From net neutrality to ebooks to copyright questions to The Resistance to perennial issues of funding, here are the leading developments of the year for libraries.
Tag: 12.15.17
‘Art For Not-Rich People’ – Making Theater At The Real Grass-Roots Level
A reporter visits a conference organized by the Twin Cities company Ten Thousand Things, which performs in prisons, shelters, immigrant centers, rehab facilities, and the like – all without fancy sets and costumes, a proscenium stage, or (crucially) an admission charge.
Purcell’s ‘Dido And Aeneas’ – The More We Learn About It, The Less We Know
Musicologist Ellen T. Harris wrote an authoritative book on this opera three decades ago – a book she has had to completely revise and reissue based on all the info scholars have uncovered over those years. Yet “we know even less [now] than we did then, or at least less than we had imagined. We can no longer say with certainty in what year the opera was written, where it had its premiere, who performed it or even what the original score contained.” In this essay for the Times, Harris explains what it turns out that we’d wrongly assumed and what we’ve learned that upended those assumptions.
Artsy’s 20 Most Influential Artists Of 2017
The list includes four bona fide celebrities (Yayoi Kusama, Ai Weiwei, David Hockney, and Damien Hirst), several stars within the art world (e.g., Carolee Schneeman, Cindy Sherman, Pope.L), and one veteran artist who’s finally getting the recognition she deserves, 2017 Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid.
Instapoets Are Having A Moment. Should We Take This Seriously?
The last time poetry saw this kind of action was with the cable knit sweater-clad poet and singer-songwriter Rod McKuen, who sold millions of books and millions more albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s with titles like “Listen to the Warm” — far outstripping the reach of not only an artist like Leonard Cohen, but most popular novelists of the time. (There were dusty McKuen books and records in my house growing up.) The backlash then makes today’s seem gentle
A New Technique To Preserve Fragile Medieval Alabaster Sculpture
The Liebieghaus in Frankfurt is working with the Louvre and the Prado on new laser technology to analyze the stone and an agar-agar-based gel to clean it.
Dallas Opera CEO Unexpectedly Resigns For New Job In Calgary
Keith Cerny is ending what’s widely seen as a successful seven years in Dallas – stabilized finances and balanced budgets, notable premieres, the signing of a new music director and principal guest conductor, a new and well-regarded training program for young female conductors – to take the reins at Calgary Opera, a company that’s roughly half the size of the one he’s leaving.
Germany’s Art Museums See Worrisome Drop In Attendance
“The total number of visits to [German] museums and exhibition halls was 112 million, about 2.5 million fewer than in 2015. The number of visits to art museums declined by 7.4%, while natural science museums reported an increase of 4.1%.”
Our Brains Are Wired To Take Shortcuts. In Today’s World That’s Increasingly A Liability
“Our mental shortcuts work fine at the level of individuals and small-scale societies, but in an increasingly interconnected and globalised world, they are a danger to society. Effortless thinking is at the root of many of the modern world’s most serious problems: xenophobia, terrorism, hatred, inequality, defence of injustice, religious fanaticism and our shocking susceptibility to fake news and conspiracy theories. All are facilitated by people disengaging their critical faculties and going with their gut – and being encouraged to do so by populist politicians channelling anger at the liberal establishment.”
It Turns Out That Climate Change Had A Big Role In The Rise And Fall Of Rome
“The effort to put climate change in the foreground of Roman history is motivated both by troves of new data and a heightened sensitivity to the importance of the physical environment. The empire-builders benefitted from impeccable timing: the characteristic warm, wet and stable weather was conducive to economic productivity in an agrarian society. The benefits of economic growth supported the political and social bargains by which the Roman empire controlled its vast territory. The favourable climate, in ways subtle and profound, was baked into the empire’s innermost structure. The end of this lucky climate regime did not immediately, or in any simple deterministic sense, spell the doom of Rome.”