The obvious case of a language being brought back to full life is Hebrew, which was used in Jewish religious ceremonies and texts but hadn’t been a full-fledged spoken language for about two millennia when a conscious decision was made to revive it for use in what would become Israel. Yet there was a couple of key conditions present for Hebrew’s success that weren’t there in the case of, for instance, Irish. – JSTOR Daily
Tag: 12.22.20
How Consolidation Is Killing Good Art
“The lack of options marketed to consumers has created a missing middle: the zone between mass market and niche market where experimentation is supposed to proliferate and engender variety. Worse, the consolidation of the country’s vast creative sector into fewer, more powerful production and publishing companies has come at the direct expense of the quality of their product.” – The New Republic
How Rich Corporate Publishers Are Gouging Public Schools
Over the past decade, Silicon Valley’s tech behemoths have discreetly and methodically tightened their grip on American schools, and the pandemic has given them license to squeeze even tighter. – The New Republic
By The Pronouns, Who Designs And Directs In Major Regional Theatres?
Well … yes, it’s mostly he/him types. But also, 2020 was a real career killer. “Most designers, just like most artists in the field, have no work right now. They are hanging on by their fingertips. They have been forgotten or ignored by most of the theatres that called themselves ‘artistic homes’ for the artists. Many theatre designers I know are considering leaving the theatre—not just until it comes back, but forever—or have already left for good.” – HowlRound
Capturing The Music Of The Northern Lights
Scientist Karin Lehmkuhl Bodony, who lives in rural Alaska, realized some years ago that, if she could get at least four miles away from human-created electrical sources, she could record the sounds that the aurora borealis makes on a very low frequency receiver. Now she’s worked with composer Matthew Burtner to, in a way, transcribe the aurora’s music: “Rather than a composer writing the notes on the page and the musician playing the horn, the northern lights were playing the horn and writing the notes on the page. So I took myself out and let the lights paint that.” – The Guardian
Why Has Spotify Been Moving So Heavily Into Podcasts?
To corner the audio ad market, of course. But execs insist that the company is not going to be evil: “Having watched how companies like Facebook and Google built up the digital ad ecosystem, Spotify’s Jay Richman, who heads the company’s ads business and platform, says the streamer is determined not to focus on scale over quality.” – Axios
Village Voice To Be Revived By New Owner
“Brian Calle, the chief executive of Street Media, the owner of LA Weekly, said on Tuesday that he had acquired the publication from its publisher, Peter D. Barbey. … [Calle] added that he planned to restart The Voice‘s website in January and would publish a ‘comeback’ print edition early next year, with quarterly print issues to follow.” – The New York Times
Auction Houses Surprised How Well Their Business Went Online
“Despite the technological challenges, Europe’s leading auction houses say they have weathered the crisis well as customers adapted quickly, in some cases making online purchases in the millions for art they had only viewed virtually.” – The Art Newspaper
Trump Threatens To Veto COVID Funding If Funding For Cultural Institutions Isn’t Removed
He “reeled off items he deemed to be egregious, including foreign aid and wildlife research. Prominently featured on his list was “$40 million for the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which is not even open for business; $1 billion for the Smithsonian, and an additional $154 million for the National Gallery of Art—likewise, these facilities are not open.” – Artnet
Legislation For A New Federal Writers Project?
David Kipen started lobbying for a new Writers’ Project in opinion columns and letters to lawmakers. One US congressman—Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat—wrote back to Kipen expressing interest in the idea, and now hopes to introduce a bill in the next Congress. The timing and exact details of the bill have yet to be finalized, but Lieu’s office says that a new project could be anchored within the Department of Labor or a cultural agency, and run as a grant program administered through existing community institutions, including news outlets. – Columbia Journalism Review