Adam Sternbergh: “When you first heard about podcasts, do you remember how excited you weren’t? Do you recall the first person who said, ‘Did you know you can now download audio files of people talking?’ … They’ve spent a decade in a state of perpetual arrival, [but] they’re here. What’s more, these humble chunks of audio have emerged as the most significant and exciting cultural innovation of the new century.” – New York Magazine
Tag: 03.18.19
It Just Sucks: What It’s Like To Be Freelancer Worker In The Arts
Freelancers in the arts hit the instability jackpot. They enter a market with no money and ask for the scraps, billing for what the organisation can afford, not what the job is worth. Unlike employees, they’re never paid for the in-between times; they sometimes lose money in preparing for and delivering jobs, which employees don’t. And it’s probably the only industry in which taking on a PhD just to live off an associated scholarship – which one respondent to the ArtsPay survey reported doing – is an understandable career choice. – Arts Professional
How The Vietnam War Changed American Art
The shock of Vietnam made conventional art forms such as painting and sculpture look inadequate. Its reverberations inspired a rapid expansion of the possible forms art could take and a search for new audiences. Public performances, video, installations, land art and agitprop all flourished during the war. – Washington Post
Chicago Symphony Musicians Strike Continues Into Second Week
There are no further meetings between the sides scheduled at this time. CSO President Jeff Alexander said that after no progress was made after lengthy sessions on Friday and Saturday, both sides agreed it would be “good to take a pause” in negotiations. On a small note of optimism, Alexander said that “there is room for movement” on the salary element of the contract. The CSOA is currently offering a 5% increase over a three-year contract while the union seeks a 12% increase over the same period. – Chicago Classical Review
A Fan Of The Prado Museum With 100s Of Visits Already, Resolves To See It Anew And Discovers What He’s Been Missing
Even as I stood amid the morning rush at the Prado’s entrance, scanning a floor plan with the nearly 120 galleries I would navigate, I never expected I’d be in the museum for seven hours. In fact, I envisioned myself home by 2 p.m., enjoying some leftover albondigas(meatballs) and a siesta before making the school run to fetch my kids at 4 p.m. – The New York Times
Facebook Wanted To Scan Local US Newspapers For Local News. The Problem: 1800 Local Newspapers Have Died
The company deems a community unsuitable for Today In if it cannot find a single day in a month with at least five news items available to share. But the social media giant said it has found that 40% of Americans live in places where there are not enough local news stories to support it. – The Guardian
Here’s What Happens When You Play Mozart, Hard Rock, Techno, And Hip-Hop To Ripening Swiss Cheese
Last fall, Swiss researchers exposed nine wheels of Emmentaler in an aging cellar to various types of music: classical (Mozart’s Magic Flute), rock (Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”), techno (Vril’s “UV”), hip-hop (A Tribe Called Quest’s “Jazz (We’ve Got)”) ambient music (Yello’s “Monolith”), and, as controls, steady high, medium and low tones and silence. All were on nonstop loops, with mini-transducers transmitting the sounds directly into the cheese wheels. After six months, the wheels were taken out and taste-tested — and here are the results. (So why was the classical music used Mozart instead of Mahler, Monteverdi, Stravinsky, or Steve Reich?) – Smithsonian Magazine
Seattle’s Scarecrow Video: The World’s Best Video Store? (Admittedly Now A Small Category)
It survived bankruptcy, the threat of closing and the death of its charismatic founder. In 2014, it became a nonprofit. And now, after 30 years, with more than 132,000 titles — many on VHS, laser disc and DVD — it is as much a cultural warehouse as anything else. – New York Times
Was Shakespeare Really Queer? The Sonnets Are Pretty Clear
Sandra Newman looks at the 126 Shakespeare sonnets (out of a total of 154) addressed to the Fair Youth, at other sonnets and love poetry of the time and place, and at what Shakespeare’s contemporaries said and wrote about male-male sex and love (especially in the theatre). Then she applies Occam’s Razor. – Aeon
Dick Dale, ‘King Of The Surf Guitar’, Dead At 81
“In the space of a few short years, the Boston-born, Southern California transplant (born Richard Anthony Monsour) had merged the laid-back, sun-blasted lifestyle of the surf scene with a blistering rhythm of rockabilly and early rock-and-roll. As the mad scientist behind what was dubbed ‘surf rock,’ Dale was, in the words of a 1963 Life magazine profile, a ‘thumping teenage idol who is part evangelist, part Pied Piper and all success.'” – The Washington Post