Month: September 2019

At DC’s Libraries, Homeless Patrons Served By Outreach Officers Who Were Once Unhoused Themselves

“In 2014, the D.C. Public Library system hired Jean Badalamenti as assistant manager of health and human services to help the city’s 25 libraries better serve as a resource for the city’s roughly 6,500 homeless residents. Early last year, she pulled three ‘peer specialists’,” all with personal experience of homelessness, to help guide unhoused library patrons to services. – The Washington Post

How Radio Technology Conspired Against Women’s Voices

Women who speak publicly and challenge authority have long been dismissed as “shrill” or “grating.” What’s less widely understood is how the design of the technology that transmits human voices has shaped this gendered invective since the dawn of the broadcast era: everything from microphones to modes of transmission have been optimized for lower voices. – The New Yorker

Michael Rakowitz, Whose Work Is About Iraq, Refugees, And ISIS, Wins $100K Nasher Prize For Sculpture

His grandparents were Iraqi Jews who fled Baghdad in 1941, and much of his work is inspired by their experiences. He’s most famous for his replica, placed on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2018, of an Assyrian lamassu (a winged bull with a human head) that was destroyed by ISIS. – The Dallas Morning News

Have African Artworks Been Safer In Europe Than They Would Have Been In Africa? Maybe Not, Suggest Storage Conditions In German Museum

“Many of the artifacts that will be on display in the Humboldt Forum, a huge new museum under construction in a rebuilt Berlin palace, had for years been stored in less-than-ideal conditions. [A] report featured searing depictions of flooded storage rooms and depots choked with toxic dust.” – The New York Times

Classical Music Isn’t A Meritocracy. It’s ‘A Job, A Shitty Job.’

Kate Wagner: “Classical music is cruel not because there are winners and losers, first chairs and second chairs, but because it lies about the fact that these winners and losers are chosen long before the first moment a young child picks up an instrument. … And if you bow out of this gladiatorial arena, where only the affluent and well-connected are armed, like I did, like many of my friends did, you are understood to be a failure who didn’t try hard enough.” – The Baffler

It’s Time To Insist That Arts Orgs Follow Wage And Hour Laws

Alan Harrison (who has run a few arts outfits in his time): “If a revenue budget cannot survive the number of paid hours required to reach the goals, then the organization itself is not viable, at least not for that budget year. No longer should artists — performing, visual, administrative — tolerate the lack of compensation.” – The Clyde Fitch Report

Daniel Barenboim Physically Attacked Former Berlin Staatsoper Staffer, She Says, And Her Bosses Did Nothing About It

Laura Eisen, then the orchestral manager of the Berlin Staatskapelle (the Staatsoper’s orchestra), has come forward publicly to allege that in March of 2018, the conductor “came toward me, grabbed me with both hands on my upper body (between my shoulders and throat) and shook me. As he did so, he screamed at me that I should disappear/leave the room.” – Van