“There are objective criticisms you can make, you can point stuff out, but how you decide to rate or value the things done well, how much you penalise the things done less well—it’s a semi-random choice. It’s also hard to distinguish from the exercise of deep prejudice. You can use a softer word than prejudice, like bias, or even turn it into a term of praise—you can call it taste.” – Prospect
Public Radio And TV Must Reimagine Themselves Or ‘Lose Their Reason To Exist’: Outgoing CPB Board Member
Howard Husock, an executive at the Manhattan Institute, points out the ways that the media landscape has been transformed since the passage of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act, not least the fact that non-public television is no longer a “vast wasteland” and public radio is no longer an afterthought to television. — Current
We Measure Attention – But Is Attention A Commodity?
Conceiving of attention as a resource misses the fact that attention is not just useful. It’s more fundamental than that: attention is what joins us with the outside world. ‘Instrumentally’ attending is important, sure. But we also have the capacity to attend in a more ‘exploratory’ way: to be truly open to whatever we find before us, without any particular agenda. – Aeon
Amazon’s Prime Video Channels Will Pull In $1.7 Billion This Year
That’s more than double the revenue from last year, and analysts say that the figure should more than double again by 2020. — The Hollywood Reporter
Gender Pay Gap In British Arts World Remains Serious Problem: Study
“Figures drawn from Arts Professional‘s 2018 online survey of pay and earnings reveal that on average, women in full-time employment in the cultural sector earn 10.6% less than men, … with women being only half as likely as men to reach senior roles by their mid-30s, and on average earning less than men as their careers progress.” — Arts Professional
The Nutcracker Industry: By The Numbers
Dance/USA’s most recent Annual Financial Survey (2017), shows that Nutcracker/holiday revenue now represents an average of 48 percent of the surveyed dance companies’ overall season revenues and a median of 55 percent. As a percentage of total revenues, it represents an average and median of 15 percent. – Dance/USA
Uh, CNBC? It’s 2018 And Maybe Your Game Show Model Posse Needs To Go
Sooooo, CNBC brought back the game show Deal or No Deal?, and along with it, “26 female models in matching high heels and short, skintight dresses.” Game shows might just need a bit of a rethink. – The New York Times
As The Field Museum Revamps, It Starts To Ask Exactly Whom Its Native American Hall Is For
The remodel of the Native North American Hall is overdue (at any natural history museum), and it’s vital. The hall hasn’t changed since its inception in the 1950s, and it’s a mess. How will the Field Museum do it right? “The renovations are taking place under the guidance of a robust advisory committee made up of contemporary Native American tribal leaders, scholars, artists, historical society representatives, and cultural caretakers.” (And it won’t remain stuck in time for 65+ years, either.) – Chicago Reader
Senegal Opens Museum Of Black Civilizations, Funded By China
The museum, in Dakar, is pan-African and also includes works from the Caribbean. A UNESCO official said, “This museum is a response to the aspirations of African children to better understand their memory and other cultures. It is also an important step towards the realization of an Africa with a strong cultural identity.” – AfricaNews
If ‘Widows’ Really Wanted To Be Feminist, Well, It Threw Away Its Shot
Director Steve McQueen and his co-writer Gillian Flynn might say the movie, starring Viola Davis at the head of a very fine cast of badass women, is feminist, or deals with racism and sexism at every level of society, but … well. “Their dialogue starts to read like promotional materials for the newest brand of Feminism Lite.” – Vice
Women Are Funny, But The Grammys Don’t Seem To Know That
This is a year when Hannah Gadsby’s “Nanette” earned rave reviews and made the comedian (as she notes in a joint interview with Roxane Gay this week) unbelievably busy. A year when Michelle Wolf’s epic set at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner made waves – and infuriated the president. “So it’s a shame that the 2019 nominees for best comedy album — a category that now includes spoken comedy and musical comedy — only lauds men.” – Los Angeles Times
Can Belgium’s Africa Museum Overcome Its History Of Racism?
Even its name is a bit of a challenge, but there was far worse in its history. Did a five-year, $73-million remodel change things? Part of the problem: “Most of the collection of over 120,000 items comes from Congo, collected in colonial-era military campaigns, or by missionaries and scientific explorers.” – The New York Times
Yes, Anna Netrebko Is Extra, And That’s Why We Love Her
The soprano gives a new meaning to diva. Even when her Carnegie Hall debut gets pushed back, oh, 12 years, that’s fine – she “has an Instagram account much like the interior of a very rich, very well traveled, possibly colorblind teenager’s school locker. … She embodies an excess that lies at the molten core of opera, and which spills into the images she unloads online.” – The New York Times
The Librarypocalypse Continues With Almost 130 Closing Across The UK Last Year
Utter austerity madness continues, as “712 full-time employees lost or left their jobs and volunteer numbers increased by 3,000.” – The Guardian (UK)
Dawn Clements, Artist Whose Life Was The Subject Of Her Panoramas, Has Died At 60
An example of her work is “Three Tables in Rome,” which “has a diaristic quality to it, the artist seeming intent on documenting everything around her. For another, it’s an unusual shape: an elongated rectangle with an appendage (the third of the three tables) hanging off the bottom right. And it is huge, more than 20 feet in length.” – The New York Times
Why We Still Love (Some) Monsters Of Literature
“Last night I dreamt I went to Sweet Valley again.” That’s right: This is why we just can’t quit Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield (and their evil friends), the monsters of teen serial books. – BuzzFeed
Is Britain Finally Going To Make Some Progress For Women In Theatre?
Maybe! Arts Council England chair Nicholas Serota met with a delegation, some of whom say that the meeting was quite useful. “We are on that track now and we are not getting off this time. We are not allowing it to be sidelined. I don’t want young people coming out of drama school being treated like that.” – The Stage (UK)
How Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’ Became A Depressing Christmas Music Classic
Discounting the utterly depressing yet joyous – and always voted the number 1 Christmas song in the UK – “Fairytale of New York,” even Joni Mitchell admitted, “We needed a sad Christmas song, didn’t we? … In the ‘bah humbug’ of it all.” – The Washington Post
This Year’s Classical Grammy Nominations
The Seattle Symphony leads all orchestras with three nominations — two for its present music director, Ludovic Morlot, in Aaron Jay Kernis’ traditionally shaped Violin Concerto with soloist James Ehnes (in the classical instrumental solo and contemporary composition categories), and one for its future music director, Thomas Dausgaard, in Nielsen’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 (orchestral performance), a strong opening entry for a complete Nielsen cycle. There were no nominations for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which has recorded little lately. – Los Angeles Times
The Oscars Have A Bigger Problem Than Kevin Hart
We’re living in a time of perpetual, distracting, cheap cliffhangers provided by a ratings-conscious president. America’s relationship to many of its long-standing institutions, from the U.S. government to the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the Emmys and the Grammys — it’s all eroding. And maybe inevitable. – Chicago Tribune
Amanda Swimmer, Beloved Cherokee Potter And Elder, Dead At 97
After jumping the fence and running away from the boarding school she and other Cherokee were forced to attend, she spent her life dedicated to preserving both the Cherokee language (she was one of its last fluent speakers) and its traditional methods of making pottery. — New York Times
Why Natalia Osipova Likes Contemporary Dance Better (Maybe) Than Classical Ballet
“Contemporary dancers seem more natural to me, they look more like human beings – like real life. In classical ballet there are certain rules. I can’t be an ordinary contemporary woman, I can [only] be a princess – pointe shoes, pointe shoes.” – The Stage
World’s Richest Chamber Music Prize Discontinued After Only Three Years
“The M-Prize, a chamber music competition with $100,000 grand prize [and $200,000 in total awards], based at the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD) in Ann Arbor, will not be returning for a fourth edition in 2019. … It was launched by Sphinx Organisation founder Aaron Dworkin, who had then [in 2015] just been appointed dean of the SMTD. His tenure was shortlived, however, and it is speculated that the M-Prize was always unlikely to survive without his patronage and fundraising network.” — The Strad
After Homophobia Controversy, Kevin Hart Steps Down As Oscars Host
“Wednesday afternoon, comedian Kevin Hart was announced as the host for the upcoming 91st annual Academy Awards. By Thursday night, he had stepped down. The turn of events followed outcry over previous anti-gay tweets, and comments Hart made during stand-up routines nearly 10 years ago. Some of the tweets were feverishly deleted throughout the day on Thursday, leading to an Instragram video from the comedian that only made matters worse for him.” — Variety