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Simone De Beauvoir Has A New Novel Coming Out

Yes, she’s been dead for 34 years. She started writing the book, titled The Inseparables and based on her best friend (who died at 21), in 1954, the year she won the Prix Goncourt for The Mandarins and five years after she published The Second Sex. Jean-Paul Sartre, her partner, was unimpressed with the novel, and de Beauvoir put it aside. Scholars wondered what had happened to it; turns out she had kept the manuscript and typescript in her archives. – The New York Times

Cellist Lynn Harrell, 76

“Over the course of his wide-ranging career, Harrell performed as a soloist with just about every major orchestra in the U.S. and Europe. Within the classical music world, Harrell was also widely beloved as a generous chamber music colleague, a respected teacher and a musician’s musician.” – NPR

James Weaver, Period-Instrument Pioneer And Founder Of Smithsonian Chamber Players, Dead At 82

He was part of the first generation of American musicians to work seriously on the revival of historical keyboard instruments and their repertoire. He used the Institution’s instrument collection for both solo work and to start one of the first professional Baroque-instrument groups in the U.S., the Smithsonian Chamber Players (1976), and expanded into the Classical era with the launch of the Smithson String Quartet and the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra. – Early Music America

The Decline Of Novels, Poetry, Art… And Just About Everything Else?

The truth, sad or bad or however one wishes to characterize it, is that both contemporary visual art and contemporary poetry no longer hold anything approximating the central place in culture that they once did. Without anyone actually saying so, these once major branches of art have become of at best tertiary interest. A person who thinks himself reasonably cultured need no longer be responsible for knowing much, if anything at all, about either of them. – Commentary

Survey Quantifies Dire Situation For Artists

Conducted by the advocacy group Americans for the Arts and released Friday, the survey of more than 11,000 creative workers reveals that 95 percent have lost some income because of the pandemic, with almost two-thirds reporting that they are now fully unemployed. Almost half of the respondents have no savings to mitigate their lost income — which averages $27,100 — and 8 in 10 said they have no path to recovery. – Washington Post

Frank Ramsey – The Genius Who Always Got There First

Ramsey not only died young but lived too early, or so it can seem. He did little to advertise the importance of his ideas, and his modesty did not help. He was not particularly impressed with himself—he thought he was rather lazy. At the same time, the speed with which his mind worked sometimes left a blur on the page. The prominent American philosopher Donald Davidson was one of several thinkers to experience what he dubbed “the Ramsey effect.” You’d make a thrilling breakthrough only to find that Ramsey had got there first. – The New Yorker

Berlin Philharmonic, Shut For Weeks, Will Begin Performing Again Friday

Friday’s concert will strictly adhere to current social distancing guidelines in Germany, with players forming a chamber orchestra, spaced apart from one another on stage. The programme includes Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, music by Ligeti, Barber’s Adagio for Strings anda chamber version of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with soprano Christiane Karg. – ClassicFM

New Online Sales Hub For Indie Bookstores Is Doing Great Business, But Not All Is Well

“Bookshop launched in January with the intention of offering independent bookstores an improved online commerce hub that will help them woo customers away from Amazon. … The site has seen a 2,000% increase in sales in the past month compared to the month before and has become a lifeline for many stores that have been temporarily closed by the Covid-19 pandemic. … Despite its success, the site has critics.” – Publishers Weekly