“You may have heard, in the past year, that irony and satire are dead, that in the age of Trump they have become indistinguishable from their opposites. … Everyone recognizes that something essential to comedy is failing: the power to defeat lies. … [But] comedy’s association with honesty is far more recent than we might think. You and I just happen to have grown up during an unusual period in the history of comedy, one in which it became strangely bound up with truth and virtue. Trump, thank God, has cut the knot.”
Category: issues
House Appropriations Committee Approves Bill Funding NEA And NEH
“The House bill, part of the process of thrashing out the federal budget for fiscal year 2018, includes $145 million for each endowment. The amounts represent a cut of about $5 million to each agency, but is a stark contrast to President Trump’s proposal to eliminate the endowments entirely as outlined in his first federal budget plan he announced in March.”
Philadelphia’s Mann Center Transcends Being A Music Venue
“Steadily and surely over the past few years, the Mann has become much more than just a venue. In addition to making new commissions, it has gone a long way toward realizing its educational potential with master classes and a months-long schedule of projects in partnership with schools, and has discovered its neighbors in West Parkside.”
New York City’s First-Ever Cultural Plan Will Tie Funding To Greater Diversity In Cultural Institutions
“The city has been funding the arts since the 19th century, but until now City Hall has never embarked on a comprehensive review of where all that money goes and what it does. The result of that effort is a 180-page report … called ‘CREATENYC: A Cultural Plan for All New Yorkers,’ which aims to reorient the city’s cultural life toward neglected corners of the five boroughs by bringing the arts to previously ignored neighborhoods and pushing some of the jewels in the city’s cultural crown to make a greater effort towards getting residents of those neighborhoods through their doors.”
The Arts Really Can Make People Healthier, And Doctors Could Legitimately Prescribe Them: Report
“GPs prescribing arts activities to some patients could lead to a dramatic fall in hospital admissions and save the NHS money, according to a report into the subject of arts, health and wellbeing published after two years of evidence gathering. … [The] inquiry contends that the arts can keep people well, aid recovery from illness, help people live longer, better lives and save money in health and social services.”
The End Of Spain’s Traditional 3-Hour Lunch Break?
“This week, change could finally be on the way, as 110 professional bodies in Catalonia have signed up to a plan to change the region’s daily timetable by 2025, shortening the classic three-hour lunch break so that employees can finish work earlier in the evening. Such a change would radically reshape ordinary people’s lives—and controversially, it could drive a wedge between Catalonia and the rest of Spain.”
Does Tate Modern Provide A Model For A New London?
“The museum may be the among the best-known examples of the now fashionable transformation of derelict factories into dynamic cultural space. Since its inception, the Tate Modern has never rested on its laurels, continuing to redefine itself as an institution of outreach, self-reflection and learning. The museum’s evolution over time provides a potential blueprint for how London, and indeed any city, can provide spaces that encourage its inhabitants to be collectively present. You cannot experience the Tate Modern through Facebook or a tweet; you must show up, with an open mind, surrounded by your fellow visitors.”
Small Foundation Offers Major Award To Arts Journalists
“The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation made a splash in the world of art criticism and journalism this week, announcing a new annual prize that offers American art writers who write for general audiences (rather than academic readers) a $50,000 unrestricted grant in recognition of their work. The grant matches the highest awards given by the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation, which range from $15,000 to $50,000, and is five times the sum awarded to Pulitzer Prize winners.”
Abusive Speech Really Can Damage Students (So It’s Good To Keep Milo Yiannopoulos Off Campuses)
Psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett does make a distinction between speech that’s abusive and bullying (Milo) and speech that’s merely offensive (Charles Murray): “The former is a danger to a civil society (and to our health); the latter is the lifeblood of democracy. By all means, we should have open conversations and vigorous debate about controversial or offensive topics. But we must also halt speech that bullies and torments. From the perspective of our brain cells, the latter is literally a form of violence.”
If We Keep Telling Students That Wholly Free Speech Will Traumatize Them, They’ll Probably Feel Traumatized (So Stop It)
Jesse Singal: “There’s an intriguing area of behavioral science known as mind-set research, and one of its tenets is that the relationship between stress and humans’ response to it is partially mediated by how people expect stress to affect them. … If you tell students over and over and over that certain variants of free speech – variants which are ugly, but which are aired every moment of every day on talk radio – are traumatizing them, it really could do harm. And there’s no reason to go down this road, because there’s no evidence that the mere presence of a conservative speaker on campus is harming students in some deep psychological or physiological way.”