“We are living through the greatest improvement in human living standards in history. Extreme poverty has fallen below 10 per cent of the world’s population for the first time. It was 60 per cent when I was born. Global inequality has been plunging as Africa and Asia experience faster economic growth than Europe and North America; child mortality has fallen to record low levels; famine virtually went extinct; malaria, polio and heart disease are all in decline.” – The Spectator
Blog
How Dolly Parton’s Dinner Theatre Got Caught Up In The Culture Wars
“This episode [of Jad Abumrad’s Dolly Parton’s America podcast] delves into the controversy surrounding Dolly Parton’s Stampede (formerly known as ‘Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede’) — a dinner theater that presents the Civil War as a friendly competition between neighbors.” – WNYC Studios
Science Fiction Wasn’t Great At Predicting The Future. Who Cares?
What ’60s science fiction did do was establish one of the wildest, widest, most stylistically and conceptually various commercial spaces for writing (and reading) fiction in the history of fictional genres. Each book is unpredictable in so many ways as to almost constitute its own genre. – The New Republic
Poetry Anti-Slams, Where Bad Is Good
“The anti-slam was created by British performance artist Paula Varjack, inspired by poet Jamie DeWolf’s self-reflexive and satirical performance piece, The Worst Poem Ever. In DeWolf, Varjack saw an opportunity to push performers to be more creative by challenging the competitiveness of a traditional slam. … The first anti-slam took place in Berlin in 2009. Since then it has gone on to captivate audiences around the world.” – The Guardian
Ruth Anderson, Groundbreaking Electronic Composer, Dead At 91
“[She] is best known for having founded, in 1968, an electronic music studio at Hunter College in New York, where she taught composition and theory from 1966 until 1989. … [She] created a relatively small but prescient body of work, including pieces that used bits of recorded speech turned into music.” – The New York Times
The 2010s Radicalized Video Games — And The People Who Make Them
“In traditional video games, labor and capitalism have been depicted in near-frictionless harmony. Take SimCity and Civilization‘s dogmatic views of economic progress popular during the booming real-life ’90s or even Mario’s insatiable accumulation of gold coins.” But in the wake of the 2008 financial crash and this decade’s insane lengthening of working hours, developers began creating games that imply real critiques of contemporary tech capitalism — and they began to consider unionizing. – The Nation
Smaller Museums And Galleries Pay Artists Better Than Larger Ones: Study
Research released by Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) “shows an inverse relationship between institution size (based on operating budget) and the amount spent on artist fees, and … there is evidence that small- and medium-sized institutions spend the most on programming and pay the bulk of artist fees.” – ARTnews
Smithsonian Finds Four Yayoi Kusama Paintings In A Manila Envelope In An Archive
“Archivist Anna Rimel came upon the four pieces, executed in watercolor, ink, pastel, and tempera paint, in a manila envelope while sifting through the [Smithsonian American Art Museum’s] Joseph Cornell Study Center, where they were hidden among correspondence and ephemera.” – Artnet
Going To Performances And Visiting Museums Will Extend Your Lifespan: Study
“Researchers from University College London (UCL) found that people who engaged in the arts more frequently — every few months or more — had a 31% lower risk of dying early when compared to those who didn’t. Even going to the theater or museum once or twice a year was linked with a 14% lower risk.” – CNN
Prague’s Gorgeous Old Opera House Set To Emerge From Three-Year Renovation
“The Czech State Opera hoisted an ornate curtain on Thursday as a three-year project to restore the 19th-century opera building to its original glory neared completion ahead of a planned reopening next month. The 1.3 billion crown ($56.85 million) renovation aimed to get the main hall as close to how it looked when it opened in Prague in 1888 while adding some modern twists, such as touchscreen displays on all of the around 1,000 seats.” – Reuters