“Digital juggernaut Pornhub has offered itself as a streaming partner to Germany’s Oldenburg Film Festival, a 26-year-old indie movie event known for edgy programming and quirky celebrity tributes. The offer … comes nearly a week after the festival announced it will forge ahead as planned for a September run [with] a combination of physical and virtual screenings. The move is yet another recent sign of Pornhub’s seriousness about participating in mainstream cinema.” – Variety
Tag: 05.13.20
Gabriel Bacquier, France’s Greatest Baritone Of The Postwar Era, Dead At 95
In addition to his triumphs in Europe, he was one of the few French singers of his time to have a big career in the U.S., notably in Chicago and Philadelphia and at the Met, where he sang for 18 seasons. Also unusually for a francophone singer of the day, he was admired internationally for his command of Italian opera as well as the French repertoire. – OperaWire
This 222-Year-Old Poem Really Captures The Spirit Of 2020 (And Not Just Because Of COVID)
“Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ first published in 1798, is … the dream-poem of right now.” It’s currently appearing on YouTube in short daily installments read by a nebula of quirky stars (Jeremy Irons, Marianne Faithfull, Willem Dafoe, Hilary Mantel, Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, etc.), and James Parker explains why the project reflects our zeitgeist so well. – The Atlantic
Why The Pandemic Has Seen Shakespeare Popping Up Everywhere Online
Alexis Soloski: “The glut of new content speaks to the reach and ubiquity of his work, the open-source accessibility of his plays, the confidence that if you do share a snippet of pentameter, you will be heard, recognized and retweeted. The plays — and the humanist values they intimate — offer a [common] cultural touchstone when the rest of our lives feel unsteady.” – The New York Times
A New Kind Of Corona-Concert: Ten Minutes, One Musician, One Listener, One Empty Airport
Flutist Stephanie Winker has been organizing these very intimate events at the airport and in other locations around Stuttgart — inspired, she says, by The Artist Is Present, the project in which Marina Abramović sat in a chair and, one at a time, stared into people’s eyes. – The New York Times
Time For Spotify Et Al To Pay Musicians More
Spotify, which controls 36 per cent of the world streaming market, reported third-quarter operating proceeds of $60 million (all figures U.S.) in October 2019. YouTube, meanwhile, revealed its ad-revenue intake publicly for the first time in February: last year it was $15.15 billion, a 36 per cent increase from 2018’s $11.16-billion tally. And here’s what you’ve been offering the creators in return for all that content that has enabled you to attract and retain tens of millions of loyal subscribers — paltry per-stream or pre-view royalty rates of, by platform: YouTube, $0.00069; Pandora, $0.00133; Vevo, $0.00222-$0.0025; Amazon, $0.00402; Spotify, $0.00437; Deezer, $0.0064; Google Play, $0.00676; Apple Music, $0.00783; Napster, $0.019 and Tidal, $0.01284 (all figures according to the online music distributor Ditto). – Toronto Star
Education Moved Online With Startling Speed – But It Will Be Bumpy From Here…
In non-pandemic times, even the most modest change at a college or university can take months, if not years. Think of the committees, reports, reviews, and approvals needed to introduce even a timid curriculum revision. That millions of faculty moved hundreds of thousands of courses online in a matter of weeks reveals the surprising resilience of academia in crisis. But with colleges and universities still shuttered and no clear indication of when they might reopen, don’t expect smooth sailing from now on. – Spectrum IEEE
Could The Pandemic Be The Catalyst To Change How Museums Work?
A sense of precariousness is not unfamiliar to museum workers who were already living through austerity, Brexit, and the deregulation of the workforce. But long before this current health crisis, the skepticism about whether commercially-driven blockbuster exhibitions could ever plug the widening gaps in public funding for museums was already part of a much bigger existential question: Is the dominant model for 21st-century museums sustainable? – Artnet
UK Leaders Discuss The Future Of Theatre After Virus
“Some tough decisions are going to have to be made. And it’s not going to be small changes, it’s going to be big changes for a time. And that feels incredibly painful if I’m honest.” – BBC
How The Chicago Symphony Is Thinking About Returning To The Stage
“If things are not yet 100 percent (in Chicago in September), it’s possible we could have a group of the orchestra divided into two parts: a group of 45, 50 people (and) another group of 45, 50 people. One part plays in the first part of the program, the other in the second part, so everybody can play, can come back to make music.” – Chicago Tribune