In ports of call known for their cruise appeal, the disappearance of boat-borne tourism has been greeted with mixed feelings. Many towns and cities depend in part on revenue from these vacationers. But the boats bring problems, too: Critics often cite the industry’s environmental record and dubious economic impact — study after study show that passengers on short stopovers contribute relatively little to the local economy. – CityLab
How The Rise Of Individualism Is Related To Plagues
Following the Black Death in the 14th century, outbreaks recurred throughout Europe and the Mediterranean for centuries. The spectre of plague was significant not just in the history of medicine and society but of subjectivity – how we see ourselves and especially one another. Self-reliance became indistinguishable from self-protection. – New Statesman
Why Is Climate Change MIA On America’s Stages?
How many climate-themed works have been presented in the theaters of America, one of the major energy-gouging countries in the world — particularly in our large, well-funded stages? It is any surprise that, given the economic stakes, that it is pretty well nada? – Arts Fuse
Repertory Theatre, Live From An Actual Florida Closet
Rachel Burttram Powers, co-founder and co-star (with husband Brendan) of Tiny_Theatre: “I started cleaning out a back closet because I thought, ‘What would happen if you made a theatre at home?’ We knew everyone was self-isolating. We both have a passion for new plays, and we have a lot of playwright friends who are very well established, and I just thought, ‘Let me just send an email to see if people would be game to play with us.'” Since March 21, they’ve appeared three days a week on Facebook Live, performing work by more than 20 playwrights. – American Theatre
Are We Losing Our Abilities To Read Deeply?
Beyond self-inflicted attention deficits, people who cannot deep read — or who do not use and hence lose the deep-reading skills they learned — typically suffer from an attenuated capability to comprehend and use abstract reasoning. In other words, if you can’t, or don’t, slow down sufficiently to focus quality attention — what Wolf calls “cognitive patience” — on a complex problem, you cannot effectively think about it. – National Affairs
The Atlantic Magazine Cuts 20 Percent Of Its Staff
The 68 staff cuts are mostly attributable to the collapse of the company’s events business, which was one of its strongest pillars for many years.
Why Should It Matter If You Know What You’re Listening To?
Our preconceived ideas about a composer or piece can keep us from listening with fresh ears. An intermezzo by the mighty Brahms? Before you hear a note, you may already have decided it’s great. – The New York Times
Can The “Experience Economy” Survive The Pandemic?
The economy’s reliance on live events has been growing for years. When Disneyland opened in 1955, it sparked a boom in the theme park business. In recent decades, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Great Wolf Lodge water parks and more have emerged to compete for the attention — and money — of American families. – The New York Times
Sampling The World Of Zoom Book Clubs
Gail Beckerman joins a New York literary salon now hosted remotely from Nairobi (“I’d never had the experience of watching in close-up such a large group of people actively listening”), the Quarantine Book Club (it hosts an author a day for regulars from all over the globe), the Borderless Book Club (a new novel in English translation every two weeks), a gathering hosted by the Academy of American Poets, a group devoted solely to Hannah Arendt, and a party where everyone logs on and just silently reads (“It’s mesmerizing, found performance art”). – The New York Times
‘The Wake World’ comes from somewhere, but where?
Time and again while listening to the new recording of David Hertzberg’s opera, I asked myself, What zeitgeist did this arrive from? What cultural phenomenon contributed to why it was written now? And why have audiences responded to it so readily? Here are the pieces that don’t even begin to add up. – David Patrick Stearns
Woman Wins €1 Million Picasso In Raffle
The fundraiser, organized by Christie’s, netted €5.1 million for CARE’s clean-water projects in three African countries. The prize, a small 1921 Nature morte (still-life), went to an Italian woman who received one of the €100 tickets as a gift. – Reuters
René Buch, Who Established Professional Spanish-Language Theater In New York, Dead At 94
“[He was] a co-founder and the artistic director of Repertorio Español, … [which since 1968] has reimagined Spanish classics and offered contemporary work by Latin and Latin American playwrights, always in Spanish, performed repertory-style. … And he liked to say that the playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age — Cervantes et al. — should be as well known here as Shakespeare.” – The New York Times
Los Angeles Redirects Developer Fees To Arts Aid
LA City Council unanimously approved two motions that repurpose arts fees paid by developers in support of now-canceled or planned cultural events as small-dollar grants to artists, arts organizations, and live performance spaces that have been negatively affected or threatened by the pandemic. – Hyperallergic
Only In France? A Traveling Drive-In Art Film Festival
The Drive-In Festival, conceived by a small group of French movie execs, shows one title a day (“popular director-driven films” rather than “blockbusters or new releases”) for a week, charging €10 for adults and €5 for children, then moves to the next city. The proceeds go to distributors and closed cinemas in each locale; they’re happy, but the national exhibitors’ association is objecting. – Variety
San Francisco’s Avenue de Cello
The cello concerts have the added bonus of another San Francisco shelter-in-place trend. Page Street is one of an increasing number of roads closed to through traffic to give people space to exercise, get fresh air or, apparently, listen to cello music while keeping their social distance. – San Francisco Chronicle
Just What Was The “Sweating Sickness” In Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy?
“It was known in Cromwell’s time as sudor anglicus, meaning the ‘English sweat,’ and there were five outbreaks of it in England, the first in 1485 and the last in 1551. Victims did, in fact, often die within hours of their first symptoms, developing a high fever and ‘copious malodorous sweating.’ … Because the disease killed so swiftly, and because it had other peculiar features — it seemed mainly to affect English people, even when it travelled across borders, and it was particularly infectious among wealthy young men — superstitions abounded.” – The New Yorker
Bill T. Jones May Be Just The Choreographer For The Age Of COVID
“”This is my second plague,” he said he told his company recently. ‘I know it’s kind of a coarse thing to say. They’re different, but they have things in common.’ Yes, the circumstances of the coronavirus are different, but there’s a sense that the dance world, which suffered tremendous losses during the AIDS crisis, has been through this all before. … [And Jones] is looking exactly like an artist with the experience and wisdom to help others navigate the present moment.” – The New York Times
70% Of Audience Would Rather See New Movies At Home Than At A Theater: Study
“The results — from a survey of roughly 1,000 people in mid-May by sports and events analytics firm Performance Research, in partnership with Full Circle Research Co. — point to just how steep a climb the entertainment industry has in front of it to win back public perception that it’s safe to attend, and spend money on, public events again.” – Variety
Orchestra Musicians Face No Increased Risk Of Transmitting Coronavirus While Playing, Finds Study
If, that is, the players remain one meter apart, per current regulations. The research, commissioned by the Vienna Philharmonic and carried out earlier this month, “involved members of the orchestra each being fitted with an aerosol device inside their noses, which spayed a fine mist into their lungs. They were then placed in front of a black canvas and very brightly lit from the front, then photographed while playing. This made it possible to view the mist and the extent to which it travelled in the air.” – The Strad
Italy Will Resume Live Performances And Cinema Screenings As Of June 15
There will be strict rules in place for the time being: audience limits of 200 indoors and 1,000 outdoors, one meter’s distance between individuals, masks and temperature checks required, mandatory procedures for sanitizing and ventilating venues and directing audience traffic. – The Strad
What Comes Next? IV
“It behooves us to spend some time considering how we might prepare not just for a new financial reality but for a new social one. It will be important to be and be seen as partners in making a better and more livable world – not just by being presenters of arts events but by being valuable community citizens.” – Doug Borwick
Tarot Card Reader Who Claimed To Be Dalí’s Daughter Loses Appeal, Must Pay For Digging Up His (Exquisite) Corpse
“A Spanish court has dismissed an appeal from a psychic who claimed to be Salvador Dalí’s long-lost daughter after DNA results debunked the outlandish theory. Pilar Abel has been ordered to pay for exhuming the surrealist artist’s body three years ago in her quest to prove he was her father.” (Exquisite? Why, yes — Dalí’s mustache remains intact.) – Artnet