Built over 27 years (and counting) by mosaicist Isaiah Zagar and open to the public for a decade, the Magic Gardens installation in Philadelphia is now wildly popular – and the visitor traffic means repairing wear and tear that Zagar and his colleagues had never anticipated. Ashley Hahn reports on the program that’s now been set up to inspect and protect the countless tiny pieces of material in the mosaics that cover the site.
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Steinway May Be Sold To Chinese Gov’t Company
“Steinway Musical Instruments Inc., the legendary piano maker controlled by U.S. hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, has attracted takeover interest from China Poly Group Corp. … The state-owned conglomerate is holding preliminary talks about a purchase of Steinway, … [which] could fetch about $1 billion in a sale.”
Early Banksy Mural, Painted Over By Glasgow Nightclub, Is Being Restored
The painting was created for a 2001 show at a venue called The Arches; when the club was renovated in 2007, it was accidentally painted over and then left. The Arches went bankrupt in 2015, and the site’s new owners are restoring the mural, Banksy’s only work in Scotland.
BBC Rejects Same-Sex Couples On ‘Strictly Come Dancing’
The show that launched the modern reality-TV dance competition genre has not featured a single same-sex pair in its 15 seasons on the air. And, despite calls from the public, previous contestants, and even some of the show’s own judges, there will be none this coming season, either.
Ian McKellen Injured Himself, Couldn’t Do ‘King Lear’ – So He Did A Q&A With The Audience Instead
The actor was on his way to the West End for his performance on Saturday when he strained his calf, rendering him unable to kneel or carry Cordelia. The show was canceled, but to make it up to audience members as they queued for refunds, he took questions and spoke to them from the stage.
Four-Year, €4 Million Project To Promote Performing Artists With Disabilities
The project, called “Europe Beyond Access” and involving partners from the UK, Greece, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Serbia, aims to “break the glass ceiling” and bring disabled artists into the mainstream of theater and dance.
Can A Truth Be Pragmatic Or Is It A Slippery Slope To Corruption?
Beliefs about what is right and wrong might well be evaluable in ways similar to how other kinds of beliefs are evaluable – in terms of whether they fit with experience and survive scrutiny.
The Notion That Information Is Free Is A Dangerous One
There’s always been fake news but what’s different this time is that you can tailor the story to particular individuals, because you know the prejudice of this particular individual. The more people believe in free will, that their feelings represent some mystical spiritual capacity, the easier it is to manipulate them, because they won’t think that their feelings are being produced and manipulated by some external system.
How Spotify Became A Dominant Music Industry Force
Since its 2008 launch, Spotify has realigned the global music industry toward streaming, popularizing the idea of music as a service rather than goods that consumers own. As the company has grown—it now has 170 million users in more than 60 countries and 75 million of them are paying subscribers—it’s turned around the fortunes of what had been a declining industry.
Of Course Language Shapes How We Think. But Does It Change Our Sense Of Time?
Lera Boroditsky, of Stanford University, has amassed interesting data on the effects of how we speak of things, such as that people who speak languages that use the same word for a pair of colours need more time to distinguish between them than ones who have a separate word for each – but they can distinguish between them. Mandarin speakers conceptualise time vertically while English speakers conceptualise it horizontally – but each language could use the other metaphor; it has the words for it.