The event drew 98,000 attendees last year and, as COVID-19 spreads in Washington state, many are worried that a large public setting such as ECCC may be a breeding ground for infection. Notably, in 2009, PAX, a video gaming convention in Seattle, spread H1N1 virus, or swine flu, to at least 100 attendees. Washington’s Department of Health has already advised people, especially people over 60, to stay away from large gatherings. Yet, ECCC is still happening. – The Stranger
Author: Douglas McLennan
The Show Must Go On – How Performers Are Adapting During Coronavirus
While the coronavirus has taken a big toll on the arts world in terms of closed venues and canceled events, it has also spurred plenty of show-must-go-on creativity in some of the hardest-hit areas, as performers and organizations have tried to adapt to trying circumstances. – The New York Times
When Presidents Write Books
In the 19th century, politicians increasingly turned out memoirs as campaign books. The writing shifted from ideas and policies to character and personality. The writings of Andrew Jackson, a colorful veteran of wars and duels, exemplified this change. – Washington Post
Why Would Anyone Open A Record Shop Now?
It’s beautiful, but then there’s the obvious question … who in their right mind would open a record store now? There is no money in it. Even on this gentrified street there are empty shops, the rents are extortionate and landlords are keen to turn properties over to property developers. What about profit? “What about artistic profit, creative profit, intellectual profit?” replies Thurston Moore. – The Guardian
London Book Fair Canceled Over COVID Fears
The event was already set to be a ghost town when it opened its doors, after publishers and rights agencies began withdrawing en masse over the last week. Some of the world’s biggest, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Hachette had already pulled out, as had Amazon and a host of literary agencies including Curtis Brown. – The Guardian
Misplaced Priorities? We’re Studying “The Brain” But Not People
The more we learn about genetics and the brain, the more impossibly complicated both reveal themselves to be. We have picked no low-hanging fruit after three decades and $50 billion because there simply is no low-hanging fruit to pick. The human brain has around 86 billion neurons, each communicating with thousands of others via hundreds of chemical modulators, leading to trillions of potential connections. No wonder it reveals its secrets only very gradually and in piecemeal fashion. – Aeon
How Post-Brexit Visa Restrictions Could Impact UK Arts
The effect on the UK’s artistic landscape is more worrying. For a European artist, it changes whether they decide to base themselves in the UK rather than just sometimes performing here. And then for UK-based companies regularly touring in Europe, it may be easier to employ EU artists for ease of touring rather than UK ones. – The Stage
Computers Are Amazing. They’re Not Intelligent
The amazing feats achieved by computers demonstrate our progress in coming up with algorithms that make the computer do valuable things for us. The computer itself, though, does nothing more than it ever did, which is to do whatever we know how to order it to do—and we order it to do things by issuing instructions in the form of elementary operations on bits, the 1s and 0s that make up computer code. – American Scholar
What We Know About Deja Vu
Scientists do have some hypotheses for what brings déjà vu to the surface of consciousness – from the idea that it might be a built-in processing glitch in the brain, or an indication of healthy memory, to the slightly more puzzling notion that it’s part of quantum entanglement. – Aeon
Nietzsche’s Fascination With Dance
Nietzsche offers an interpretive key: his references to dance (Tanz). Taken together, these references light a path that begins in Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), and wends through every major work into his final, the posthumous Ecce Homo (1908). These references not only link his ideas and styles, they also shed light on Nietzsche’s enduring motivation: to teach readers how to affirm life here and now on Earth as human bodily selves. Nietzsche’s dance references call attention to the sensory education that he insists is necessary for creating values that ‘remain faithful to the Earth’. – Aeon