The mayor has instrumentalized culture as an economic driver of the capital’s fortunes ever since taking office in 2014 and embarking on the creation of her Cultural Plan one year later. Deference to what she has described as “the cultural economy” has earned Bowser few fans from the arts community, which has characterized the mayor’s proposals as siphoning funds away from the fine arts and into the pockets of small businesses. – Hyperallergic
Author: Douglas McLennan
Trying To Combat Trolls, Rotten Tomatoes Changes Its Audience Rating Scoring
The site’s standard user rating will now reflect only moviegoers who can prove they’ve bought a ticket to see it in a theater. – Variety
Virtue Versus Utility: Do We Need To Change The Framework For How We Address Issues?
While virtue theory – the construction of a moral framework around the ideal of “the good life” and related character traits – dates back to Ancient Greece, it has been commonly associated with religion. And this helps to explains why it has fallen out of fashion since the Enlightenment.But are there signs of that movement being reversed? – Irish Times
The Sarasota Symphony Wanted To Build A New Home In A Park. The Community Didn’t Like That Idea
Hundreds of citizens attended the City Commission meeting Monday, and more than 70 of them spoke during public comment, which extended the meeting four hours beyond its estimated end. By the end of the meeting, the majority of the commissioners did not feel comfortable approving further research on the orchestra’s vision, which they still had so many questions about. – The Herald-Tribune
In 1880 A Symphony Pointed The Way To A Distinctly American Music. Then It Was Forgotten
“It’s amazing that this landmark symphony could have been so easily forgotten. As with the other seminal New Englanders—George Whitefield Chadwick, Horatio Parker, and Edward MacDowell, among them—modernism killed off Paine’s music. And with the ascendancy of American vernacular forms, reflected in the music of Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and others, any music arising from the German Romantic tradition could be ridiculed and ignored.” – The American Scholar
Are Social Media Influencers Undermining Theatre?
Showmanship likes to reveal itself as such and often in some sort of great theatrical caper. In contrast, this marketing approach – for obvious reasons – prefers to stay in the shadows. This is a marketing tool that does not respect the theatre industry or its legacy. At worst, it insults the genuine fans and advocates of productions whose postings may become questioned. It is also wide open for abuse. – The Stage
The Amazing Hidden City Beneath Paris
This invisible city follows different laws of planning to its surface counterpart. Its tunnelled streets often kink and wriggle, or run to dead ends. Some of them curl back on themselves like whips. At junctions, three or four tunnel-streets might spray out. There are slender highways running almost the length of the tiled map, from southwest to northeast. There are inexplicably broken grids of streets, or hubs where the spokes of different tunnels meet. Coming off some of the tunnels are chambers, irregular in their outlines and with dozens of small connecting rooms. – The New Yorker
Is Koons’ “Rabbit” Worth $91 Million? Value Isn’t Measured In Cash
Andrea Scott: “It became an icon of eighties excess (and, thus, of white, male privilege): fuck like bunnies, make more money, the one with the most toys wins. It was an instant classic worthy of the oxymoron, as weightless as Andy Warhol’s shiny silver clouds of inflated Mylar and as radical as Constantin Brancusi’s polished-bronze ‘Bird in Space’.” – The New Yorker
We Applaud The Philanthropist Who Says He’ll Pay Student Loans. But This Is A Policy Failure
Students are saddled with crippling debt. And generations will be encumbered by it. The generous philanthropist who says he’ll pay the Morehouse College graduating class’s student debt has done a great thing. But it points to a glaring failure of public policy. – The New York Times
The Mozart Problem: Revolution In Tight Form
Stephen Brown: “This is the problem that Mozart poses for our contemporary ears. His music is so balanced, clear, rational in its order, especially in comparison to the music that has come after, that it is easy – for performers as well as listeners – to miss the drama.” – Times Literary Supplement