“Even as we demand more flavor from our coffees and breads – they’ve got to be artisanal, you know – we seem willing to accept patron experiences that are increasingly diminished. Character is an important consideration when you’re buying a $1 doughnut. But it doesn’t seem to be as crucial when purchasing a $100 pass to a music festival.”
Category: AUDIENCE
‘Library Anxiety’ – It’s A Real Thing For College Students, And (As Always) Librarians Are There To Help
“The phenomenon, which involves feeling intimidated, embarrassed, and overwhelmed by libraries and librarians, was first identified by Constance A. Mellon in 1986.” The problem is worse in 2016, with a generation who grew up with the web: “As soon as you need to use scholarly resources, Wikipedia isn’t going to cut it.”
The Olympics As Religious Ritual, Then And Now
“At the end of the fourth Christian century, an east-Roman emperor who followed the new faith abolished the pan-Hellenic contest as part of his general drive to stamp out paganism. … Pierre de Coubertin, the blue-blooded Frenchman who revived the classical games, did not hide the fact that he was competing with monotheism, and trying to reverse what he saw as a great historical wrong.” What’s more, “both the modern contests and their ancient Greek predecessors share many of the features of a giant sacramental feast.”
Architectural Acupuncture: How A Modernist Made Room For 7.5 Million Visitors At The Palace Of Versailles
“By creating a 3,000-square-foot basement for a gift shop, coat check and bathrooms beneath the Pavillon and the adjacent Princes’ Courtyard, he created a new loop through the chateau. Visitors could enter the palace through the Pavillon, proceed on the circuit and finish in the basement, where a grand staircase would take them back up to the Courtyard.”
America Is Quickly Getting Older. Are Our Arts Going To Be Increasingly Age-Specific?
“Some industries will forsake the senior audience, other industries will court it. And those decisions are likely the result of research and judgments. Which end of the spectrum will we end up on, and is it likely some arts organizations will embrace the senior growth market, while others of us, flee from it?”
Augmented Reality: Pokémon Go Could Be The Start Of A Transformation In Children’s Games And Learning
“While electronic games have traditionally caused kids to retreat to couches, here is one that did precisely the opposite. … If done right, some say the technology Go introduced to the world could bring back the kind of outdoor, creative, and social forms of play that used to be the mainstay of childhood. Augmented reality, it stands to reason, could revitalize the role of imagination in kids’ learning and development.”
Queens Without Borders: A Berlin Drag Show Offers Welcome And Aid To Queer Refugees
The project’s organizer, an Australian expat whose drag name is Olympia Bukkakis, “describes the show, with a bit of a cringe, as ‘conceptual drag,’ where specific themes are explored through various acts. It features a mixture of ‘punk, alternative queens’ along with refugees new to the city, incorporating belly dancing, burkas, and gender-bender performance art.”
Met Museum Sets Attendance Record: 6.7 Million Visitors
“This year’s attendance – the fifth in a row exceeding six million – was 400,000 higher than that of the previous year. The Met attributed this to an increase of about 200,000 visitors at its Fifth Avenue flagship and the Met Cloisters combined and to 185,000 people taking in the Met Breuer during its first four months.”
The Happiness Industry – Narcissism For The Masses?
“You can’t really be happy if you are a victim of injustice or exploitation, which is what the technologists of joy tend to overlook. This is why, when Aristotle speaks of a science of well-being, he gives it the name of politics. The point is of little interest to the neuroscientists, advertising gurus or mindfulness mongers, which is why so much of their work is spectacularly beside the point.”
New Harry Potter Book Is UK’s Fastest Seller This Decade
“It has sold more than 680,000 copies in its first three days alone, beating Fifty Shades of Grey which sold 664,478 in a single week in 2012. At its current rate, it is on track to become the second biggest single-week sales for a book since records began.”