Tag: 01.21.19

Toronto Venue First Known As O’Keefe Centre Gets Its Fourth Name

Opened in 1960 as the home of the Canadian Opera Company and National Ballet of Canada as well as a venue for rock, jazz and other concerts, the O’Keefe Centre was renamed the Hummingbird Centre in 1996 under a sponsorship deal. After another such deal in 2006, it was called the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts. Now, thanks to the large credit union of the same name, it will be Meridian Hall — at least through 2034. — Ludwig van Toronto

What Happens When MLK Is A National Icon (But Your Politics Don’t Really Agree)

That Mike Pence and other standard-bearers within this movement can regularly lean on King’s legacy is a consequence of how the civil-rights leader has been canonized. When President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law, in 1983—reversing his own objections to the holiday, and earlier ones to King himself—he signaled that America had accepted King in its pantheon of similarly revered leaders, people such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. But in order to do so, King’s legacy had to be repackaged in a way similar to theirs.  – The Atlantic

Record Numbers Of Readers Buying Poetry In The UK

Statistics from UK book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan show that sales grew by just over 12% last year, for the second year in a row. In total, 1.3m volumes of poetry were sold in 2018, adding up to £12.3m in sales, a rise of £1.3m on 2017. Two-thirds of buyers were younger than 34 and 41% were aged 13 to 22, with teenage girls and young women identified as the biggest consumers last year. – The Guardian

Proposed New London Concert Hall Makes A Bold Statement

The £288 million it will cost will all come from private donations, and the hall’s backers know critics will say now is not the time for such an expensive building. “Now is never the time to do anything new,” said Sir Simon Rattle, the LSO’s music director and public face of the project. “This is not something that we are trying to do with public money, this is something we are attempting to do ourselves and we are trying to make a difference.” – The Guardian

A KGB Museum… In Chelsea

The tour starts with a mock-up of a chief officer’s work space. A mannequin wearing a K.G.B. chief officer’s uniformis at a desk with a flag of Soviet Russia behind him. To the mannequin’s left sits a bronze desk lamp, which, according to the curators, sat in a villa belonging to the former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.  – The New York Times

For MLK Day: Recap of My Visit to the National Museum of African American History & Culture

Visitors who had scored timed entry passes for a Martin Luther King Day pilgrimage to the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in DC were out of luck: Its doors remained locked today, due to the federal government shutdown. However, last February, I tweeted about (but never got around to posting on) the NMAAHC … — Lee Rosenbaum