The project, called Perform, looked at the amount of aerosols and droplets generated by performers. The findings could have implications for live indoor performances, which resumed in England this week. They are currently only allowed to take place under strict social distancing guidelines. – BBC
Author: Douglas McLennan
How Theatres In Belarus Got Politically Active
Belarusian theatres, almost all of them state-owned since Soviet times, have officially remained outside of politics for 26 years. Everyone in management positions was appointed by the Ministry of Culture, and any political activity by employees was punished severely. But this August, it seems, even the Belarusian state theatres awoke from their slumber. – American Theatre
Why Cities Look More And More Alike
The anthropologist Marc Augé gave the name non-place to the escalating homogeneity of urban spaces. In non-places, history, identity, and human relation are not on offer. Non-places used to be relegated to the fringes of cities in retail parks or airports, or contained inside shopping malls. But they have spread. Everywhere looks like everywhere else and, as a result, anywhere feels like nowhere in particular. – The Atlantic
Remembering 50 Years Of The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Jazz Club In Chicago
As the jazz world mourns Joe Segal’s death Aug. 10 at age 94, I realize anew that Segal had found the best way possible to win converts to the music he revered: by welcoming the uninitiated into the sometimes mysterious, occasionally daunting world of jazz in the most intimate settings possible. – Chicago Tribune
When The Movie Theatres Return – Much Will Be Different
From the experience in the theatre to when and where movies will be shown, to… – HuffPost
Isaac Stern Was Really Famous. So Why Has His Star Faded?
A century after his birth, Stern is no longer nearly so well remembered as Bernstein, whose posthumous celebrity remains undiminished. By contrast, Stern is essentially unknown to Americans under the age of 60, very few of whom listen to classical music. Moreover, he is increasingly known to older music lovers less for his playing than for his ancillary activities, among them his coaching and encouragement of such protégés as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Yo-Yo Ma; his groundbreaking 1979 visit to Communist China, where he played with Chinese musicians who had had no contact with their Western counterparts since the Cultural Revolution; and, above all, the pivotal role that he played in saving Carnegie Hall from the wrecker’s ball in 1960. – Commentary
Complexity Science: Not As Simple As You Think
In complex systems, the last thing that happened is almost never informative about what’s coming next. The world is always changing – partly due to factors outside our control and partly due to our own interventions. – Aeon
How I Learned To Be A Kinder Critic
Josh Kosman: “If you’d asked me at the time, I could have unreeled a fairly high-minded manifesto about the central importance of honesty in criticism. None of it would have been wrong, exactly, but it also wouldn’t have been the whole truth. The rest of it — the part I left unacknowledged, even to myself — was that this philosophy was expressly designed to let me off the hook for whatever harm my writing might cause.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Google’s Plan To Disrupt Education
“College degrees are out of reach for many Americans, and you shouldn’t need a college diploma to have economic security,” writes Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs at Google. “We need new, accessible job-training solutions–from enhanced vocational programs to online education–to help America recover and rebuild.” – Inc.
Virgin Islands Subpoena’s Billionaire Board Chair Of MoMA In Jeffrey Epstein Investigation
Some of the subpoenas are for companies that Leon Black, the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, has used to build a collection that includes paintings by Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. – The New York Times