Author: Douglas McLennan

Dirty Little Secret: Who Owns Land In Great Britain

What’s astonishing about his research is how little has changed in the last 1,000 years. Guy Shrubsole’s figures reveal that the aristocracy and landed gentry – many the descendants of those Norman barons – still own at least 30% of England and probably far more, as 17% is not registered by the Land Registry and is probably inherited land that has never been bought or sold. Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population. The homeowners’ share adds up to just 5%: “A few thousand dukes, baronets and country squires own far more land than all of Middle England put together.” – The Guardian

Adventures In Pricing: Art Gallery Of Ontario Rethinks Who Pays What To Come Inside

Those under age 25 will get in free. AGO director Stephen Jost says he initially pitched this idea to this staff two years ago, and wanted the age limit to be 18, but “honestly it was our staff that pushed it up. We looked at the revenue we get from 18- to 25-year-olds, and it’s not that much. But I do know is most humans make their cultural taste choices between 16 and 25, so if you start coming in for free, we can create that habit and relationship.” – Toronto Star

Could Shakespeare Have Been A Woman?

Had anyone ever proposed that the creator of those extraordinary women might be a woman? Each of the male possibilities requires an elaborate theory to explain his use of another’s name. None of the candidates has succeeded in dethroning the man from Stratford. Yet a simple reason would explain a playwright’s need for a pseudonym in Elizabethan England: being female. – The Atlantic

The “Camp” Aesthetic: From Susan Sontag To The Met Gala

Sontag wrote her groundbreaking essay in 1963. In 58 paragraphs, she conducted an intuitive yet rigorous examination of a phenomenon that she defined as “a badge of identity among small urban cliques”. And this “private code” constituted a new mode of perception that collapsed traditional ideas of high and low culture, of elitism and mass appeal. Here was a new hierarchy of taste, no longer defined by the old gatekeepers. Camp was a “way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon”, she wrote, “in terms of the degree of artifice, of stylisation”.

The Kid Who Exclaimed “Wow!”

It happened spontaneously at a concert in Boston’s Symphony Hall last Sunday. After a beat, as Ronan’s awe-filled “Wow!” echoed throughout the hall, the audience burst into laughter and cheers. So charmed were the Handel and Haydn Society by the child’s exclamation that they asked the public to help find him, hoping to reward the sweet sentiment with a trip to meet the artistic director. – WGBH

When The Old Soviet Union “Thawed” And Became Fascinated With Western Culture

Just as the CIA sponsored leftist magazines and abstract expressionism to assert American cultural supremacy (and to make censorship seem like something that only happened in communist countries), the Thaw mobilized the availability of Western art to combat the image of the Soviet Union as a repressive regime. Cultural exchange programs and film industry trade agreements were part and parcel of this. – The New Republic