History writing is based on the faith that events, despite appearances, don’t happen higgledy-piggledy—that although individuals can act irrationally, change can be explained rationally. - The New Yorker
It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families. - The Atlantic
Can you really reach a larger audience by getting on a background jazz playlist than taking home the most coveted Grammy? I hate to share the bad news, my friends, but the world has changed. - Ted Gioia
After two years' closure, and with both storage/maintenance of the collection and staff salaries desperately underfunded, five of the museum's 13 display rooms have reopened. Employees and volunteers are working to get the impressive collection (e.g., Picasso, Chagall, Dalí, Calder, Botero) back in shape. - The New York Times
From the Horatio Alger stories which launched the genre to memoirs by billionaires and even to Fifty Shades of Grey and other "billionaire romance" books (an actual category at Amazon), rags-to-riches narratives demonstrate that financial success is not, in fact, due to hard work alone. - The New York Times Magazine
Wealthy Russian businessmen, many of whom are now sanctioned, have donated between $372 million and $435 million to more than 200 nonprofits in the US in the last two decades. The findings are laid out in a database created in 2020. - Hyperallergic
By his count, it is actually 37 more languages, with at least 24 he speaks well enough to carry on lengthy conversations. He can read and write in eight alphabets and scripts. He can tell stories in Italian and Finnish and American Sign Language. - Washington Post
Virtue signalling is more nuanced and more interesting than the picture painted by conventional wisdom and political rhetoric. As it turns out, there are bad and good things about virtue signalling – but probably not for the reasons you think. - Aeon
It's now an elaborate, rarefied classical art form, but kabuki got its start in the red-light district across the river from Kyoto in 1603, and several of the genre's important conventions were introduced as ways to curb all the vice tied up with kabuki in its early years. - Apollo
"Stations rose to the occasion to provide refuge from a world that felt scary and uncertain. That has translated into ratings records" — WDAV in Charlotte actually reached no. 1 in its market — "strong fundraising and a reminder of the value of classical stations to local arts organizations." - Current
Sarah Kaufman talks to performers who've been expatriates for decades but sometimes work in Russia (such as conductor Vladimir Jurowski) and one (theater director Dmitry Krymov) who happened to be traveling to a gig in Philadelphia when the war started and won't be going back. - The Washington Post
Duke has become known as a press that blends scholarly rigor with conceptual risk-taking, where high and low art boldly intermingle on principle. - The New Yorker
In 1965, KYW-TV debuted Eyewitness News, followed in 1970 by WPVI's Action News, creating many of the local newscast conventions still in place today. Soon those formats were copied all over the country. Yet the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality made some longstanding American problems worse. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
Experimental archaeologists Rick and Laura Brown have reconstructed the human-powered cranes that lifted huge objects during the Middle Ages and replicated the timber-framed roof of a destroyed 14th-century synagogue. Now they're leading a team using medieval tools and techniques to help repair the fire-ravaged Paris cathedral. - Smithsonian Magazine
Change is an act of creation, and that’s what artists do: Through a process of imagining, trying and building, artists create experiences that connect us to our own agency and power. We are in a moment when we urgently need these artists, culture bearers and creative workers. - Bloomberg
The crisis really heats up when the algorithm’s structuring power bends back upon us and constrains us into thinking of ourselves as if we were algorithmic systems. - Los Angeles Review of Books
"When a wealthy donor agrees to support an institution in return for naming rights, the lawyers increasingly draw up contracts with carefully worded 'morals clauses'. Such clauses 'allow an institution to protect themselves in the event of a donor falling from grace.'" - The Art Newspaper
Academic historians must now grapple with a new breed of students “for whom Paradox is the historical mother tongue and actual history is only a second language.” - The Atlantic
This one will be heavy on the red carpet and after-party updates; we'll add other live update news sites here (here's NPR; here's Washington Post; here's the Los Angeles Times) as the show gets closer. - Vanity Fair
Renee Fleming’s comment that, as a singer, she doesn’t travel as much as instrumental soloists came just a few minutes after mentioning that she had seen Yannick Nézet-Séguin open the Metropolitan Opera’s 2021-22 season and Carnegie Hall’s season—commuting to Paris for concerts in between. - Van
