“As you reached your row, you were told to turn off your phone or put it on silent and insert it to a glove-like pouch. You keep your phone but you cannot turn it back on without unlocking the pouch, which uses a simple mechanism not unlike the security tags you find in clothing stores and that have to be removed by cashiers. At the end of the show, ushers show up and quickly unlock the devices.” – Chicago Tribune
Category: issues
Why We Need To Rethink The Nonprofit Model
The nonprofit sector started out as a vehicle for voluntary civic engagement. Nonprofit organizations are organized to advance the public, rather than private, good. But as the sector grew and professionalized, the focus quickly shifted from the people, or civil society, to the organizations themselves as the key constituents of the sector. So, when we talk about infrastructure for the sector, is the infrastructure there to support civic engagement, or nonprofit and philanthropic organizations? This tension has been there from the beginning. – NonProfit Quarterly
Extremists Are Only Doing What The Algorithms Want (Which Is Ruining The Internet)
So says Andrew Marantz, the author of a new book on the topic. “We casually make the analogy between the internet and the public square, or the internet and a town hall, but it’s not really like that. It’s not an open space where everything is flat and democratic and everybody can speak their mind and look each other in the eye and get an equal voice and an equal time. The social internet is run by personalized algorithms, and the algorithms are run on emotional engagement.” – The New York Times
As Developers Buy The Setting Of James Joyce’s Greatest Short Story, Dublin Mourns
The place that Dubliners call the House of the Dead (really, the House of “The Dead,” of course) has been sold. “Last week city authorities announced a plan to turn the House of the Dead into a 54-room hostel, prompting an outcry that property deals were trashing culture and zombifying Ireland’s capital to make way for foreign tourists, students and tech workers.” – The Observer (UK)
Why Are Hollywood Assistants ‘In Open Revolt’?
Assistants are mad as hell, and they have the law behind them now, too. “Subjected to grueling hours, low pay, few benefits or protections and the vagaries of monomaniacal bosses, assistants have largely toiled in silence because it was considered a golden ticket to advancement — but no longer.” – Los Angeles Times
An LA Art Colony Has Been Home To Artists For 30 Years. This Month The Rents Doubled Or Tripled…
The Santa Fe Art Colony was established in 1986 with public funds through the Community Redevelopment Agency, allowing for the adaptive reuse of factory buildings into artist studios. A 30-year agreement set rent restrictions on 85% of the 57 units. That agreement expired in 2016, but because the previous owners didn’t notify tenants of a rent increase, the city imposed a stay until 2017. After Fifteen Group purchased the property, it raised the rent on the small number of market-rate units. It notified the other residents that rent restrictions would be lifted this month. – Los Angeles Times
When Indigenous Land Is Acknowledged Before A Performance, For Whom Is It Really Being Done?
It’s happening more and more, as part of the curtain speech or separately: a speaker formally acknowledges that, for example, “we are on Lenape land” (in the case of New York City). Lauren Wingenroth considers reasons for and ways of doing this without it becoming an empty or token gesture. – Dance Magazine
New York City’s Beloved Cultural Commissioner, Tom Finkelpearl, Is Out Of His Job
In news received with consternation by many city arts organizations, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that Finkelpearl would be stepping down by what the ex-commissioner called “mutual agreement.” Finkelpearl is credited with the new plan to tie funding from the city to institutions’ diversity efforts and with the scheme that has given free access to cultural institutions to holders of IDNYC cards. – The New York Times
Leading London Arts Center Turns Down A Million Pounds From The Sacklers
In September, the trustees of The Roundhouse declined to accept a £1 million grant from the Sackler Trust, controlled by the family which owns the company that makes OxyContin. Said a Roundhouse spokesperson, “We are enormously grateful for the trust’s support over the years, but … to [accept the gift] risks distracting from our work with young people, and that’s our priority.” – The Art Newspaper
Culture Will Be Key To Rebuilding Iraq, Say Experts
Officials ranging from the country’s minister of culture to UNESCO executives say that restoring museums, ancient churches and mosques will not only provide employment and (eventually) revenue from tourism, they will help build “social cohesion through shared national heritage and history.” – The Art Newspaper