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Arts Center In Sydney Is Saved From Liquidation — But At The Expense Of Some Artists

“Carriageworks has a clear path towards recovery after creditors voted unopposed on Tuesday for a proposal to rescue the arts company with the support of philanthropists and the New South Wales government, but not everyone is happy with the deal.” The problem: many of those creditors are small arts organizations and individual artists, who may get only about a third of the fees owed them. – The Guardian

The Drivers Of American Innovation Are Slowing

The coronavirus pandemic and the administration’s botched response to it are damaging the engine of American innovation in three major ways: The flow of talented people from overseas is slowing; the university hubs that produce basic research and development are in financial turmoil; and the circulation of people and ideas in high-productivity industrial clusters, such as Silicon Valley, has been impeded. – The Atlantic

The Berkshires Cultural Crawl Without Crowds

“They parked all too easily; slung their fold-up camp chairs over their shoulders; and waited obediently in a socially distanced line to enter the grounds, cracking jokes behind their masks. The lawn — a special mix of Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass and a variety called fine fescue, designed to withstand the footsteps of up to 18,000 music fans a night — was as supernaturally green as ever. The vista, still magnificent. The sound? No tuning. Mostly birds chirping. Save for a robin dashing from the shadow of one red maple to another, it was very still.” – The New York Times

Seven Ideas For The Chicago Symphony To Perform Again

Howard Reich: “Should the organization succeed in presenting live events, it will deliver us from the current deluge of online performances by every musician who happens to own a smart phone. These musical snippets are better than nothing, of course, but bear scant relation to what happens when listeners hear music in a concert hall in real time.” – Chicago Tribune

When Lockdown Started, Powell’s Book Sales Soared. How’s Business Now? (Not So Good)

Emily Powell: “In some ways, it’s hard to say, because our trends have completely evaporated. Before the pandemic, I could have told you, ‘Oh, the first sunny day, and this month will look like this. The second sunny day will look like that.’ But all of those behaviors have gone away. So right now we’re on a relatively steady sales decline and trying to do our best to turn that in a different direction.” – Oregon Public Broadcasting

The End Of Tourism?

It took a pandemic to stop the gluttonous consumption of other places, trips that relied centrally on the have-nots—armies of hotel workers, cleaners, food preparers, bartenders, pool attendants—to provide the lavish experience sought. The argument in favor of this juxtaposition was that tourists, however noxious, were propping up the GDP of places like Macau (51 percent), Maldives (32.5 percent), Spain (14.6 percent), and Italy (13.2 percent). It was, as neoliberal economics go, a top-down model, mere cents going to the worst-off at the bottom. – The Baffler