Category: issues

“Vulture brings you … our first, and hopefully last, ad hoc awards for the culture that came out of our year in quarantine. … Some of it was absurd, some ingenious, some unintentionally amusing, some frankly reprehensible (and therefore unforgettable). And all of it kept us just on this side of sane, as we dragged our withered bodies through the longest nine months on record.” – Vulture

Joseph Horowitz: “More than handwringing, this litany invites historical analysis. Why is no one in Congress or the White House talking about protecting crucial cultural interests, echoing discussions abroad? For three centuries, Americans regarded Europeans as cultural parents; we would emulate, learn, and grow. Where does that relationship stand today? Are we still growing up? Reverting to infancy? Opting out?” – The American Scholar

“A partnership between the San Francisco mayor’s office, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and the San Francisco Parks Alliance, the program launched last month. It employs 30 performing artists to encourage mask wearing and other best practices and 30 visual artists to paint murals about public health on boarded-up storefronts.” – San Francisco Chronicle

Through “negative screening,” institutions can exclude companies for potential investment that are not aligned with an institution’s values or show deficiencies in their environmental, social, and governance practices. Instead, the report suggests, they could opt to invest in businesses like ethical fashion or sustainable food, or even real estate projects that are affordable and target the creative economy, like artist studios. – Hyperallergic

That’s not an idle question, what with the Rijksmuseum running a project called “In Search of Lost Scents” that offers the odors of places from Amsterdam’s 17th-century stock exchange to the Battle of Waterloo to the Dutch locker room after a 1988 soccer championship, plus an endeavor called Odeuropa that aims to archive aromas from throughout European history. Here’s a look at just what some of those odors would be and how specialists reconstitute them. – The New York Times

“The Adelaide Festival has launched its 2021 program after a nightmare year that has seen more than 200 international artists scratched from its form sheet – and the program announcement itself pushed back after South Australia went into immediate lockdown a day before it was due. … But a number of international acts will now be livestreaming their performances into Her Majesty’s Theatre from their home bases in Europe and the US.” – The Guardian

The experience of some high-profile tech companies calls into question whether a diverse board leads to a more diverse workforce. Straight white men are a minority on the boards at Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google parent Alphabet. None of the four would have to make changes to comply with Nasdaq’s rule. But none has shown big progress in diversifying its workforce. – Wired

“Much of the modern internet exists thanks to a short section of a 1996 US law dedicated to moderating online porn.” That’s Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996: it protects websites with user-generated content — and that’s everything from Twitter and YouTube to Amazon and Wikipedia — from legal liability for that content. (It’s the creator that gets prosecuted or sued.) But Section 230 has been under attack from several sides, and the lawmakers that back them, for years — and the latest of those assaults is tied up with, yes, Donald Trump’s attempts to undo the outcome of the 2020 election. – Quartz

“[Actor Harry Lennix] intends to build both a two-theater complex to house (among others) the Congo Square Theatre Company and a new, nationally focused museum dedicated to Black contributions to the performing arts. Everything from dance to film to music to theater.” – Yahoo! (Chicago Tribune)