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How True Is That College Application?

As college admissions become ever more competitive, with the most elite schools admitting only 4 percent or 5 percent of applicants, the pressure to exaggerate, embellish, lie and cheat on college applications has intensified, admissions officials say. The high-stakes process remains largely based on trust: Very little is done in the way of fact-checking, and on the few occasions officials do catch outright lies, they often do so by chance. – The New York Times

An Artistic Approach To Helping People Understand Dire Issues

“When I asked Olafur Eliasson about the impact of the work, he said he thinks that fear-based narratives tend to be unpersuasive, and he prefers to create a meaningful encounter with the environment to encourage change. London’s deputy mayor for culture, Justine Simons, expressed confidence that the work will change attitudes, saying at the launch that Ice Watch ‘will bring the stark reality of climate change to thousands of people in a very direct and very intimate way. It will undoubtedly inspire action’.” – Arts Professional

Joe Melillo Talks About His 35 Years At The Brooklyn Academy

“I have worked in the performing arts for so long—presented or produced thousands of shows here, worked with thousands of artists—that I’m so preconditioned to change it’s part of my DNA. No one asked me to leave; I knew in my heart I was coming to the evolutionary end of this journey. Retirement for me is stopping here and going on to a new identity that uses everything I’ve been exposed to over thirty-five years here in Brooklyn and around the globe, finding the path to where I can make another cultural contribution that has some meaning.” – Howlround

Regrets: I Never Knew My Father Shared My Bond With Music

“Throughout my childhood, my family had missed out on the joys of sharing music with one another. With three kids, two parents, two loud TVs, one bathroom and rarely anything approaching silence, music served as each individual’s private escape. How surprising to realize that my father had subscribed to our secret club all along. We had never listened to opera before that brief time in our lives. And after my father died, the opera music exited quietly. Pavarotti had left the building.” – The New York Times

Please, People, Stop Trying To Make ‘Pride And Prejudice’ A Christmas Story

True, there are six mentions of the word “Christmas” in the original novel. “Lest you get carried away by that number six, though, you should know that Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814) drops the word ‘Easter’ twelve times. Still, no one suggests we should add bunnies and plastic eggs to its next TV movie version.” – Literary Hub

Is Great Theatre Possible In A Democracy?

Natalia Kalaida, one of the members of Belarus Free Theatre, which was exiled for its political stances, explains that “art has long been used to express political and moral opposition, particularly in countries where open criticism can lead to arrest and even execution. But when citizens have nothing to fight for, Kaliada says, the importance of theatre wanes.” – ABC News (Australia)

The U.S. President Thinks News And Satire ‘Should Be Tested In The Courts’

After a Saturday Night Live cold open recreated It’s a Wonderful Life without Donald Trump as president, the man who should most clearly understand the First Amendment tweeted, “It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?” – Variety

Should Britain’s Art Courses Warn Young People About Their Futures?

Lyn Gardner says that although UK government inspector Amanda Spelman has faced a massive backlash – for good reason – some of her statements were probably fair. “Watching each year as arts graduates head into the world sometimes feels like a David Attenborough documentary showing nature at its most brutal. As thousands of young people – who have been taught to call themselves artists but not necessarily given the skills artists need to survive – head for the choppy waters of the industry, they seem like vulnerable baby turtles heading for the ocean.” – The Stage (UK)

Twist In The LA Mural Story: Shepard Fairey Says He’ll Remove His Mural If LAUSD Paints Over Another Artist’s Mural

Fairey’s mural, at the same school, is of Robert F. Kennedy – at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex, on the footprint of the hotel where Kennedy was shot. It is “arguably one of the school’s defining visual elements.” If Beau Stanton’s mural of Ava Gardner is painted over, he says, his should be too. He’d rather not, though: “I thought that cooler heads would prevail because this is absurd.” – Los Angeles Times