Yes, for years the right-wing media complex has been accusing Snopes of liberal bias whenever it fact-checks a lie or myth the right likes, and in today’s climate that situation has only gotten worse. Add to that the very bitter divorce of the site’s founders, David and Barbara Mikkelson, and a financial dispute between David and the site’s new co-owners that includes accusations of embezzlement, and Snopes is having a rough time of it.
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How To Be Successful In Theatre? Maybe Take Risks?
Chad Bauman argues: “Change is hard. I’ll admit it sometimes scares me. There are no guarantees. But how is that different from anything else in the theatre? It does surprise me when theatres elect to stick with a failing business model that is most certainly destined to lead to disastrous results over the long term rather than risking throwing it out the window for a shot at success.”
With A ‘Superstar’ At Its Helm, Harlem’s Studio Museum Prepares To Build New Home By America’s Leading Black Architect
“As the Studio Museum prepares to break ground [on 125th Street] next year, coinciding with its 50th anniversary, [Thelma] Golden, 52, is overseeing the institution at a turning point in its history. … Ms. Golden’s name, meanwhile, keeps coming up for top posts, like those at the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the same time, Ms. Golden must defend the Studio Museum’s importance in an age when the work of African-American artists is increasingly making its way into mainstream institutions.”
With Largest Gift In Its History, San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum Begins $38M Expansion
“Museum leaders gathered Tuesday morning to release details of the $38 million expansion that will – when finished in summer 2019 – nearly double its total exhibition space. The biggest addition is a new 8,500 square-foot, column-less exhibition pavilion” designed by Kulapat Yantrasast of the firm wHY. The pavilion will be named for museum board chair Akiko Yamazaki and her husband, Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang, who have contributed $25 million for the project.
The Real Challenge Of Being A Classical Music Critic: Anthony Tommasini Explains
“Describing performances, whether the New York debut of an exciting young Finnish pianist or a boldly radical production of The Magic Flute, is the core of the reviewing art. … [Yet] music, especially purely instrumental music, resists being described in language. It’s very hard to convey sounds through words. Perhaps that’s what we most love about music: that it’s beyond description, deeper than words. Yet the poor music critic has to try.”
Twitter Will Try Doubling Its Character Limit – Just How Big A Deal Is This?
“To start, the feature will only be available to a random set of users on the service. But if adopted by the platform as a whole, the change will constitute one of the most fundamental changes to Twitter’s core product in years.” Robinson Meyer answers seven questions about the change, such as, “Why would Twitter do such a thing?” (money), “What do 280 characters have to do with money?”, and What does it mean for Twitter’s most (in-)famous user?”
What Disney Hall Sounds Like To An L.A. Philharmonic Musician On Its Stage
“The seating arrangement for the musicians in an orchestra is designed, naturally, to make the music sound best to the audience sitting out in the hall. … But [it] is definitely not optimized for the listening pleasure of the musicians, who hear a different cacophony depending on where they sit. ‘The stage has 101 acoustical micro-climates. Every seat on that stage is different,’ says section percussionist Perry Dreiman.” (audio)
Most Expensive Manuscript Ever Sold Goes For $35 Million
The document is the original printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon, sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the church most people know as “Mormon”) by the Community of Christ, the Independence, Missouri-based denomination formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Guggenheim Museum Gets Pushback After Withdrawing Three Works Protested By Animal-Rights Activists
Claiming that it had received threats of violence well beyond what it had encountered in the past, the Guggenheim pulled three pieces from its exhibition “Art and China After 1989: Theater of the World” – only to come under a new round of criticism from artists, curators, and PEN America for capitulating to “heightened political sensitivities that have been amplified by social media.”
Gisèle Casadesus, Dean Of France’s Classical Actors And Matriarch Of Its Great Performing Arts Dynasty, Dead At 103
Daughter of conductor Henri Casadesus and harpist Marie-Louise Beetz, mother of conductor Jean-Claude, composer Dominique, painter Béatrice, and actress Martine Casadesus, Gisèle joined the Comédie-Française in 1934 at age 20, where she played 120 roles over almost three decades. Afterwards, she had an extensive career in both theater and film; her final screen performance, at age 96, was with Gérard Depardieu in the 2010 film La Tête en friche. (in French; Google Translate version here)