“The European Commission announced an ambitious seven-year budget yesterday to bail out the EU’s 27 member states from the economic impact of COVID-19, but culture representatives say it fails to provide enough protection for their industry, which is one of the economic sectors that has been hardest hit by the pandemic.” In particular, the representatives say, “cuts to three programs — Erasmus+, Creative Europe, and European Solidarity Corps — send a ‘terrible message’ to the cultural, creative, and media sectors.” – Artnet
Month: May 2020
Cruise Ships Have Gone Away. And Port Cities Are Reconsidering…
In ports of call known for their cruise appeal, the disappearance of boat-borne tourism has been greeted with mixed feelings. Many towns and cities depend in part on revenue from these vacationers. But the boats bring problems, too: Critics often cite the industry’s environmental record and dubious economic impact — study after study show that passengers on short stopovers contribute relatively little to the local economy. – CityLab
Italian Book Buying Habits Have Changed. Will They Change Back?
In a shift of consumer patterns, in the first 16 weeks of the year, 47 percent of Italy’s trade book sales, both in fiction and nonfiction, took place online. In the same period of 2019, only 26.7 percent of those sales were made online. Like France, Italy is a market that buys its books in normal times primarily through physical stores, and some observers wonder if the move to online commerce during the pandemic will permanently change consumer behavior. – Publishing Perspectives
How Coffee Has Powered (And Destroyed) Societies
There have been times that coffee as a commodity was more valuable than most currencies. Cultures have been built around the bean, and destroyed others who have been exploited for it. – Times Literary Supplement
Loneliness As Punishment And Inspiration
In 2018, the first British Minister for Loneliness was appointed and the government published A Connected Society. In the preface, the country’s then prime minister Theresa May referred to research that “shows that loneliness is as damaging to our physical health as smoking”. – Times Literary Supplement
The Thought Experiment Problem
While thought experiments are as old as philosophy itself, the weight placed on them in recent philosophy is distinctive. Even when scenarios are highly unrealistic, judgments about them are thought to have wide-ranging implications for what should be done in the real world. – Aeon
How To Fence That Van Gogh You Stole
Arthur Brand estimates that a work of art in the criminal underworld is worth about 10 percent of its value in the legitimate art market — so if a painting might sell for $10 million at auction, it can be traded among criminals for a value of about $1 million. Octave Durham said the value is even lower than that — about 2.5 to 5 percent of market value. – The New York Times
Instagram May Have Influencers, But TikTok Has Cult Leaders
“Much like the ‘stans’ of pop figures and franchises, members of TikTok cults stream songs, buy merch, create news update accounts and fervently defend their leaders in the comment sections of posts. The biggest difference is that TikTok’s cult leaders are not independently famous. They’re upstart creators building a fan base on social media.” And the biggest cult of them all is the Step Chickens, who are devoted to their “mother hen,” techie-turned-comedian Melissa Ong, who started the cult less than three weeks ago. – The New York Times
How The Blanton Museum Repurposed Its Staff And Avoided Layoffs
The maintenance man stopped worrying about paint touchups and HVAC repair and started assisting the development department by drafting thank you notes for donors, making use of his beautiful handwriting. Security guards were redeployed to add “alt text,” or descriptions for the visually impaired, to images on the museum website. Art handlers and event planners have been doing collection research about the museum’s lesser-known artists. – Artnet
Broadway Folks Talk About How They Envision Going Back To Work
“As part of our ongoing coverage about the crisis theater faces, and the possible ways out of it, [Tim Teeman] spoke to a range of theater professionals, enduring unemployment and hoping one day to create once more: a producer, choreographer, stage manager, lighting designer, and union chief.” – The Daily Beast