Regardless of how you view it, one thing is certain. We have an insatiable desire to fit reality within the limits of our understanding. If we don’t comprehend something, we strive to make it comprehensible. “I don’t know” is a less acceptable answer than “I will figure it out.” It’s unclear whether this attitude is culturally mediated, or if it is drilled deep into our genetic code. – Human Parts
Director Of ‘Cuties’ Explains Why She Made The Film
Maïmouna Doucouré: “Some people have found certain scenes in my film uncomfortable to watch. But if one really listens to 11-year-old girls, their lives are uncomfortable. We, as adults, have not given children the tools to grow up healthy in our society. I wanted to open people’s eyes to what’s truly happening in schools and on social media, forcing them to confront images of young girls made up, dressed up and dancing suggestively to imitate their favorite pop icon.” – The Washington Post
Do The Arts Oversell Their Benefits?
“If we read, for example, that the arts are ‘crucial to reducing poor health and inequality’ as claimed in a press release from University College London on the release of the WHO report, our critical antennae should begin to vibrate. We all know that the major social determinant of poor health is poverty, and that decent food, housing, education and employment are the crucially important determinants of health. Can we really regard the arts as being ‘crucial’?” – ArtsProfessional
MPR Reporter Quits, Accusing Bosses Of Sitting On Harassment Story
Marianne Combs claimed that MPR News’ legal team cleared her story, but the editors still refused to air it. “They described him as ‘a real creep,’ but worried that airing a story about his behavior would invite a lawsuit,” she said. – The Star-Tribune (Mpls)
Streaming Has Turned Recorded Music From A Product To An ‘Entertainment Service’. Here’s Why That’s A Problem.
Back when we bought vinyl albums or CDs, writes Lukas Krohn-Grimberghe, we gave particular music and musicians both money and shelf space in our homes, incorporating them (at least a bit) into our identities. (“Remember browsing through someone’s record collection? That’s what I am talking about.”) Online streaming may give us almost unimaginable choice for little money, but, argues Krohn-Grimberghe, it changes both the listening experience and how we relate to the pieces we hear (as well as severely reducing the amount of money going to the musicians), and music becomes something like a utility. But there are ways that problem can be addressed. – WQXR (New York City)
Why Converting Turkey’s Historic Museums To Mosques Is A Powerful Statement
As museums, Hagia Sophia and Chora embodied both Byzantine and Ottoman pasts, and became symbols of multi-faith co-existence. Their conversion implies a hierarchy prioritising their Islamic past over all other layers. – The Conversation
Can Arts Groups Successfully Charge Viewers For Online Content? And How Much?
“The wave of free content [put online during the COVID lockdown] was a generous gesture with some lasting side effects – not least of which is the emergence of a price anchor, an expectation that digital culture is somehow free to produce and therefore free to watch. This will take some time to shake off.” Here’s an analysis – with some surprises, both happy and worrisome – of data from a recent survey of more than 130,000 regular arts attenders in the UK. – Arts Professional
A Machine That Can Measure Happiness? Really?
Lithuanian scientists are working on a device they hope will measure happiness. Why? “Because, during the pandemic, people’s psychological state could be damaged not only by the fear and anxiety caused by the spread of the virus, but also by the economic and social consequences that the quarantine would bring about.” – Eurozine
Fox News’ Alternative Language
Political theorists, over the years, have looked for metaphors to describe the effects that Fox—particularly its widely watched opinion shows—has had on American politics and culture. They’ve talked about the network as an “information silo” and “a filter bubble” and an “echo chamber,” as an “alternate reality” constructed of “alternative facts,” as a virus on the body politic, as an organ of the state. The comparisons are all correct. But they don’t quite capture what the elegies for Fox-felled loved ones express so efficiently. – The Atlantic
Intelligence And The Art Of Manipulation (For Good And Bad)
Human intelligence is incredibly useful but it doesn’t safeguard you against having false beliefs, because that’s not what intelligence is for. Intelligence is associated with coming up with more convincing bullshit and with being a better liar, but not associated with a better ability to recognize one’s own bias. Unfortunately, intelligence has very little influence on your ability to rationally evaluate your own beliefs, or undermine what’s called “myside bias.” – Nautilus
Columbia University Marching Band Disbands Itself For ‘A History Riddled With Offensive Behavior’
For 116 years, the ensemble (a term loosely applied, at least musically) has been both beloved and disdained for its un-march-like on-field scrambles; its sometimes witty, sometimes tasteless, always irreverent satirical routines; and its on-campus pranks. This week, more than 20 members voted “unanimously and enthusiastically” to shut the group down for its history of “sexual misconduct, assault, theft, racism and injury to individuals and the Columbia community as a whole.” (Some observers are hoping that this, too, is a prank.) – The New York Times
Grand Jury Subpoenas Simon And Schuster Over John Bolton’s Trump Tell-All Book
“The Justice Department convened a grand jury and has subpoenaed publisher Simon & Schuster for documents as it investigates whether Bolton, [former National Security Adviser and] author of The Room Where it Happened, mishandled classified information.” – CNBC
How Academics Infected Literary Journalism
The laudable aim of encouraging brainy specialists to share their knowledge with the world at large has turned into a complete disaster. Why is the presence of an academic on a book prize judging panel, fronting a BBC Four arts documentary or even reviewing for a national newspaper generally such an embarrassment? – The Critic
What The Arts Can Learn From The NBA’s Bubble
The NBA used theatricality to replicate the essence of a live game — fans cheering, sound effects, music — and gave viewers the opportunity to be visible to both the players and to themselves in the live performance space. As performing arts venues make decisions about the future, creating hybrid events that include virtual presence and audience recognition will be important for developing investment in their work. – The Conversation
Randall Kenan, Magical Realist Writer Of The American South. Dead At 57
“[He was] an award-winning gay Black writer whose fiction, set largely in a North Carolina hamlet similar to the one where he grew up, artfully blended myth, magic, mysticism and realism.” That village, a sort of Macondo, N.C., was called Tims Creek and, in Kenan’s fictional world, had been founded by a runaway slave named Pharaoh. – The New York Times
New Edition Of ‘Pride And Prejudice’ Prints Characters’ Letters In Period Handwriting
Naturally, each character’s script is different, modeled by a calligrapher on surviving correspondence from England ca. 1800 and matched to each individual letter-writer in the novel by project curator Barbara Heller. (Elizabeth Bennet’s handwriting is copied from that of Austen herself.)
Here’s how Heller went about it. – Smithsonian Magazine
Italy Appoints 13 New Museum Directors, With Emphasis On Homegrown Talent
The move is part of the Italian government’s drive to recruit so-called “super-directors” with experience of fundraising as well as scholarly credentials. Crucially this shift, which gave museums greater autonomy, was set in motion in 2015 under culture minister Dario Franceschini when the centrist government hoped to overturn the image of outdated bureaucracy associated with Italian institutions by appointing foreign museum chiefs. – The Art Newspaper
Planned Museum Near Taj Mahal Will Now Ignore Muslim Dynasty That Built It
“The museum was meant to showcase the arms, art and fashion of the Mughals, Muslim rulers who reigned over [much of] the Indian subcontinent from the 16th to the 18th centuries. But officials this week in Agra, home to the Taj Mahal — the world’s most famous example of Mughal-era architecture and India’s best-known building — had another idea: a complete overhaul of the museum so that it would instead celebrate India’s Hindu majority, leaders and history.” – The New York Times
Brain Drain: Pandemic Is Driving Professionals To Leave The Arts Altogether
“With veterans and newcomers alike abandoning an industry struggling to confront racial and economic inequities, experts worry that the entire field will soon experience catastrophic losses of talent and institutional knowledge. Others claim that the brain drain is already here.” – Artnet
La Maestra, A New Competition Specifically For Female Conductors
The event, operated by the Philharmonie de Paris concert hall and the Paris Mozart Orchestra, is taking place this week in the French capital. Conductor Marin Alsop, who is on the jury, talks with host Olivia Salazar-Winspear about why the competition is (still) necessary and the obstacles that women conductors still face, even as their prospects are finally starting to improve. (video) – France 24
YouTube Launches A Competitor To TikTok
“YouTube Shorts will provide a number of tools to allow creators to make [15-second] videos on their mobile devices. It will consist of a ‘multi-segment camera’ that can combine separate clips, as well as speed controls and a timer and countdown so you can create videos without needing to hold your phone. Its most TikTok-like feature? The library of music you can use to record with.” – Mashable
Booker Prize Shortlist Is Most Diverse, And Most American, Ever (But Hilary Mantel Isn’t On It)
It’s not only Mantel: Anne Tyler and Colum McCann were also among the semifinalists who failed to advance. Of the six writers on the shortlist, four are women, four are nonwhite, and four, including one dual-national, are from the United States, a fact sure to incense those who still oppose the 2014 decision to open the Booker to any author writing in English and published in the UK. – The Guardian
The Monuments America Needs?
When we speak of monuments in America, we’re often talking about structures such as statues, obelisks, and memorials that celebrate a relatively narrow band of our history: the Civil War, the First and Second World Wars, the civil-rights era. Our monumental landscape preserves a sense that we are an exceptional, upstart nation. (American civilization may not boast standing stones that date back to the prehistoric era, but we do have Carhenge.) – The New Yorker
JK Rowling Under Attack For Character In Her New Book
Penned under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, Troubled Blood is Rowling’s fifth book to feature private investigator Cormoran Strike. An early review of the book by Telegraph writer Jake Kerridge described it as featuring a “transvestite serial killer,” which inspired readers’ anger and spawned the Twitter hashtag #RIPJKRowling — a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the author’s career. – CBC
Clarinetist Anthony McGill Wins $100,000 Avery Fisher Prize
Mr. McGill was the Philharmonic’s first Black principal musician when he joined in 2014; he is currently its only Black player. He appears at David Geffen Hall and elsewhere as a concerto soloist, and is in a trio with his brother, Demarre McGill — the principal flute of the Seattle Symphony — and the pianist Michael McHale. In 2009, he performed at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration. – The New York Times