“What qualifies as artistry is ultimately a subjective assessment. Winning medals – or not winning them – has little bearing on whether a dancer will progress to a successful career. Even so, the Genée competition maintains high standards. The coveted gold medal is sometimes withheld if the judges decide no one has achieved the required level.” – Toronto Star
Author: Douglas McLennan
Philanthropic Giving Was Down Last Year (But Not On PayPal)
Experts have speculated last year’s tumultuous stock market, combined with tax code changes that doubled the standard deduction without a need to itemize charitable contributions, has led to less middle-class giving. That may be true for the average gift size for PayPal givers, but the company’s data shows that those in the lowest income brackets still tend to give a higher proportional share of their net income, something that’s fairly common across the giving world. – Fast Company
How Film Festivals Are Dealing With #MeToo
This year more than ever, we are seeing a transatlantic schism between film festivals over how to handle these acclaimed directors, each of whom have very different backstories. – Deadline
Is Surfing Being Ruined By Ubiquitous Video?
“One of the true gifts of surfing is the privacy of it. That’s going away, and it’s at a great, great, great hazard to the experience. We’re so infatuated with getting looked at now—look at me, look at me, and look at me!—that we’re losing the magic of surfing being a low-profile activity.” – The New Yorker
Books Are Forever. Is Reading?
“It was never the books as objects that people worried would vanish with the advent of e-readers and other personal devices: it was reading itself. The same change was prophesied by Thomas Edison, at the dawn of the movie age. People fretted again with the advent of the radio, the TV, and home computers. Yet undistracted reading didn’t perish the moment any of these technologies were switched on.” – The New Yorker
US Cities With The Most College Graduates
The list of the cities with the highest share of college grads overlaps considerably with the list of leading metros, with eight places showing up on both. – CityLab
Time Is Not A Fixed Idea
“Time, as it appears to us, is made of indivisible moments that are parts of succession… A single moment cannot have a duration. Something counts as a duration only if it is a temporal complex. We must perceive a change with respect to moments; otherwise we could not abstract the idea of time.” – Aeon
Why All this Praise For Rich People?
“To criticise our praise for the wealthy and powerful as excessive inevitably raises the question of meritocracy. To what extent do we live in a meritocracy, and is that a good or a bad thing?” – Aeon
How Literature Was Deployed As Weapon In The Cold War
In the wake of the second world war, Russia and the West feared the domino effect of enfeebled countries like Albania falling into the clutches of imperialist capitalism or communism. Each side deployed literature as a frontline force in their struggle. – The Spectator
Two Artists Withdraw Their Work From The Shed
The latest withdrawal at the Shed highlights the increasing tension surrounding institutions accepting support from trustees whose sources of income are controversial. – artnet