“There should have been no better time to start than this, the company’s 350th anniversary, which was to have culminated this fall with a splashy new production of Wagner’s epic Ring cycle. Instead, [Alexander] Neef … walked straight into an annus horribilis.” – The New York Times
Blog
Has Substack Created A New A New Medium For News?
In three years, Substack’s newsletters—covering almost every conceivable topic, from Australian Aboriginal rights to bread recipes to local Tennessee politics—have drawn more than two hundred fifty thousand paid subscribers. The top newsletter authors can earn six figures, an unheard-of amount for freelance journalists. – Columbia Journalism Review
UK Universities Want Probe Into Inflated E-Textbook Prices
Johanna Anderson said the situation had become so financially serious for university libraries that it was time for MPs and competition authorities to hold publishers to account. She cited the example of an economics book that costs £44 for a print copy but is £423 for a single e-book user and £500 for three users. An employment law book costs £50 for a hard copy, but is £1,600 for three users of the digital version. – BBC
French Authors Say They’ll Pay COVID Fines For Paris Book Shops That Stay Open
At the beginning of the lockdown more than two weeks ago, the Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, pleaded – unsuccessfully – for bookshops to be allowed to remain open and asked the public not to use Amazon. The call has been echoed by the former president François Hollande. – The Guardian
How Will We Protect World Treasures Threatened By Climate Change?
Venice is just one example of the challenges of preserving iconic landmarks that are threatened by the effects of climate change, such as rising seas and recurrent, intensifying droughts, storms and wildfires. In my research as a social scientist, I help heritage managers make tough decisions prioritizing which sites to save when funds, time or both are limited. – The Conversation
Simon Woods: Thinking About The Ways Forward For Orchestras
“We are currently living through the longest period of uncertainty that any of us has ever experienced in our professional lives, and it feels like an eternity. The more care we spend thinking about our missions in this not-yet moment, the more fully we’ll be ready for the world more embracing that awaits us.” – Simon Woods
Why The Arts Are Important In Times Of Crises
“Some people were willing to forego their meagre ration of food and forget their fatigue to attend the artistic performances in the concentration camp. For me this is a potent reminder to challenge crude approaches to ranking basic human needs and the components of a decent human life.” – Aeon
Political Theater Moves Into Nonfiction — Is It Drama Or Seminar?
Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me has become “the grandmother of [a] genre” that includes, just this fall, Kristina Wong for Public Office (about Wong’s run for a local commission in Los Angeles), Lessons in Survival (actors repeating, complete with pauses and tics, observations of prominent Black Americans about society), Denis O’Hare’s What the Hell Is a Republic, Anyway? (using the history of the Roman Republic to examine the American one), and Melissa Dunphy’s The Gonzales Cantata (an oratorio setting the 2007 testimony of George W. Bush’s Attorney General before the Senate Judiciary Committee). Jesse Green looks at these pieces and considers “what it means for performers to take public policy as their script at a time when policymakers seem to be taking public performance as theirs.” – The New York Times
Economic Impact: A Quick and Dirty Critique
Teaching arts policy this fall, I needed a two-page briefing to warn my students off using economic impact studies as an arts advocacy tool. Here’s the result. – Michael Rushton
“Fraudulent Avoidance of Sales Tax”: NY Attorney General’s Lawsuit vs. Sotheby’s
NY State Attorney General Letitia James has sued Sotheby’s for its alleged role in helping a client to “pose as an art dealer so he could illegally qualify for sales-tax exemptions reserved for the art trade.” – Lee Rosenbaum