“Have we been too narrowly focused on income inequality when we should really be focused on a more fundamental issue: ensuring everyone has access to a minimum level of basic goods and services such as education and healthcare and an equal opportunity to earn a respectable living?”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Oh, Those Violins Are Soooooo Valuable? Prove It, Say Skeptics
“Broadly speaking, consider the divide in the string world to be between the True Believers and the Debunkers. On the true believer side are collectors, dealers and superstar players who perform on the valuable instruments,” writes Daniel Wakin. “The debunkers include scientists, modern luthiers and some younger soloists who can’t afford old master instruments and make a virtue of the new.”
Feelgood Art Floods Economically Depressed Great Britain
“‘There is a second world war kind of thing going on about “keeping the home fires burning” at the moment; a bit of “keep calm and carry on” art, if you like,’ said the Turner prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller.”
Smile In That Profile Photo – Your Future Happiness May Depend On It
“People who smile in photos are generally warmer and friendlier than their sad face counterparts. The smilier they are, the easier time they have with social relationships. Heightened smiling intensity in said photos correlates with greater life satisfaction.”
Writer William Gibson Invented Cyberspace. What’s He Doing Now?
What does one of the most famous living science fiction writers listen to? “It’s called ‘The Original Sound of Cumbia: The History of Colombian Cumbia & Porro as Told by the Phonograph 1948-79’ and it was compiled by someone who calls himself Quantic. I’d call it dance music but what do I know? Do I dance to it? Not that I’d readily admit to.”
Why Wasn’t That Will Smith Vehicle Called ‘Tonight, He Comes’? (Because TItles Change, Thankfully)
“When a secretary’s typo changed the James Bond project Tomorrow Never Lies into Tomorrow Never Dies, I’d say she deserved a raise. And is there any question that the horror film originally called Hunter improved its box-office prospects when producers renamed it Predator?”
How Madeleine L’Engle Proved Science Fiction Isn’t Just For Guys
When “A Wrinkle in Time” came out in 1962, girls mostly didn’t read science fiction – and it wasn’t written for them. But L’Engle’s first book defied the norms. “Though a major crossover success with boys as well (with more than 10 million copies sold to date), the book has especially won over young girls. And it usually reaches them at a particularly pivotal moment of pre-adolescence when they are actively seeking to define themselves, their ambitions and place in the world.”
What Can Music Learn From The Slow-Food Movement?
“What would it be worth to provide a path to sustainable success in the music industry? I think that’s worth a lot. Strip-mining the low end, selling less and less quality to more and more people — there are limits to that model, and the music industry has done about as much of that as can be done. It’s time to try something new.”
Will Amazon Beat Netflix, Apple And Everyone Else At Streaming?
Amazon sure wants to – and it’s poised to take over the streaming world, eventually. But Netflix, Hulu and Apple may have a few tricks up their sleeves.
The Arts Should Damn Well Demand, And Receive, Government Funding
“Historically, we haven’t looked for government funding until, like the Los Angeles Opera in 2009, our backs were against the wall. It’s easier and faster to ask for money from our friends, and the success rate is higher. … We owe it to those donors who have gotten us this far to knock on government doors the way we knocked on theirs. And we owe it to the next generation to ensure that art doesn’t become truly elitist.”