This is an excellent time for someone to tell us how to think about these things. Social media has spawned a generation of un-Strunk-and-White-ified people who appear to believe that punctuation is optional, that grammar is for the elderly and that ending a sentence with a period is a deliberate act of aggression. – The New York Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
Endless Lurid Speculation Over Leonardo Painting (Is It Or Isn’t It, Etc) Says Much About Our Current Art World
“The basic truth of all Salvator Mundi stories is less exciting; it is an important painting with a solid connection to Leonardo da Vinci, and many rich people want to own it. Its delayed appearance at Louvre Abu Dhabi most likely reflects Middle Eastern politics. But facts seem no longer to matter with the picture. Maybe this determination to speculate reveals nothing more than our fascination with all things Leonardo, but I suspect it is also because his accessibility makes it possible for everyone to have an opinion on his art.” – The Art Newspaper
Problems Of The .01 Percent: Taking Care Of Your Art On Super-Yachts
The crew “just thought it was some painting, they had no idea it was worth many millions,” Mather-Lees told the Observer at a superyacht conference in London last week. “They are expected to know how to serve the owners at sea, not to know about paintings and art. But, now that the rich are increasingly bringing their art collections on board their yachts it’s vital that captains and crew know how to care for these pieces.” – The Guardian
Iran’s Greatest Movie Director Is Becoming A Global Star
Asghar Farhadi on the impact of censorship in Iran: “Each director finds his own way of dealing with it. It’s claimed restriction can lead to even greater creativity. I believe that’s true in the short term, but in the long term it destroys creativity.” – The New York Times
Buzzfeed’s Master Quizmaker Was a 19-Year-Old Who Did It For Free (Then Came Last Week’s Staff Layoffs)
“We were working too hard, making these elaborate things, and all of her stuff was really stripped down. She’d do five quizzes in a day, and I’d maybe do that many in a week. People were, like, ‘If this girl stops, that’s a problem.'” – CBC
Theatre, Bar, Underground Space, Warehouse – London’s Edgiest Theatre?
Everything The Yard does is underpinned by three values, Jay Miller said. The first is that “the stories we tell have to feel like they aren’t being told by mainstream culture. The second is we create a space where audiences and artists feel able to take risks together. The third is we really celebrate the idea of the live moment, and what that means in a society mediated by technology.” – The New York Times
Egypt Discovers 40 Mummies South Of Cairo
Officials told reporters on Saturday at the site that the chambers, which were cut out of rock, belonged to a middle-class family who probably lived during the Ptolemaic, early Roman or Byzantine period. – Times of Israel
Survey: Average Person Stops Seeking Out New Music By Age 28
A survey by streaming service Deezer found that the average person reaches “musical paralysis” — when she or he primarily listens to familiar tracks and does not seek out new genres — at the age of 27 years and 11 months. – Billboard (CTVNews)
We’ve Turned Students Into Tech-Monitored Units. Cue The Yearning For Nostalgia
Students are actively integrated into a system that collects data about their behavior, quantifies it, and packages it for parents and the school itself. In an era of data rooms and standardized testing, when education has become a rigorous science, ClassDojo may seem like nothing new. After all, students have been ruthlessly quantified since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. But ClassDojo seeks to create docile bodies in the classroom, and it does this by monitoring and collecting enormous amounts of data on students. – Los Angeles Review of Books
Upgrading Canadian Stage – Starting From The Bottom Up
Toronto’s Canadian Stage has been a success in the theatre, less so in its financial fortunes. So with new leadership, maybe it’s time for a business upgrade rather than an artistic one. – Toronto Star