The group announced on its social media platforms today that the archive—consisting mostly of unfinished music and clips from the mid-90s—had been stolen last week. The hacker, or hackers, demanded $150,000 to keep it from being released to the public, Radiohead said. In response, the band decided not only to ignore the ransom demand but release the entire trove of music to Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion, the new climate change movement. – Newsweek
Author: Douglas McLennan
Seattle Art Museum Picks A New Director
Amada Cruz comes to Seattle after leading the Phoenix Art Museum. – Seattle Times
So Actors “Performed” The Mueller Report Last Week. Was This Theatre?
So if #MuellerLive was a cold read of a legal document without any attempt at acting value, was it theatre? It certainly was a performance: the airing of a document with the use of theatrical tools to illuminate a text for others. – The Stage
How America Became Obsessed With Drag Queens
What was once a glittery subculture on the edge of gay culture has become one of our global pop preoccupations with its own hierarchy of stars and story lines for the fans to get behind, marketing deals and Billboard chart-toppers. – New York Magazine
Do The Tony Awards Point The Way Forward?
The Tonys ceremony, a local party opened to the nation by the patronage of CBS, is a more welcoming showcase for idealism than the billion-dollar business of Broadway. But in paying tribute to those artists who stopped our breath with the unimpeachable honesty of their gifts, the awards point the way forward. – Los Angeles Times
Why Have Book Festivals Become Such A Hot Ticket?
It’s hard not to see the increased popularity of all these events, alongside the rise in physical book sales and the modest resurgence of vinyl, as part of a new preference for the tangible over the virtual. – Irish Times
Debating The Shakespeare Authorship Issue
Last month The Atlantic published an essay by an Elizabethan scholar that suggested that “an Elizabethan writer named Emilia Bassano might have had a hand, or more, in the creation of William Shakespeare’s work.” Now the magazine has asked five Shakespeare experts to weigh in on the idea. – The Atlantic
How iTunes Saved The Music Business
Music played an outsize role in the evolution of the internet. As Larry Lessig put in Free Culture: “Filesharing music was the crack cocaine of the internet’s growth. It drove demand for access to the internet more powerfully than any other single application.” Jobs became the first licensed dealer in that drug and iTunes provided the saddle that enabled Apple to ride the tiger. – The Guardian
Study: In 18th,19th Century Clusterings Of Writers Made Them More Prolific
Belonging to the London cluster made writers substantially more productive. The study found that “the average writer in London saw their productivity go up by 12 percent. By comparison, writers in smaller clusters, in Dublin, Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge, saw no such gains. Furthermore, being part of the London cluster increased the likelihood of an author having their work published in any given year by 24 percent.” – CityLab
Does Your SmartPhone Add Or Subtract From Your Concert Experience?
The research shows that when we decide to use our phones to check work email, to check up on the kids or any other activities that have nothing to do with the festival, our satisfaction with the experience goes down. When we do use our devices at festivals it doesn’t affect our satisfaction with the event if we are using our phones for festival-related activities like looking at the festival schedule, the venue map or even texting to meet up with friends who are joining us. – The Conversation