“Bottlenose dolphins have been observed chattering while cooperating to solve a tricky puzzle – a feat that suggests they have a type of vocalisation dedicated to cooperating on problem solving. … Importantly, the researchers were able to show that the increase in chatter was directly related to the canister-opening task as opposed to social interactions between the dolphins.”
Can A Roman Deus Ex Machina Save The Arena Di Verona’s Opera Festival?
The foundation that operates the festival – whose visitors make a huge contribution to Verona’s economy – went into bankruptcy liquidation earlier this month. So Italy’s culture minister has sent in Carlo Fuortes, the man he hired to save Rome’s desperately dysfunctional opera house from collapse.
Remember Black Light Posters?
“For a magical time in the 1960s and ’70s, your wood-paneled basement hideaway wasn’t worth its weight in cheap weed and questionable acid without a collection of psychedelic blacklight posters. Combining Art Nouveau, Surrealism, Pop Art, and countless other artistic styles with the relatively new (commercially anyway) phenomenon of fluorescence, these glow-in-the-dark posters became an icon of the Summer of Love and its youth culture. Here’s where they came from and how they worked.”
Study: University Creative Arts Graduates Are Lowest Paid
“Those graduating with creative arts degrees were found to be the lowest earners after 10 years of working, out of 21 university degree subjects.”
The Smog In Medellín Is So Bad, Even The Botero Scupltures Can’t Breathe
“Activists protesting severe pollution levels in Medellín, Colombia, aired their concerns last week with a striking public gesture: they strapped giant face masks onto a number of Fernando Botero sculptures in the famous Botero Plaza.”
Suzan-Lori Parks Talks About Race, Writing And Fame
“Hollywood is only as interesting as the rest of the country. Hollywood thinks, ‘We’re separate, we’re cool, we’re gorgeous, we’re glamorous, we walk on red carpets all day.’ Guess what? You’re all just as kookaburra as the rest of us.”
NPR’s ‘On The Media’ Asks Public Radio Station Execs About The Network’s Looming Challenges
“There are myriad issues – the shift toward digital streaming, an aging listenership, the rise of commercial podcasting – plaguing public radio, and more specifically, NPR. Bob [Garfield] takes a hard look at how NPR member stations and the mothership are dealing with this tangled web of challenges, and considers what the future might hold for the public media institution.” (audio)
Dance In D.C. At A Crossroads – Several Of Them, In Fact
“It’s beginning to look like 2016 will be a year of big transitions for the Washington, DC dance community. … How will DC fare within all these changes? Here’s the deal on how the next year looks for the capital’s dance scene.”
Old Dutch Masters Paintings Stolen Ten Years Ago Turn Up In Ukraine
“The [four] ‘most appealing and most missed’ of 24 artworks looted from Westfries Museum in Hoorn in 2005, were revealed at a press conference by the Ukrainian secret service in Kiev on Thursday. According to reports, the 16th and 17th century paintings had been held to ransom for €50 million by a far-right Ukrainian militia.”
How U.S. Coastal Cities Left The Middle States Behind
“The relative decline of St. Louis—along with that of other similarly endowed heartland cities—is therefore not simply, or even primarily, a story of deindustrialization. The larger explanation involves how presidents and lawmakers in both parties, influenced by a handful of economists and legal scholars, quietly altered federal competition policies, antitrust laws, and enforcement measures over a period of thirty years.”
So What Will Happen If Hamilton Doesn’t Win The Pulitzer?
“I image we’d see chaos and bloodshed in Shubert Alley if it was somehow passed over, the likes of which New York hasn’t witnessed since the Astor Place Riot of 1849, with Lin-Manuel Miranda pleading with his fans for some sanity.”
A 66-Year-Old Poet Suddenly Catches Fire With Pop Culture
“Myles has a theory about her resurgent popularity — you might call it the Theory of the Bad Copy, which posits that most people who are breaking with the past do so by presenting initially as bad copies of an accepted person.”
For The First Time, The British Get A Series That Streams Before It Broadcasts On Regular TV
“We have to recognise that young people don’t watch TV the way we did. … It’s very much in the spirit of New Blood that the show will premiere on iPlayer.”
How Being Cool Has Ruined Berlin
“Somebody must have written about my street on their viral travel blog. Now I had the whole world at my doorstep; I just didn’t have Berlin anymore.”
How The Author Of Wolf Hall Actually Gets Her Writing Done
“I used to be a late starter, but now I get up in the dark like a medieval monk, commit unmediated scribble to a notebook, and go back to bed about six, hoping to sleep for another two hours and to wake slowly and in silence. Random noise, voices in other rooms, get me off to a savage, disorderly start, but if I am left in peace to reach for a pen, I feel through my fingertips what sort of day it is.”
Portrait Of The 100-Year-Old, Still Working Artist
“Her age and lack of mobility — she no longer gets out of the house regularly and has live-in round-the-clock care — have forced a series of adjustments to her work habits. Far from undermining her project, however, these concessions have served to highlight the conceptual nature of her work.”
How Peoria (Yes, Peoria) Got A Ballet Company
“Creating a ballet company in Peoria in 1965 was difficult. Ballet was not particularly popular then, and even less popular in stodgy Peoria.”
How To Become The Best Bookstore In The World
“Our biggest year was when Borders closed. … We got a huge onflow from that!”
James Levine’s Best Moments From Decades At The Met
“Levine built the Met Orchestra into one of the world’s great ensembles. And, more than any other mainstream figure, Levine has used his position to gradually expand American appreciation of the form.”
The Man Who Chronicled A Youth Revolution
“For me, photography is all about youth. … It’s about a happy world full of joy, not some kid crying on a street corner or a sick person.”
Add Cirque Du Soleil To The List Of Artists Canceling Visits To North Carolina
The Canadian acrobatic troupe said in a statement it “strongly believes in diversity and equality for every individual and is opposed to discrimination in any form.”
Is Mason Bates The Future Of Classical Music?
“It’s not just that his music is engaging. It’s not just that his side interests — his love of electronic music, his active second life as a DJ and his burgeoning activities as a curator of interesting new-music concerts — represent a link to the younger audience the orchestra world is so hungry to reach.”
I’d Like To Pay Tribute To [Insert Name Of Famous Playwright Here]: When The Prime Minister Forgot The Playwright
“Let me join the right honourable gentleman,” intoned the Prime Minister, donning the sombre mien of one for whom the news had come as a personal shock, “in mourning the loss of…” Oh drat. What was the chap called? Blast it. He knew he should have written it down.
Historic Deal: “Hamilton” Actors And Dancers Will Share Profits From The Show
“The deal, which was announced by a lawyer representing more than two dozen actors and dancers who were part of the show’s development and first productions, is a major victory for the cast and could have ripple effects in the theater industry, where the huge success of “Hamilton,” and the lack of profit-sharing, catalyzed a growing debate about actor compensation.”
For 40 Years She Told The Stories Of The National Symphony (And She’s Just Retired)
“One of the wildest moments she said she remembers of her tenure was the day in 1981 when she got home, turned on her television and learned that Maxim and Dmitri Shostakovich, the composer’s son and grandson, had defected. Rostropovich was due back in the office the following Tuesday, but on the Monday, “I opened the door to his office,” she recounts, “and Maxim Shostakovich was staring me in the face. There was Dmitri; there was Slava. Slava said, ‘I think you see what we need.’ ”