“When a team of archaeologists deep in the deserts of Sudan arrived at the ancient site of Jabal Maragha last month, they thought they were lost. The site had vanished. But they hadn’t made a mistake. In fact, gold-hunters with giant diggers had destroyed almost all sign of the two millennia-old site.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Kindness With A Capital K: Why Ellen Is So Vulnerable To Her Current Scandal, And Why She Had To Be That Way
Spencer Kornhaber: “So-called diva antics never canceled the careers of, say, Christian Bale or Aretha Franklin. Yet DeGeneres may well be held to a different standard than other entertainers — because her product is her own persona, because she has centered that persona around niceness, and because the same cultural forces that led her to create that persona still exist today. To look back over her career now is to wonder whether the secret, bitter ingredient in her success has been revealed. Softness has long been her shield — and this scandal, on some level, shows what it was protecting against.” – The Atlantic
Man Sues Patent Office Over Its Decision That AI Can’t Invent Things
The outcome of the debate over AI’s inventorship status and other intellectual property rights could have substantial consequences, particularly for creative industries. – Vice
‘Unhinged’ Made $4 Million Its Opening Weekend, And That’s Seen As A Major Success
With cinemas in many of the big U.S. metros still closed and many potential customers still unconvinced that multiplexes are safe from the coronavirus (despite the efforts of the National Association of Theatre Owners), Hollywood sees the box-office results for the new Russell Crowe road-rage thriller, the first major U.S. release since March, as good news. Says the CEO of the movie’s distributor, “We’re breathing a sigh of enormous relief.” – Los Angeles Times
Study: Singing Is No Riskier Than Talking
The project, called Perform, looked at the amount of aerosols and droplets generated by performers. The findings could have implications for live indoor performances, which resumed in England this week. They are currently only allowed to take place under strict social distancing guidelines. – BBC
Why Cities Look More And More Alike
The anthropologist Marc Augé gave the name non-place to the escalating homogeneity of urban spaces. In non-places, history, identity, and human relation are not on offer. Non-places used to be relegated to the fringes of cities in retail parks or airports, or contained inside shopping malls. But they have spread. Everywhere looks like everywhere else and, as a result, anywhere feels like nowhere in particular. – The Atlantic
Remembering 50 Years Of The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Jazz Club In Chicago
As the jazz world mourns Joe Segal’s death Aug. 10 at age 94, I realize anew that Segal had found the best way possible to win converts to the music he revered: by welcoming the uninitiated into the sometimes mysterious, occasionally daunting world of jazz in the most intimate settings possible. – Chicago Tribune
Virgin Islands Subpoena’s Billionaire Board Chair Of MoMA In Jeffrey Epstein Investigation
Some of the subpoenas are for companies that Leon Black, the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, has used to build a collection that includes paintings by Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. – The New York Times
Stand-Up Comedians Aren’t Finding The Whole Situation Very Funny Right Now
Should stand-up comedians play drive-in gigs, participate in Zooming, try to start YouTube channels or wait, somehow, for live audiences to return? It’s a bit of a mess for them, and sitting down to tell stories on camera … well. “It’s not really stand up per se. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really good and people have recorded really funny stuff. [But] It’s not quite live comedy. It’s filling a gap until we can get back on stage.” – BBC
The Grim Silence Of The Present Makes For An Eerie Vacation
The NYT‘s classical music critic isn’t truly enjoying his time off because there hasn’t been very much time on. “The shutdowns have been devastating for American classical music, given its dependence on patronage — which has been eroding of late — and the lack of meaningful government support, which still props up institutions in Europe. It’s depressing to read all the social media posts by accomplished freelance artists who have been without work for months and can have a bleak view of the future.” – The New York Times
State Universities Backed Themselves, With Legislative Help, Into Some Terrible Corners This Fall
As the pandemic exposes massive historical cracks in the U.S. along class and race lines, it also exposes what state universities have been dealing with for a few decades – and it’s causing serious crises. “How does one advertise an education, or the quality of a school’s faculty? Most students are, almost by definition, not in a position to assess a professor’s expertise. … What a school can advertise, through glossy pamphlets, professionally produced websites, and those iconic tours, are campus amenities: rock-climbing walls, state-of-the-art gyms, and ample dining options. University leadership, looking to compete for students, promises a fun student life, in place of an educational one.” And that’s not something one find on Zoom. – The Atlantic
Mercedes Barcha, Vital To The Publication Of Her Husband’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude, 87
Barcha held the landlord off while Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote the book, and when he emerged with the manuscript, “pawned her hair dryer and the couple’s blender so she could pay the postage to send the manuscript to his Argentine editor.” – The New York Times
Black Artists In Portland Create A New Map For Cities Confronting Their Past, And Present
Portland doesn’t exactly have the best history with its Black populations, including forced gentrification after decades of intense redlining. A 69-year-old artist says, “They tried to scoop us out of the city. … Now there are generations of Black artists working in Portland to create historical artifacts around our own existence to show that we have always been here.” – The New York Times
Placido Domingo Wants To Clear His Name, But Won’t Answer Direct Questions About Sexual Harassment
“Two of Domingo’s managers and a spokesperson briefly cut off the interview when the singer was asked to respond to the fact that both investigations had found the sexual harassment accusations credible and that one had found a pattern of abuse.” – Baltimore Sun (AP)
The Artistic Legacy Of LA’s Chicano Moratorium Against The Vietnam War
Police tear-gassed the gathering before the march began, killing L.A. Times columnist and KMEX news director Ruben Salazar (two others also died during the tear-gassing and shooting). “The Moratorium shifted creative paths for those who were present and those who heard about it on the news or from friends. It fueled an urgency to make visible the Chicano experience, one that had largely been left out of the history books — an urgency that remains resonant.” – Los Angeles Times
Minnesota Finally Recognizes A Native Author With Its State Literary Award
And what an author – Marcie Rendon, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, is an “award-winning poet, playwright, author of children’s books, short stories and the popular Cash Blackbear mystery series.” – St. Paul Pioneer Press