“That shocking stability is exposing a long-standing disconnect: Without the college experience, a college education alone seems insufficient. Quietly, higher education was always an excuse to justify the college lifestyle. But the pandemic has revealed that university life is far more embedded in the American idea than anyone thought. America is deeply committed to the dream of attending college. It’s far less interested in the education for which students supposedly attend.” – The Atlantic
Blog
Ethics And The Politics Of Deaccessioning
“Difficult times bring out the best in us, and sometimes, encourage the worst. The current manifestations around deaccessioning are beginning to be solved by the courts. Unfortunately, when ethics can no longer endure, we turn to the courts for resolution. The (museum) professionals are abrogating their authority to another group of professionals (lawyers).” – James Abruzzo
Knowledge Under Attack
Richard Ovenden’s thesis is that books can be destroyed literally, as they were by the Nazis, or symbolically, when their contents are either made unavailable or systematically robbed of their authority. As he states, in an era of fake news and “alternative facts”, it is hard not to conclude that “the truth itself is under attack”. – The Critic
Why The Modern Office Looks Like It Does
In 1560, Cosimo I de’ Medici, who later became the grand duke of Tuscany, wanted a building in which both the administrative and judiciary offices of Florence could be under one roof. So he commissioned the building of the Uffizi, which in Italian means “offices.” – The Conversation
August Book Sales Down 30 Percent
Sales fell to $754 million compared to $1.09 billion in August 2019. The steep August drop put an end to a brief rally during which the rate of decline in bookstore sales had been slowing. – Publishers Weekly
Despite COVID, Japan Has Record-Breaking Weekend At Movie Box Office
“The movie, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, based on a smash-hit Japanese comic book, … outperformed all expectations, more than doubling the country’s record for the largest opening weekend, with over 3.4 million people shelling out nearly $44 million on tickets. In what may be a first for Japan, the movie had the biggest opening in the world last weekend — more than all other countries combined — despite having debuted only domestically.” – The New York Times
Checking In With The Guerrilla Girls: Protesting For 35 Years
“We wanted to create the idea that we are everywhere, and we are listening. We could be working at the MoMA or even at Leo Castelli’s gallery. We wanted to create this idea that the art world was being watched, surveilled and scrutinized. Anonymity has protected us, but now I’m not sure anyone cares any more who we are. It has changed.” – The Guardian
Publisher Tom Maschler, Founder Of Booker Prize, Dead At 87
At the helm of the UK publishing house Jonathan Cape, “he discovered or helped advance the careers of such acclaimed authors as [Kurt] Vonnegut, [Gabriel] García Márquez, John Fowles, Thomas Pynchon, Ian McEwan, Edna O’Brien, Clive James, Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie and Bruce Chatwin.” In fact, 15 of his authors (so far) have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. – The Washington Post
San Francisco Conservatory Acquires Opus 3 Artists
Under the terms of the agreement, which is effective immediately, Opus 3 will continue to operate as an independent, for-profit corporation under the leadership of President and CEO David V. Foster, while San Francisco Conservatory president David Stull will chair a management team overseeing the alliance between the two entities. – San Francisco Chronicle
What “The Normal Heart’ Meant To Those Living Through The Height Of The AIDS Crisis
“[Larry] Kramer’s portrait of what a generation of gay men suffered renders America akin to a warzone, where the corpses of victims are refused death certificates and left to collect dust in oversized refuse bags, and funerals become so frequent as to be social events. … The Normal Heart is a primal howl from the frontline, with all of its mud and viscera, expressive of the fact that when your friends are dying all around you, you have no choice but to act urgently.” – BBC