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Russell Thomas is much more than a black tenor. Now, he’s tackling ‘Otello’ and the field’s stereotypes.

“‘I am not an Otello,’ Thomas says … [Yet] suddenly, it seems that Otello is all anybody wants to hear from him. … The problem [is] that there are very few tenors, white or black, who are able to sing the role. Thomas, now, is one of them, and the opera world is eager to seize on him, not only as an Otello but also as a representative of the diversity that the field claims to be desperately seeking.” – The Washington Post

Fans Protest WNYC Cancellation Of “New Sounds”

For music fans, the news last Thursday that WNYC will end New Sounds, a show hosted by John Schaefer since its debut in 1982, has provoked a deep sense of mourning and nostalgia for both the show and the city’s eroding arts and culture scene. Over four decades, the eclectic music program had come to be seen as a proud local institution that reflected New York City’s sophistication and idiosyncratic personality. – Gothamist

The “Slow Fire” That’s Destroying Our Books

It’s called a “slow fire,” this continuous acidification and subsequent embrittlement of paper that was created with the seeds of its own ruin in its very fibers. In a 1987 documentary on the subject, the deputy Librarian of Congress William Welsh takes an embrittled, acid-burned book and begins tearing pages out by the handful, crumbling them into shards with an ease reminiscent of stepping on a dried-up insect carcass. – Literary Hub

The Radical Personal Life Of Johann Sebastian Bach

“I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits—on one two-week trip he billed the church eighteen gorchsen for beer, enough to purchase eight gallons of it at retail prices—or that his contract with the Duke of Saxony included a provision for tax-free beer from the castle brewery; or that he was accused of consorting with an unknown, unmarried woman in the organ loft; or had a reputation for ignoring assigned duties without explanation or apology.” – Lapham’s Quarterly

Are We Seeing A New Theatre Construction Boom In America?

Some see other current trends—the conversion of old structures, the blurring of boundaries between disciplines, the increasing move of visual artists into performance, the popular interest in all things digital – will be reflected in future theatre design. “We are still in the supposed old ways of thinking. But yeah—change is on its way.” – American Theatre

Goose Gone Wild: A New Video Game Lets You Be An Angry Waterfowl Running Amok

Untitled Goose Game “sees you play as a single-minded goose making her terrible way through a village. Your palette of interactions is limited yet sufficient: you can grasp at objects, flap your wings, or honk. Through this trinity, you terrorize the villagers, partly in pursuit of a goal that is revealed only in the game’s final moments, and partly just for the sheer hell of it.” Simon Parkin makes the case that this game is just the thing for a time of moral crisis. – The New Yorker