“These are all cultural products set firmly in the realm of values. They are not concerned with which billionaire son inherits his father’s empire, but rather focus on ordinary people struggling to live lives of dignity with the force of the world against them. They are concerned with principles, with how one defeats temptation, greed, and avoids dishonor. … [And] you can listen to a K-pop song with your grandmother in the room, no lyrics have to be beeped out.” – The New York Times
OSF Commits $15 Million to Efforts to Return Looted African Artifacts
“The Open Society Foundations has announced the launch of a four-year, $15 million initiative aimed at returning cultural objects looted from the African continent. The initiative will support networks and organizations working to return not only art and ceremonial objects but also human remains, natural history specimens, archives, and cultural heritage artifacts to their rightful homes.” – Philanthropy News Digest
By The Numbers: Who Works In Publishing
2017 was the first time women held a greater share of management jobs than men, and in 2018 they once again had a majority of jobs in that area, though their share fell to 52% (from 59% in 2017). Still, the median compensation for a woman in management was $126,000 last year, up from $110,000 in 2017. Male managers also had an increase, with their median pay rising to $139,000 (from $118,000 in 2017). – Publishers Weekly
I Like Books. But I Really Like Reading On My Phone Better
“Reading on my phone is not a perfect cure for my drowsiness, which seems to be a condition of aging, and stress, or both. I’ll never again be 14 years old with an insatiable appetite for one more chapter, and that’s sad. But I can approximate that feeling, reading on my phone, in bed, with the lights out, long after I should have gone to sleep.” – The Cut
Let’s All Just Stop Talking About Sergei Polunin For A While, Okay?
After all, argues Courtney Escoyne (reacting to news of a second Polunin documentary), it only encourages him. “I’m not sure that it matters what stance this documentary takes. It’s yet another vehicle for him to receive exactly what he wants: attention. At this point, that’s not something I believe we owe him.” – Dance Magazine
World’s First Vagina Museum Is Now Open
“The [London] museum exists thanks to a public fundraising drive, with more than 1,000 people collectively donating almost £50,000. The director, Florence Schechter, says her motivation behind setting up the space was simple. ‘I discovered there was a penis museum in Iceland but no vagina equivalent anywhere else so I decided to make one,’ she says. When asked more about her motivation, she adds with a smile: ‘I just love the vag. I am a bisexual woman.'” – The Guardian
Opera San Antonio Names New General Director And Its First-Ever Music Director
“E. Loren Meeker was announced Friday as the company’s general and artistic director, and Francesco Milioto will become music director. Meeker replaces both Adam Diegel, who departed as artistic director in 2018, and executive director Liz Tullis, who also relinquished her role in 2018. Milioto will be the company’s first music director.” – The Rivard Report (San Antonio)
George Soros Funds Program To Return African Art And Artifacts To Africa
“Last November, French President Emmanuel Macron commissioned a report recommending the repatriation of looted African cultural objects from France’s public collections, spurring a national debate. But one year later, no objects have been returned to the areas from which they were taken. Now, an organization is stepping in to facilitate the process. The Open Society Foundations, an international grant-making organization founded by billionaire George Soros, has launched a four year, $15 million initiative to aid in restitution efforts.” – artnet
Director Of Venue Gets Death Threats After Resigning In Protest
Lorna Fulton, head of Middlesbrough Town Hall, declined to book comedian Roy Chubby Brown because she thought local audiences might find his act offensive and his 2015 performance sold poorly. The mayor of the northern English city insisted that Fulton reverse herself and hire Brown, saying that her reluctance was “typical middle class prejudice against a blue collar act.” Fulton resigned — and received death threats. – Arts Professional
Theatre, We Have A Problem
And the problem is that men somehow still think that no matter what women write about, it’s “domestic.” One playwrighting contest judge: “There is still an element of surprise when a woman writes a play that doesn’t have domestic concerns, and there is no element of surprise when a man does it. So the woman who manages to do it is seen as an anomaly rather than the norm.” Hey, 2019. – The Stage (UK)
As Cord-Cutting Becomes Bundling, The Price Is Going Up
Disney is planning to raise the price of Hulu Live by $10 per month, which might not seem like a lot, but it – and AT&T – are bellwethers as “the cost of watching live TV via streaming is getting more expensive for consumers.” – Los Angeles Times
How Has The Current President Affected Publishing? [AUDIO]
Whew. All of this: “The response has been that there’s been a couple of very successful books about Trump, but if you’re not writing about Trump, you know, where does that take you? What do you do? How does a literary novel that’s functioning on all of the rules that were there, which were not really stated prior to this moment, now function in this new moment? Is the writing of literary fiction a parlor game for the upper middle class? Maybe it is. But what happens when that upper middle class completely freaks out in response to a public event outside of that relatively small ecosystem?” – Literary Hub
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra Tours For Seven Weeks A Year, And Pulls In $60 Million
It’s a holiday miracle: People willing to part with their money for a classical music-prog rock mashup, especially at the holidays. But how did we get to this elaborate two-band tour setup that begins in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and extends around the entire continental U.S.? The founder, Paul O’Neill. “In the early ‘90s, O’Neill began to plot a holiday-themed live spectacle that combined progressive rock, heavy metal and classical music with elaborate stage productions” ever more elaborate by the year. – Billboard
In The Wake Of Apparent Hostility Toward Black Guest Curator, The Guggenheim Hires Its First Full-Time Black Woman Curator
Art historian Chaédria LaBouvier, who was the first solo Black woman curator in the museum’s 80-year history, said that she was cut out of her own show, “Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story.” Now the Guggenheim, without directly addressing LaBouvier’s claims, has hired the Brooklyn Museum’s Ashley James. James’s work “‘complements the Guggenheim’s mission to present the art of today,’ Nancy Spector, the Guggenheim’s artistic director and chief curator, said.” – The New York Times
GoFundMe Isn’t Just For Health Care Or Funerals In The U.S., But Also For Ballet Costumes
That’s right, the Colorado Ballet has turned to crowdfunding to get new Nutcracker costumes; the old ones were created for the San Francisco Ballet in 1986, and Colorado Ballet bought them in 2005. “For years, the team has done what it can to try to maintain the set and costumes, using vodka to try to extract the sweat from the costumes and glue and tape to keep some of the props together.” – Denver7
Egypt Officially Criminalizes Climbing The Pyramids
The new laws also criminalize all kinds of antiquities theft. “Earlier this year, an Egyptian man climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid of Giza, removing parts of a 19th-century wooden mast that was installed to measure the height of the pyramid, and throwing stones at security forces.” Then there was the Danish couple that claimed to have, er, peaked on one of the peaks. – Hyperallergic
Hong Kong Music Festival Canceled Because Of Protests
The Clockenflap festival was supposed to run Nov. 22-24, but after yet another death in the protests (and no signs of that stopping), the organizers canceled one of the most high-profile music festivals in Asia. – The Guardian (UK)
Baltimore Art Museum Will Only Buy Art By Women In 2020
Baltimore Museum of Art Christopher Bedford: “This how you raise awareness and shift the identity of an institution. …You don’t just purchase one painting by a female artist of color and hang it on the wall next to a painting by Mark Rothko. To rectify centuries of imbalance, you have to do something radical.” – The Baltimore Sun
Boston Children’s Theatre Dumps Its Executive Director, Says It’s Time To Clean House
This comes after its longtime artistic director, Burgess Clark, resigned and was then accused of sexual misconduct by many former students. The theatre has canceled its holiday production and said its financial situation is “even more precarious than usual.” – The Boston Globe
In The UK, Money Means Co-Productions, And That Means Regional Theatres Will Lose Their Identities
Or at least that’s the warning right now. Bristol Old Vic’s artistic director Tom Morris: “It is harder to make shows that are specific to your audience, though it doesn’t mean it’s impossible, and it’s harder to make shows specific to your region. Not impossible again, but I think we’re at an interesting tipping point.” – The Stage (UK)
How To Follow Up A Number One Bestseller: Throw Away Your Internet
Erin Morgenstern’s second book debuted at number three on the bestseller list after she spent years working on her sophomore venture. How did she work, especially after the events of 2016? She didn’t have internet for a couple of years, and also, well, video games. – The New York Times
Dora Maar, Long Known As Picasso’s Muse, Gets Her Own Billing Now
When Maar died at 89, Le Monde forgot to give her an obit until 10 days later, and The Independent said she’d be remembered forever as Picasso’s muse and his Weeping Woman. Now the photographer is getting her own shows, and they’re big – and meaningful: “The sense is of a curtain being pulled back. Forget those Picasso portraits: here is how Dora Maar actually wanted to be seen.” – The Guardian (UK)
Carol Brightman, The Chronicler Of The Dead, Has Died At 80
Brightman first published an acclaimed biography of Mary McCarthy, and edited the letters between Hannah Arendt and McCarthy, before she started to become fascinated by the world of the Grateful Dead and the band’s fans. “‘Deadheads are everywhere and nowhere,’ she wrote, ‘so much a part of American life as to appear almost invisible.'” – The New York Times
Disney Spent A Lot Of Money And A Quarter-Century Getting The Internet Wrong
Kara Swisher has been writing about companies and the internet for even longer than Disney has been trying to figure out how to deal with the contemporary world. Swisher: “Forget the dashing Mandalorian. Do you remember Starwave? Infoseek? Go? Daily Blast? Spoonful.com? Club Penguin? Tapulous? Maker Studios? I’d like to say I don’t either, but I know them very well. They were among the many failed efforts by Disney that I have covered as a reporter since the mid-1990s, when it became clear to Disney that this internet thing just might be a big deal.” – The New York Times
Will The New Streaming Landscape Help Or Hurt The Movies?
“Abundance can be its own kind of scarcity. Without a sense of occasion, without the idea that a given experience is special, even rare, all experiences become equivalent, and our attention follows the path of least resistance.” – The New York Times