“We kind of stepped off a cliff and proposed a multi-use, multi-genre space that wasn’t devoted either to visual or performing arts, but could embrace that whole spectrum and anything we couldn’t forecast in the future.” – CityLab
Blog
Salvador Dalí, Book Illustrator
“Throughout the second half of his life, Dalí had a curious side-project … illustrating the Western canon: Don Quixote and Macbeth in 1946; The Divine Comedy between 1951 and 1964; the Bible between 1963 and 1964; Alice in Wonderland in 1969; Henry V and Henry VI in 1970; The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel in 1973; and Paradise Lost in 1974. Browsing a shelf of the West’s most renowned titles, it’s surprisingly hard to find one for which he didn’t do the pictures.” – Artsy
Grande Dame Of Music: Still Going Strong At 100
Pianist and teacher Thelma Wilson has performed for the Queen, taught thousands of students, and is the mother and wife in a family of illustrious musicians, including one of the founders of the Emerson Quartet. And she can still play a mean Kinderszenen. – Winnipeg Free Press
A University Course In Bullshit Detection (Because Bullshit Really Is Everywhere)
“Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World” at the University of Washington “is not dedicated to teaching students that Fox News promotes ‘fake news or that National Enquirer headlines are fallacious. Instead, the class operates under the assumption that the structures through which today’s endless information comes to the consumer — algorithms, data graphics, info analytics, peer-reviewed publications — are in many ways as full of bullshit as the fake news we easily recognize as bogus.” – Pacific Standard
The Young Orchestra Exec Who’s Turned Her Orchestra Into A Growth Industry
When Aubrey Bergauer arrived in 2014, the California Symphony was on the brink of financial collapse. Now, ticket sales have increased by 70 percent, concerts are frequently added to keep up with the demand, and the number of donors has nearly quadrupled. As orchestras around the country deal with aging audiences and search for ways to stay relevant—with midsize symphonies facing greater financial challenges than their big-city, big-donor counterparts—the California Symphony has succeeded by taking bold risks without compromising its musical integrity.” – Southwest Magazine
Federal Judge Strikes Down Oklahoma Law About Marketing Of Native American Art
“U.S. District Judge Charles B. Goodwin ruled that the Oklahoma Indian Arts and Crafts Sales Act violates the U.S. Constitution because it is more restrictive than a federal law with the same purpose — protecting and promoting Indian artists. The Oklahoma law requires artists to be members of a federally recognized tribe if they are to market their art as American Indian. The federal law also allows members of tribes recognized only by a state to market art as American Indian, along with artists certified by Indian tribes.” – The Oklahoman
Nancy Pelosi Has Stepped Into The Role Of Supporter-In-Chief Of The Arts
Peter Marks: “In the absence of a White House that welcomes the nation’s preeminent composers, painters, scholars and singers to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — and let’s face it, many of them would probably say no thanks — Pelosi seems more and more inclined to cast herself as the ceremonial head of state for the arts.” – Washington Post
The Comma Queen Reports From The Big Copy Editors’ Convention
The New Yorker‘s Mary Norris on the American Copy Editors Society annual conference: “But the centerpiece of the weekend is the session at which the A.P. announces changes to its annual style guide. It was standing room only in Narragansett A as Paula Froke, the lead editor of the A.P. Stylebook, ran through her slides. … You could feel the excitement in the room when a slide appeared with the heading ‘HYPHENS!'” – The New Yorker
The Next DJ: Mixing Code That Mixes Music That Makes You Dance
It’s “live coding” and it’s already happening. “The code on display is used to control software algorithms. The musician synthesizes individual noises (snare hits, bass blobs) on their computer, then instructs the software to string those instrumental sounds together based on a set of predefined rules. What comes out bears the fingerprint of the artist but is shaped entirely by the algorithms.” – Wired
The Scripts From The Translating-Shakespeare-Into-Modern-English Project Are In
“Four years ago, the news that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival had commissioned modern English ‘translations’ of all of Shakespeare’s plays drew headlines, and no small alarm, from purists who saw it as a kind of literary vandalism. Now, the public will have a chance to judge the full fruits of the effort for itself” as all 39 scripts get public readings in June in New York. Jennifer Schuessler looks into the progress of the project and the guidelines the commissioned playwrights followed. – The New York Times