Category: issues

“On 14 March, which commemorates the constant that begins 3.14, US district court judge Michael H. Simon dismissed a claim of copyright infringement brought by one mathematical musician against another, who had also created music based on the digits of pi.”

California Governor Jerry Brown recently defunded community redevelopment agencies, and that’s going to hurt the arts in L.A. “The list of construction projects funded by CRA/LA over the years includes the Museum of Contemporary Art headquarters ($23 million), the Kodak Theatre ($30 million), the downtown Los Angeles Theatre Center ($27 million for construction and operating subsidies) and the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center in Mid-City ($13.9 million).”

Turns out the sisters in charge of the fashion house handled the whole thing better than a U.N. expert on indigenous art thought they did. Probably.

Will this season’s outrage over the (deeply flawed) MPAA ratings system finally produce an overhaul?

“Whatever different license theater has, it’s pretty plain that it surrenders that license when it presents itself as journalism, discussing not personal matters but real-world events-the way thousands of actual people are treated and the way we get one of the most popular consumer products.”

“Once upon a time, the ancestors of each and every one of us lived in a premodern culture. Those cultural origins have now been completely erased from our collective memory. Do any of us regret the loss of this memory? Would any of us prefer to return to our ancestral condition, rather than to live in the modern world?”

Terry Teachout considers George Balanchine’s ballets (still performed three decades after Mr. B’s death), the new Broadway staging of Death of a Salesman (which reproduces the original set and incidental music) and an enterprising and detailed 2011 re-creation of the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!.

“Since India is not seen as a threat to the United States’ global power, this allows storytelling about Indians’ complex lives to proceed without the obstacles that arise in telling similar Chinese stories. Reportage on China is hampered by access, language barriers, and censorship. Rural communities are often off-limits to outsiders and Chinese people’s opportunities to participate in civil discourse are more limited.”

“Vigilante justice is reduced to a personnel problem. If a crazy bad person picks out people to kill, then that’s evil. If a noble, comforting character actor … is in charge of picking out the people to kill — well that should be all right, then.”

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here: Dante’s medieval classic the Divine Comedy has been condemned as racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic by a group” – Gherush92 – “calling for it to be removed from classrooms.”