Like office workers across the United States, journalists have been pushed by the coronavirus to retreat from communal spaces and into remote work. Now some are confronting the very real possibility that they may never again work in a physical newsroom — a touchstone of journalism — and what that could mean for the future of their profession. – Washington Post
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What We Learn From Book Manuscripts
The manuscripts of literary works-in-progress fascinate on many levels, from the flush-faced thrill of spying on something intensely private and the visceral delight of knowing that a legendary author’s hand rested on the paper before you, to the light that such early drafts shed on authorial methodology and intent. Sometimes, the very essence of what a writer is trying to express seems to hover tantalisingly in the gap between a word deleted and another added in its place. – BBC
Cameron Mackintosh Companies Eliminate 850 Theatre Jobs
Theatre union: “The entire industry has been shocked by Cameron Mackintosh’s unwillingness to use the coronavirus job retention scheme in full or deploy resources beyond the furlough months to support his backstage and front of house staff. Other West End employers have done their utmost to find creative ways to safeguard the livelihoods of their staff and pursue the bigger mission of saving the world class skills and talents critical to the success of theatres up and down the country.
Why Efficiency Can Be Too Much Of A Good Thing
Some motivation produces excellent performance; too much motivation produces choking. Some group collaboration produces cohesion and enhances productivity; too much of it leads to staleness. Some empathy enables you to understand what another person is going through; too much could prevent you from saying and doing hard things. – Psyche
The Evolution Of The Quizbowl, From Radio To Screen To Zoom
“Technology and trivia may not be obvious bedfellows. But trivia enthusiasts in the postwar-trivia boom of the 1950s would surely look in envy at technologies we take for granted today: word processors, search engines, wikis, videoconferencing services. In today’s Tedium, I take you through the technological evolution of a trivia format called quizbowl.” – Tedium
Boogie-man Helfer bounces back from covid-depression
“People have been saying to me, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry you had to go through that!’ Well I’m not sorry — I think it’s the best thing that could have happened to me, considering where I am now. I feel reborn. Everything seems fresh to me. Now, how are things with you?” – Howard Mandel
Last Of The Grand Unifying Theorizers
Rene Girard was almost the Platonic ideal of a hedgehog: he belongs to that lineage of 19th- and 20th-century thinkers whose vast synthetic ambition is now seen by many in the academy as not simply wrongheaded but almost impolite. Sweeping intellectual projects such as his come across today as naïve and even oppressive, animated by the most obnoxious nostalgias for the Enlightenment. – Los Angeles Review of Books
Lorenzo Wilson Milam, The Johnny Appleseed Of Independent Community Radio, Dead At 86
He didn’t start the community radio movement (that was Lew Hill of Pacifica), but, as one radio historian wrote, “if Lew Hill fathered the movement, Lorenzo Milam reared it.” He founded independent, community-supported stations in Seattle (KRAB-FM), St. Louis, San Francisco, Portland, Dallas, and other cities, and he even wrote a guide to starting up a station, titling it Sex and Broadcasting. A polio survivor, he spent later life as a writer (The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues; Cripzen: A Manual for Survival) and published two literary journals. – The New York Times
Eastern Europe: Tension Between Trying To Forget Communist Past And Profiting From It
In many eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechia and Poland the locals’ desire to forget their collective traumatic past is paradoxically interwoven with the need for economic profit derived from commercialising remnants of the communist heritage. – The Conversation
Why Rebuilding Beirut’s Arts Ecosystem Will Be So Much Harder Than It Would Be Elsewhere
Artists and institutions in Beirut, large and small, have rebuilt several times since the outbreak of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1975 and through subsequent conflict. But even before the explosion that has wrecked the city, the country’s long-dysfunctional political system was spiraling, taking the currency, the economy and even the electricity grid along with it. Now, say many key figures in Beirut’s cultural life, Lebanon could really become a failed state. – Artnet