Based on new figures from the Centre for Economic and Business Research, the GDP of the arts and culture industry in the UK grew by 10.4% to £11.8 billion, in 2015, compared with the 2.2% recorded by the entire UK economy over the same period.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Why Can’t The Arts World Afford Its Own Think Tanks?
“As a sector, we regularly raise hundreds of millions of dollars to enable a single arts institution to build a single fancy building. But it’s basically impossible to scrape together even 1% of that total to study whether building fancy buildings is among the best uses of philanthropic dollars. It’s a real problem, and one that makes me concerned for the sector. And unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to get solved until we make some changes to how and what research gets funded.”
Is Bad Audience Behavior Killing Broadway?
The most notorious instance of bad behavior took place at “Hand to God” in 2015. Before the show started at the Booth Theatre, a young man climbed on the stage and plugged his phone into an outlet on the set. Several minutes later, as the houselights went down and the cast was waiting in the wings, he jumped back on stage to retrieve the phone.
Has Book Reviewing Degenerated Into A Kind Of Thought Police?
The ‘own voices’ policy conveys to reviewers that their primary job is not to assess a book’s storytelling, but to rate its adherence to a left-wing catechism (the fairness of whose tenets is presumably self-evident), to identify authorial heretics, and to stick the apostates’ heads on spikes along the digital public highway. Reviewing for Kirkus is now a cross between penning literary criticism and joining a shooting party, a sufficiently athletic undertaking that it really should pay better.
Is This Planned $500 Billion City The Future of Cities?
Prince Mohammed envisions Neom as a hub for manufacturing, renewable energy, biotechnology, media, and entertainment, filled with skyscrapers, five-star hotels, and robots to free humans from repetitive labor. The website dedicated to the city proclaims that it will offer “an idyllic lifestyle…founded on modern architecture, lush green spaces, quality of life, safety, and quality in service of humanity paired with excellent economic opportunities.”
Why We Can Talk About Books We’ve Never Read
“Good libraries hold several millions of books: even if we read a book a day, we would read only 365 a year, around 3,600 in ten years, and between the ages of ten and eighty we’ll have read only 25,200. A trifle. On the other hand, any Italian who’s had a good secondary education knows perfectly well that they can participate in a discussion, let’s say, on Matteo Bandello, Francesco Guicciardini, Matteo Boiardo, on the tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri, or on Ippolito Nievo’s Confessions of an Italian, knowing only the name and something about the critical context, but without ever having read a word.”
Sotheby’s Posts Better Than Expected 3rd Q Financial Results (Though Still A Loss)
Analyst David Schick of Consumer Edge Research, who tracks Sotheby’s stock, wrote in a pre-call note that “we continue to see evidence of better deal-making” at Sotheby’s—presumably a reference to more restraint with guarantees, which can prove a black eye for a company’s bottom line if unsuccessful.
The New Generation Of Women Conductors to Watch
Marin Alsop, JoAnn Faletta, Simone Young and others have broken many barriers in the orchestra world. Anne Midgette looks at the generation of women behind them ready to take the podiums.
Portland’s Reed College Is One Of The Most Liberal In The Country. And It’s In Turmoil
A Hum protest is visually striking: Up to several dozen RAR supporters position themselves alongside the professor and quietly hold signs reading “We demand space for students of color,” “We cannot be erased,” “Fuck Hum 110,” “Stop silencing black and brown voices; the rest of society is already standing on their necks,” and so on. The signs are often accompanied by photos of black Americans killed by police.
Countdown: Is Our Ability To Think In Numbers Biological Or Cultural?
“Scientists have long claimed that our ability with numbers is indeed biologically evolved – that we can count because counting was a useful thing for our brains to be able to do. The hunter-gatherer who could tell which herd or flock of prey was the biggest, or which tree held the most fruit, had a survival advantage over the one who couldn’t. What’s more, other animals show a rudimentary capacity to distinguish differing small quantities of things: two bananas from three, say. Surely it stands to reason, then, that numeracy is adaptive. But is it really?”