Rochester Cathedral has mini-golf (okay, an “educational adventure golf course’). Norwich Cathedral has a “helter-skelter” (a tarted-up sliding board), ostensibly so that visitors can get a better look at the exquisite medieval ceiling before sliding down. Derby Cathedral got in hot water last year when its free movie series got a bit too racy. What’s going on? Well, last fall the Archbishop of Canterbury said that people should “have fun in cathedrals,” but, in fact, some serious structural and governance issues are in play. – The Economist
Author: Matthew Westphal
What, Exactly, Is A Museum? International Council Of Museums Is Having A Bitter Fight Over That Question
“On 12 August, 24 national branches [of ICOM] — including those of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Canada and Russia, along with five museums’ international committees — requested the postponement of a vote on a revised definition of museums.” Said one veteran art journalist of the proposed revision, “At first, I thought this was a joke”; the chair of the International Committee of Museology maintains that not even the Louvre would qualify as a museum under the proposed revision. – The Art Newspaper
San Francisco’s Commercial Theatre Titans Settle Years-Long Legal Battle
“By terms of a settlement announced Monday, Aug. 19, [Carole] Shorenstein Hays will give up her half ownership of SHN, operator of the Orpheum and Golden Gate Theatre. [She] will retain her ownership of the Curran as a separate entity. [Hays and former business partner Robert Nederlander] are now free to compete for Broadway productions, a sticking point to their prior arrangement that had led to years of costly lawsuits over noncompete clauses between the theaters.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Leonard Bernstein’s Long-Lost Late-Life Love Letters
Kunihiko Hashimoto, then a 26-year-old insurance worker, attended a New York Philharmonic concert in Tokyo in 1979, and he went backstage afterward to meet Bernstein, soon to turn 61. They fell in love, and though Lenny was never one for monogamy, letters in Library of Congress archives show that they remained involved for the rest of Bernstein’s life. And the relationship became professional as well as personal. – The Observer (UK)
YouTube Powered Brazil’s Turn To The Hard Right
“Members of the nation’s newly empowered far right — from grass-roots organizers to federal lawmakers — say their movement would not have risen so far, so fast, without YouTube’s recommendation engine. New research has found they may be correct … [and] a New York Times investigation in Brazil found that, time and again, videos promoted by the site have upended central elements of daily life.” – The New York Times
England’s Arts Funding Agency May Have To Cut Commitments Already Made To Largest Institutions
A group of about 800 so-called National Portfolio Organisations — from giants like the Royal Opera House and Southbank Centre and its residents such as the National Theatre (who receive tens of millions of pounds a year) to smaller regional institutions — are guaranteed funding from Arts Council England on a rolling multi-year basis. But ACE is warning that proposed in the Conservative government’s next budget would mean that those funding guarantees couldn’t be met. – Arts Professional
Martha Over the Years
When Janet Eilber, artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, stepped through Jacob’s Pillow’s front curtain to introduce the group’s performance, she mentioned that this was the 94th year of the MGDC, which made it the oldest dance company in the United States. – Deborah Jowitt
How Napoleon Used Theatre To Legitimize Himself As Emperor
From one year to the next, he manipulated the Comédie-Française, selecting plays and scheduling performances on or around his birthday (which fell, conveniently, on a major Catholic feast) to give himself (born into minor Corsican nobility) the aura of a divinely appointed monarch. – History Today
Mini Cardboard Theatres: How The 19th-Century English Bourgeoisie Staged Plays At Home
“The characters were laid out on sheets of paper, frozen in dramatic poses … [and] the sets [were] storybook illustrations of extravagant palaces and howling wildernesses, to be slotted in and out of the back of the theater, behind the cavorting characters. The scripts that came with them were as miniaturized as the stage.” – JSTOR Daily
Lee Bennett Hopkins, America’s Unknown King Of Children’s Poetry, Dead At 81
“[He] dedicated a lifetime to writing and anthologizing poetry for children, amassing troves of verse” — 120 volumes by the time he died — “to help young people navigate the unknowns of life, from why stink bugs stink to how to survive a divorce.” – The Washington Post