Tag: 03.12.20

Egypt’s Favorite Street Music Banned By Government

“Mahraganat music, fast and loud, soared in popularity following Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring revolts, which toppled the country’s longtime autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak, who died last month. The music provided an outlet for poor Egyptians frustrated by political turmoil, growing repression, a declining economy, high unemployment and other woes. … [But] since February, clubs, hotels, music venues and even Nile cruise boats have been ordered not to book mahraganat musicians, unless they want to face stiff fines and be taken to court.” – The Washington Post

Stephen Sondheim At 90: The Master Of Mixed Emotions

Ben Brantley: “When it comes to emotions, Sondheim — more than any other composer from the Broadway songbook — is the one I trust to tell me the truth. That’s because in the world of Sondheim, feelings never come singly but in battalions. Even his simplest, most assertive melodies usually sound as if they’re being pulled in contradictory directions.” – The New York Times

Stephen Sondheim At 90: Not Just A Great Songwriter, A Great Playwright

Jesse Green: “Having long taken for granted that he is the greatest composer-lyricist the United States has produced, we can perhaps now notice that he is also an artist to place in the line of America’s foundational 20th-century playwrights. In years to come, critics will have trouble understanding how our time put him in one basket but put Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, August Wilson and Edward Albee in another.” – The New York Times

Chanel Miller, Edwidge Danticat, Patrick Radden Keefe Win National Book Critics Circle Awards

Miller, the survivor of the rape by Stanford athlete Brock Turner, received the autobiography award for her memoir Know My Name; Danticat’s Everything Inside: Stories won the fiction prize; Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland took nonfiction honors; Morgan Parker’s Magical Negro won the poetry award. – Los Angeles Times

How Dallas Opera Ran Afoul Of Social Media Algorithms

As much as it sounds like something out of Isaac Asimov, we have to say it: we can’t surrender our discernment to the computers. What we need now — what will make our social media feeds and our national discourse saner — is not better artificial intelligence but more actual intelligence. We don’t need better algorithms; we need deeper wisdom. We’re not getting that from Facebook. – Dallas Morning News

Met Museum Hikes Pay For Top Execs

The highest paid executive in the most recent financial year, according to tax filings, was chief investment officer Lauren Meserve, whose total compensation package was worth $1.6 million, up 8.3 percent from 2017–18, when she made $1.47 million. The next best-paid exec is CEO Daniel Weiss, whose total pay package was worth $1.25 million in 2018–19, a 25 percent increase over the previous year, when he made $1 million. – Artnet