“What qualifies as artistry is ultimately a subjective assessment. Winning medals – or not winning them – has little bearing on whether a dancer will progress to a successful career. Even so, the Genée competition maintains high standards. The coveted gold medal is sometimes withheld if the judges decide no one has achieved the required level.” – Toronto Star
Tag: 08.26.19
Philanthropic Giving Was Down Last Year (But Not On PayPal)
Experts have speculated last year’s tumultuous stock market, combined with tax code changes that doubled the standard deduction without a need to itemize charitable contributions, has led to less middle-class giving. That may be true for the average gift size for PayPal givers, but the company’s data shows that those in the lowest income brackets still tend to give a higher proportional share of their net income, something that’s fairly common across the giving world. – Fast Company
How Film Festivals Are Dealing With #MeToo
This year more than ever, we are seeing a transatlantic schism between film festivals over how to handle these acclaimed directors, each of whom have very different backstories. – Deadline
Is Surfing Being Ruined By Ubiquitous Video?
“One of the true gifts of surfing is the privacy of it. That’s going away, and it’s at a great, great, great hazard to the experience. We’re so infatuated with getting looked at now—look at me, look at me, and look at me!—that we’re losing the magic of surfing being a low-profile activity.” – The New Yorker
Books Are Forever. Is Reading?
“It was never the books as objects that people worried would vanish with the advent of e-readers and other personal devices: it was reading itself. The same change was prophesied by Thomas Edison, at the dawn of the movie age. People fretted again with the advent of the radio, the TV, and home computers. Yet undistracted reading didn’t perish the moment any of these technologies were switched on.” – The New Yorker
The Changing Face of Arts Engagement: My remarks at the Stratford Festival Forum
Earlier this month I had the privilege and pleasure to speak at the Meighan Forum at the Stratford Festival. Since the Q&A was not captured in the transcript, I thought I’d reflect on a couple of the questions here. – Diane Ragsdale
Harry Burleigh and Cultural Appropriation – Take Two
Zora Neale Hurston Hurston heard concert spirituals “squeezing all of the rich black juice out of the songs,” a “flight from blackness,” a “musical octoroon.” She listed Harry Burleigh among the offenders. But without Burleigh there would be no “Deep River” as sung by Marian Anderson. – Joe Horowitz
Lisa Rich: There Was A Delay
In the 1980s the singer Lisa Rich seemed on her way to a long and successful career, and she recorded Highwire in 1987. For reasons not disclosed by Tritone Records, the album was not released for 32 years — until now. – Doug Ramsey
Amazon Is Opening A Physical Bookstore Right Across The Street From Ann Patchett’s Nashville Indie
But, an opinion writer says, Nashville needs to remember what’s important. “Independent bookstores don’t operate according to the normal rules of capitalism. They aren’t trying to beat each other. They aren’t even trying to beat Amazon. They’re creating communities — cozy places to beat the heat or come in from the cold.” (Amazon? Is not cozy.) – The New York Times