Lauren Wingenroth: “Last month, Buzzfeed News confirmed 17 instances of groping or sexual misconduct by patrons of the immersive theater show Sleep No More. Having experienced the show for the first time just a week before the story broke, I can’t say I was surprised by the accusations. … At every step of my two and a half hour journey through the show, I felt that the safety of the performers – and of the audience – was being compromised for the sake of an experience that just wasn’t worth the risk.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Arts Contribute 3/4 Of A Trillion Dollars To The U.S. Economy Each Year: NEA Study
“New data released Tuesday suggest that in a single year, the US arts and culture sector contributed a whopping $763.6 billion to the nation’s economy – more than the entire GDP of Switzerland. That translates into 4.2% of the US economy, suggesting that the arts and culture sector is worth almost as much as the food and agriculture industry (valued at around a trillion dollars a year).”
Construction On Rome’s Subway Turns Up Yet Another Ancient Treasure
“In the summer of 2016, while digging the new Metro C subway line in Rome, workers came across a rare archeological find, a 2nd-century CE Roman barracks. Late last week, archeologists uncovered the remains of a ‘commander’s house’ (domus) connected to the barracks, … complete with marble floors, mosaics, and frescoes.”
‘Wolf Of Wall Street’ Producers To Pay $60 Million In Malaysian Corruption Case
“Red Granite Pictures, the producer behind The Wolf of Wall Street, Dumb and Dumber To and other films, has agreed to pay $60 million to the U.S. government in order to settle allegations that it was funded in part by money siphoned from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund called 1 Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB.”
Balakrishna Doshi Wins 2018 Pritzker Prize
This former assistant to Le Corbusier (whom he calls “my guru”) and Louis Kahn, now aged 90, is the first Indian architect to win the Pritzker. Relatively unknown in the West (all his built projects have been in India), Doshi is noted for bridging the gap between Modernism and traditional Indian architecture as well as for several complexes of low-cost housing.
Saudi Arabia Has Its Own Version Of Petra, And Tourists May Soon Get To Visit It
Anna Somers Cocks, founder and chairman of The Art Newspaper: “I am one of the very few people to have been allowed to see Mada’in Saleh, the southernmost settlement of the Nabateans, whose city of Petra in Jordan is one of the wonders of the world.” But many more people will get their chance soon, because the Kingdom’s new crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al-Saud, is making serious efforts to jumpstart tourism there.
NME Magazine Ends Print Edition After 66 Years
NME (for New Musical Express), something like Great Britain’s version of Rolling Stone, had a circulation in the hundreds of thousands in the days of The Beatles and Rolling Stones and through the eras of punk, New Wave, and Britpop. In 2015, its print sales figures down to 15,000, NME made itself free and got its circulation back up to 300,000 – for a while. (NME will continue as a web-only title.)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.07.18
Systemically Privileged
People concerned about issues related to the arts and equity (funding is just one area) have used many terms to describe the juggernaut that is the world of symphonies, ballet companies, museums, and theaters. Most of the terminology used is either offensive or absurdly complex (and/or unwieldy) … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-03-06
Romancing a High-Low Split: John Haskell’s The Complete Ballet: A Fictional Essay in Five Acts
It’s hard to recall the last time I heard someone say Balanchine’s name aloud. Since his death in 1983, more and more ballet companies around the world have fueled their repertories with his visionary neo-classical … read more
AJBlog: Fresh Pencil Published 2018-03-04
Bible Bumble: Copy Confusion Muddles Museum of the Bible
My belated visit to the three-month-old Museum of the Bible during my recent Washington sojourn began inauspiciously and went downhill from there: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2018-03-07
Just Because It’s (Almost) Spring, Spring, Spring
The Coltrane project (two items down) is progressing to the extent that I was able to get out the office for a short bicycle excursion. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-03-07
The Book Series Written To Be Read In The Bathroom
“The percentage of people that read books, newspapers, or magazines in the bathroom, according to a survey by the plumbing-fixture company American Standard. … One Oregon resident realized the amount of time spent reading in the bathroom could be an interesting business opportunity.” And thus Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader was born.
One Step Closer To Mind Reading? Scientists Use EEGs To Detect What A Person Is Seeing
“A crime happens, and there is a witness. Instead of a sketch artist drawing a portrait of the suspect based on verbal descriptions, the police hook the witness up to EEG equipment. The witness is asked to picture the perpetrator, and from the EEG data, a face appears. … Is it mind reading? Sort of.” And Canadian researchers are just beginning to make it a reality.