The Louvre attracts 10.2 million people a year with about 80 per cent believed to come just to see the Mona Lisa. In July, officials had to restrict access for three days because of the chaos caused by the queues. – The Telegraph (UK)
Blog
Facebook Would Pay $40 Million For Falsely Inflating Video Metrics
The suit accused Facebook of acknowledging miscalculations in metrics upon press reports, but still not taking responsibility for the breadth of the problem. “The average viewership metrics were not inflated by only 60%-80%; they were inflated by some 150 to 900%,” stated an amended complaint. – The Hollywood Reporter
Why Are Streaming Companies Paying Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars For Old TV Shows?
These pricey deals for what is essentially digital reruns have, like the Seinfeld syndication deal two decades ago, raised eyebrows. Why are streaming companies willing to pay so much for shows of nostalgic value? And as numerous companies prepare to launch their own streaming services – HBO Max and Peacock, not to mention the forthcoming Apple TV+ – why bet on the appeal of legacy TV shows? – The Guardian
In The 50 Years Since Caravaggio’s Nativity Was Stolen, Have The Police Been Chasing Bogus Tips?
“[A] stream of stories, boasts and false leads has kept the police busy for years and has led to just two conclusions: the painting was stolen by the mafia, and it was then destroyed. … In 2017, however, the case was re-opened by the anti-mafia commission, … [and] the situation raises a number of questions that have never been answered by earlier investigations.” – The Art Newspaper
Why “Porgy and Bess” and the Met Need One Another
More than its disappointing 1985 predecessor, the Met’s vigorous new staging of Gershwin’s opera manages to vindicate a controversial cultural landmark whose reputation, still unsettled, feeds on the fraught racial sensitivities of the current moment. – Joe Horowitz
Why Music Grabs Ahold Of Our Brains
“We are essentially pattern-recognizing machines. Every great musician knows that a great performance involves building up tension to an eventual release. And that’s because that taps into our pattern recognition apparatus in the brain. Our brain is trying to figure out what’s going to happen next.” – PBS News Hour
Marshall Efron, Star Of Idiosyncratic TV Comedies, Dead At 81
“An actor and humorist, [he] was a core figure in two of the quirkiest television shows of the 1970s, The Great American Dream Machine and the children’s program Marshall Efron’s Illustrated, Simplified and Painless Sunday School.” – The New York Times
What The Fight Over A Rural Library Says About America
“I didn’t realize it at first, but the fight over the library was rolled up into a bigger one about the library building, and an even bigger fight than that, about the county government, what it should pay for, and how and whether people should be taxed at all. The library fight was, itself, a fight over the future of rural America, what it meant to choose to live in a county like mine, what my neighbors were willing to do for one another, what they were willing to sacrifice to foster a sense of community here. The answer was, for the most part, not very much.” – The New York Times
A Black, Queer Kentuckian Returns Home To Take The Helm At Actors Theatre Of Louisville
After decades living and working all over the U.S., actor-director-choreographer Robert Barry Fleming is now in his first season as artistic director of one of the country’s most important regional theatres. He tells Diep Tran, “It’s taken me 50 years to be afforded my ‘Jackie Robinson moment’: the chance to lead a large, multi-million dollar institution, and I believe that may have less to do with my ability or readiness to do the job, and more about the dominant culture demonstrating readiness.” – American Theatre
Silicon Valley’s Miracle Tech Was Supposed To Make The World A Better Place. What Happened?
These magical machines were supposed to provide a solution to the economic and political problems of the late twentieth century, a way to transcend and break free of the confining aspects of postwar capitalism. This was a feint, a way of imagining a miracle fix to tensions and conflicts that had no easy resolution. Computers, Margaret O’Mara suggests, have long been metaphors as much as machines. – The New Republic