out Filmmaker’s Copyright Lawsuit Against North Carolina
“The justices unanimously upheld a lower court’s 2018 ruling that the state was protected by a legal doctrine called sovereign immunity and could not be sued for copyright infringement for using filmmaker Frederick Allen’s images [of the salvaging of the pirate Blackbeard’s ship] online.” – Reuters
One Of Britain’s Major Classical Artist Management Agencies Is Liquidating
Yes, it’s because of the coronavirus. “‘Our artists, staff, directors and shareholders are devastated by this sad but inevitable turn of events,’ says Hazard Chase managing director, James Brown. ‘Our world has been torn apart in less than a month.'” – Classical Music (UK)
Cirque Du Soleil Furloughs 95% Of Its Employees
“The Montreal-based circus giant said temporarily cutting 4,679 jobs was necessary after 44 shows worldwide were shuttered amid the virus outbreak.” – The Hollywood Reporter
London’s Royal Ballet Cuts Ties With Choreographer Liam Scarlett
The move comes after an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by Scarlett, who had been artist-in-residence, with students at the Royal Ballet School. The company also said, in what seems a carefully worded statement, that “there were no matters to pursue in relation to alleged contact with students.” – The Guardian
New York Philharmonic Cancels Season, Will Give Musicians Partial Pay
“CEO Deborah Borda said that the orchestra has negotiated a new interim deal with its musicians: They will be paid in full until March 31, and then accept reduced pay for the next two months. Health insurance and instrument insurance will continue through the remainder of the current contract, which expires September 20.” – Vulture
What Will The Arts Look Like When This Is All Over?
Even in that best-case scenario — say, a May return — it may take years to return to the vibrant, cultural universe that defines our country. – Washington Post
Why Aren’t Robots Saving Us In The Virus Crisis?
This economic catastrophe is blowing up the myth of the worker robot and AI takeover. We’ve been led to believe that a new wave of automation is here, made possible by smarter AI and more sophisticated robots. Yet our economy still craters without human workers, because the machines are far, far away from matching our intelligence and dexterity. You’re more likely to have a machine automate part of your job, not destroy your job entirely. – Wired
What Houdini Understood About Our Fascination With Magic
Magic challenges our sense of what’s real; Houdini wanted to challenge the ultimate reality of death, by risking it over and over. That risk, he later wrote, is what “attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the ‘human fly,’ who scales the walls of the same building. If we knew that there was no possibility of either one of them falling or, if they did fall, that they wouldn’t injure themselves in any way, we wouldn’t pay any more attention to them than we do a nursemaid wheeling a baby carriage. – The New Yorker
“Inspire us to be brave”
Thanks to a kind-hearted, quick-witted nurse in New York-Presbyterian’s cardio-thoracic ICU, I was able to see and speak to Mrs. T via Skype on Sunday night. – Terry Teachout