Nearly 5 million tourists visited the city in 2017, compared with 2.7 million in 2002, according to data from the city’s hotels, which do not take into account the thousands of bookings with Airbnb Inc. and similar services. Meanwhile, the resident population has shrunk below 60,000. – Bloomberg
Author: Douglas McLennan
UK Artists Press Institutions To Stop Taking Money From Big Oil Companies
On Friday, 78 British artists including Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and Sarah Lucas said they had called on the National Portrait Gallery in London to cut ties with BP, saying its “role in furthering the climate crisis” made accepting new sponsorship from the company unacceptable. – The New York Times
Listening To The World: How Our Taste Is Being Reprogrammed
Beyond obscuring labor, the switch to digital has reprogrammed our discovery and consumption of music. Despite the seemingly unprecedented supply of music, Damon Krukowski suggests that internet companies, like Spotify and Amazon, “are replacing the freedom and chaos of the internet at large, with the control and predictability of their programs.” In other words, they generally provide access to art that we are or would be comfortable with, and they otherwise restrict or obscure alternatives. “When you go into a bookstore, or record store, or library—any physical space devoted to information,” Krukowski writes, “you enter another world . . . But when you open a browser—it’s an irony that’s the word, isn’t it?—that relationship to information is reversed. It conforms to you.” – The Baffler
Scientists Have Figured Out How To Revive Dead Brains (Now What?)
“These findings,” the scientists write, “show that, with the appropriate interventions, the large mammalian brain retains an underappreciated capacity for normothermic restoration of microcirculation and certain molecular and cellular functions multiple hours after circulatory arrest.” – New York Times Magazine
The Real Reason Hannah Rothschild Stepped Down As Chair Of London’s National Gallery
What her statement didn’t mention was an acrimonious dispute over the dismissals of 27 gallery lecturers and educators that has hung over the organisation for nearly two years, seen the intervention of numerous politicians, and was, say insiders, one of the reasons Rothschild stepped down “with sadness” two years before she was due to go. – The Observer
London’s Parliament Building Needs £4 Billion Of Repairs. A Temporary Home Is A Missed Opportunity
The recent unveiling of interim accommodation for 650 decanted MPs, who are to be shoehorned into Richmond House, the former Department of Health in Whitehall, for the anticipated eight-year duration of the palace’s patching up, might point the way, but has attracted attention for all the wrong reasons. – The Observer
Improbably, Book Fairs Have Become Hugely Popular Across The Middle East
Ten years ago few would have heard of the book fair in Sharjah, one of the lesser-known parts of the United Arab Emirates (uae). Today it attracts 2.3m visitors a year, double Sharjah’s population. Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama, Riyadh—all are transforming from sleepy trade fairs to popular events. – The Economist
The Arts Are Finally Coming To Terms With Unsavory Philanthropic Money
Sponsorships and philanthropy are tricky businesses. Philanthropy and arts patronage sanitises some truly awful personal and corporate behaviours. As tobacco and, more tentatively, alcohol sponsorships are eradicated from sports and the arts, their replacements are not always a better societal bet, but the patronage process is surprisingly effective in the whitewashing game. – Irish Times
Canadian Composer Michael Colgrass, 87
Eager to share his own enthusiasm for creating music, Colgrass devised his own notation system. Easy-to-draw lines and symbols allowed children to immediately start composing and performing their own original works without the long and often tedious process of learning music theory and notation. Colgrass was also an unorthodox psychologist. – Toronto Star
How Technology Has Changed The Kind Of TV We Watch
The ability for audiences to watch and re-watch on demand has allowed screenwriters to make scripts more complicated and less formulaic. – BBC