COVID is a social disease, a pathological experiment on the nature of our social relations. It is experienced in our social life in four major ways, and our responses bear upon the nature of our society. There are the everyday forms of our social life; the divisions within society that shape our experiences and concerns; the attitudes toward social boundaries — who belongs and who does not; and the social forms available for reacting to threats. – Los Angeles Review of Books
Ancient Egyptian Pigment Has Become Biomedical Research Tool
“A researcher at the University of Göttingen, Sebastian Kruss, has used [Egyptian Blue], which is also known as calcium copper silicate, to produce a new nanomaterial that improves infrared spectroscopic and microscopic imaging.” – Artnet
The Dance World May Be Socially Liberal, But It’s Still Difficult For Gender-Nonconforming Dancers
The male-female binary is built into the formalized structures of dance at just about every level, from the very beginning of training through the conventions of professional-level choreography and even down to dancewear. As alienating as that can be, non-binary dancers find ways to make room for themselves. – Dance Spirit
Study Dance Online? Not So Fast…
“The internet may be exploding with resources for virtual classes, from top dancers teaching barre to free warm-ups courtesy of the Merce Cunningham Foundation, but in academia, teachers face many restraints. Copyright laws, federal privacy regulations, varying tech platforms and grading rubrics all make teaching dance online a challenge.” – Dance Magazine
Will LACMA’s New Building Free It Or Destroy It?
The debate here echoes similar ones going on throughout the art world. What is the purpose of the encyclopaedic museum: to present a rational version of the world in discrete categories, as they’ve functioned since the 19th century, or to challenge those hierarchies, taking into account the opening up of the canon that is taking place? – Apollo
Penguin Classics Is Diversifying Its Line Of Classic Books
“The imprint at Penguin Random House [is] responsible for publishing some of history’s most canonical authors, from Homer and Marcus Aurelius to James Joyce and George Eliot. Elda Rotor, who has helmed the imprint for 14 years, said the shift to diversify the imprint’s vast catalog has been intentional.” – The New York Times
What’s Missing While Looking At Art Online
It is increasingly common for people to buy art, like everything else, online. So online presence is obviously vital. Perhaps the Covid-19 emergency, while directing attention onto the virtual world, will also indicate its limitations. It has been argued by several commentators that, rather than bringing people together, digital technologies and social media contribute to the creation of a generation of disengaged narcissists under the spell of surveillance capitalism. Other people, places and things are reduced to the status of props in a theatre of selfhood. Yet it seems a little unlikely that the person who checks out galleries online fits that profile. – Irish Times
Is Smell Our Most Powerful Sense?
Increasingly, loss of the sense of smell is being treated as a serious harm in clinical settings. Besides, the sense of smell is key to flavour perception. Indeed, most of what you perceive as the taste of food and drink is actually smell, being caused by volatile chemicals travelling from the cavity of your mouth through the open space of the pharynx up to your nasal epithelium. And there’s no way around it: the spice trade, with its growth following the Silk Road, has shaped the modern global socioeconomic landscape as much as – if not more than – philosophical discussion on reason and morality. – Aeon
Edward Tarr, Master Of Trumpets New And Old And Of Their History, Dead At 83
“Mr. Tarr left his mark on every aspect of the trumpet world. As a player he set new standards of lyricism on an instrument long associated with military bravado. As a scholar he hunted for rarities in European archives and created performance editions of hundreds of newly discovered works.” He wrote the definitive history book on the instrument, and he led the revival of the 18th-century valveless trumpet played in period-instrument ensembles. – The New York Times
There’s An App For That: Be A Pop Star
Voisey allows users to choose from a library of beats from around the world, submitted to the Voisey website by producers, and sing their own lyrics and melodies over them. Their vocals are run through in-app vocal effects including auto-tune. The app is designed to make anyone sound like a star. – The Conversation
How One Off-Broadway Company Is Able To Close For Three Months But Still Pay Everyone
“Ars Nova did not seek an article about the course it has chosen. On the contrary, [its directors] worried that discussing it publicly could look like they were shaming colleagues amid an industry-rattling pandemic.” That Ars Nova can pay everyone it had engaged for its canceled shows “has nothing to do with an angel donor — there isn’t one, [the managing director] said — but rather serendipity.” – The New York Times
How Charity Fraud Led To Harvey Weinstein’s Downfall
Although Tom Ajamie’s amfAR investigation never received the same level of attention as Weinstein’s sexual predation, it remains the key event that led to his downfall. After all, it was during the eight-month inquiry, which Ajamie’s firm did pro bono, that he learned of Weinstein’s open secret. – The Hollywood Reporter
No, We Are Not All Edward Hopper Paintings Now
Alex Greenberger: “[There’s] a difference between Hopper’s forlorn subjects and so many of us right now. They choose to live in modernity and find themselves alienated because of it. We choose to simply try to stay alive in the world today and a pandemic that has so far killed more than 36,000 worldwide is keeping us captive.” – ARTnews
Arts Council England Acts Quickly On Funding, But The Price Will Come Later
ACE was faced with an impossible choice. Unlike the German government, which has announced a €50 billion package of support for artists and the cultural sector, recognising that it is characterised by a high proportion of self-employed people whose livelihoods have disappeared overnight, the UK government has been slow even to recognise the problems faced by the self-employed in any sector, let alone the arts. – The Stage
Michael Sorkin, Who Fought For Social Justice Concerns In Architecture, Dead Of Coronavirus At 71
“A fiery champion of social justice and sustainability in architecture and urban planning, [he] emerged as one of his profession’s most incisive public intellectuals over a multifaceted career as a critic, author, teacher and designer.” – The Washington Post
Public Service Or Piracy? Authors Battle Internet Archive Over ‘National Emergency Library’
With libraries and bookstores closed across the U.S., and with teachers searching for materials to use for remote teaching, the Internet Archive decided to lift all restrictions on access to the 1.4 million books — many still under copyright — that it has digitized. Teachers and academics are very pleased; authors and publishers, on the other hand, call the move a “copyright grab” that robs them of royalties and breaks the law. – The New York Times
Center Theatre Group In L.A. Furloughs Half Its Workers And Suspends All Shows
The city’s largest theatre nonprofit, which operates the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and Kirk Douglas Theatre, will maintain health insurance for its workers but send half of them home until at least August 9; the rest will face pay cuts. – Los Angeles Times
Judy Drucker, For Decades South Florida’s Leading Classical Music Impresario, Dead At 91
She brought to Miami (and, later, Fort Lauderdale) such artists as Vladimir Horowitz, Mstislav Rostropovich, Itzhak Perlman, Luciano Pavarotti, Marilyn Horne, Beverly Sills, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Kiri Te Kanawa, and almost every major symphony orchestra in the U.S. and Europe. (Not to mention dance companies like ABT and Alvin Ailey.) And, for her, they kept coming back. – South Florida Classical Review
Met Museum Will Provide Another Month’s Pay To Laid-Off Staff
With its building closed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, the museum’s administration let go most of its employees with a promise to pay them only through April 4; that promise has now been extended to May 4. – The New York Times
Aldeburgh Festival Is Called Off For First Time In Its History
“The Aldeburgh Festival is the latest cultural casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. The classical music event founded in 1948 by Benjamin Britten will not go ahead, it has been announced.” – The Guardian
COVID Casualty: Celebrity Culture?
Among the social impacts of the coronavirus is its swift dismantling of the cult of celebrity. The famous are ambassadors of the meritocracy; they represent the American pursuit of wealth through talent, charm and hard work. But the dream of class mobility dissipates when society locks down, the economy stalls, the death count mounts and everyone’s future is frozen inside their own crowded apartment or palatial mansion. The difference between the two has never been more obvious. – The New York Times
Placido Domingo Hospitalized In Mexico With COVID
In a press statement, a spokesperson for the opera singer reported that he is in stable condition but will remain the hospital for “as long as the doctors find it necessary until a hoped-for full recovery.” – Los Angeles Times
Dick Titterington’s New Trio Album
Asked about his intriguing new album, west coast trumpeter Dick Titterington talked about the project’s genesis during a Christmas party. – Doug Ramsey
Reason to believe
I can’t believe I’m posting this message, but…after looking at this morning’s stats, Mrs. T’s doctors now believe … – Terry Teachout
Thieves Steal Van Gogh From Museum Closed Because Of Virus
The Singer Laren museum, just outside the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam, said van Gogh’s “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring” was stolen in an overnight raid. The painting — created in 1884 by the Dutch master, according to Reuters — was on loan from another Dutch institution, the Groninger Museum in the city of Groningen. – CNN