Plan For Jane Austen Statue At Winchester Cathedral Dropped After Public Objects

“The cathedral had commissioned the sculptor Martin Jennings to create a statue of Austen for its inner close … [But] residents and local groups submitted ‘a barrage of criticism’ in response to the plans. ‘There is a strong body of opinion that rejects the idea of another Jane Austen statue anywhere, or any statue at all in the cathedral close,’ wrote one resident.” – The Guardian

In The 1930s, The Hammond Organ Took America By Storm, Setting A New Standard

The Federal Trade Commission held an entire hearing in 1937 to evaluate the Hammond’s sonority. The Commission sought to determine whether a series of advertising claims about the Hammond’s timbre were “deceptive, misleading and false.” Though many of the hearing’s participants believed their testimony would go down in history as an important reckoning of what constituted “real” and “good” musical sound, the affair is largely forgotten today. What the hearing does offer is an unusually detailed record of contemporaneous arguments over the quality and value of a new electronic sound. – New Music Box

The Case Against The Obama Presidential Library

In the Obama center case, foes of the $500 million plan have centered their objections around the site location—a perch in an historic park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1871. Almost no one objects to the Obama Presidential Center coming to Chicago’s South Side, but some feel that it hoovers up an existing community asset instead of creating a new one. The question has lingered over the project since its introduction near the end of the president’s tenure in 2015. – CityLab

Social Platforms Want To Cut Down On Spreading Fake Conspiracy Theories. But There’s A Problem…

Part of the problem for platforms like YouTube and Facebook — which has also pledged to clean up misinformation that could lead to real-world harm — is that the definition of “harmful” misinformation is circular. There is no inherent reason that a video questioning the official 9/11 narrative is more dangerous than a video asserting the existence of U.F.O.s or Bigfoot. A conspiracy theory is harmful if it results in harm — at which point it’s often too late for platforms to act. – The New York Times

Composer Dominick Argento, 91

“In addition to his fourteen operas, he composed song cycles, choral pieces and musical monodramas, establishing himself as one of the most adept practitioners of text-setting within his generation of American composers. Though his polystylistic idiom ranges from opulent Romanticism to acerbic dissonance, his melodic lines are unfailingly well suited both to the voice and to the straightforward delivery of the words.” – Opera News

Renaissance polyphony as the eternal frontier of self-discovery

Much of the 16th-century music that New York Polyphony performed last Saturday night has a Rorschach quality: without typical polarities like major and minor keys, the music acquires an abstraction, prompting reactions that can be hugely different for each listener — and on every encounter — dictated by where the performers connect in these webs of notes and what the listener’s psyche zeros in on. – David Patrick Stearns

Being Lost Can Be Terrifying And Disorienting. Or It Can Open Your Mind

Lostness has always been an enigmatic and many-sided state, always riven with unexpected potencies. Across history, all varieties of artists, philosophers, and scientists have celebrated disorientation as an engine of discovery and creativity, both in the sense of straying from a physical path, but also in swerving away from the familiar, turning in to the unknown. – The Atlantic

Lucas Hnath’s Play About Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Campaign Is Suddenly Seeming Relevant Again

“Set in an alternate universe during the 2008 primaries, as she fights for survival against a charismatic upstart … [and] unfolding around a pivotal moment in the contest, it examined how the strictures of her gender and the baggage of her marriage affected her ability to navigate the men’s world of politics. … Hillary and Clinton arrives [on Broadway] in March amid a raucous cultural debate about gender politics and the double standard that women face.” – The New York Times