“One of very few women in the record business at the time, Ms. Bienstock earned a reputation not only for toughness – her son, Robert, acknowledged in a eulogy for his mother that many of the businessmen she dealt with called her ‘Dragon Lady’ – but also for efficiency and for the kind of shrewd rule-skirting that the record business of the day required.”
Tag: 03.31.15
Why Can’t Everyone Locate And Return Nazi-Looted Paintings As Quickly As The Dutch Royal Family Did?
“When the King and Queen read that Dutch museums had volunteered to be investigated, they felt it would be useful for someone to research their works.” So the commissioned a review of the royal collections at the end of 2013; it’s complete, and they’re returning one Old Master canvas promptly.
A Black, Female Hamlet? Absolutely!
Wilma Theater artistic director Blanka Zizka: “Hamlet is a remarkable play, and one that I have always wanted to direct, but I had to wait for an extraordinary actor, and it was not until I met Zainab that I knew it was time for our production.”
An Illustrated Guide To “The End Of Art”
“[Arthur] Danto, who was both a critic and a professor of philosophy, is celebrated for his accessible and affable prose. Despite this, Danto’s best-known essay, ‘The End of Art,’ continues to be cited more than it is understood. What was Danto’s argument? Is art really over? And if so, what are the implications for art history and art-making?” Tiernan Morgan & Lauren Purje explain – with pictures!
Now They’ve Done It: Steinway Makes A Piano That Doesn’t Need A Pianist
“When you buy a Spirio—not you, necessarily; they run upwards of $110,000—it comes with an iPad loaded with a Spotify-like app. This app communicates with the piano via Bluetooth, prompting the piano to play any one of the 1,700 songs recorded specifically for the instrument. New songs will sync every week. By itself, an iPad-controlled piano is nifty, if not exactly a technological marvel. What makes Spirio different is that it can play songs with an unprecedented level of accuracy and nuance.”
You Want Privacy? It’s Going To Cost You (Seriously)
“We increasingly live in a world in which our own personal data subsidizes our purchases and the services we use. Programs like Facebook’s now-defunct Beacon, which monitored users’ browsing activities all over the Web, have increasingly become the norm, with shadowy companies like Acxiom amassing profiles on hundreds of millions of consumers.”
Battle Raging For The Soul Of Country Music
“Today the debate about the soul of country music has extended far outside Nashville, and it’s now safe to say that the genre has a serious image problem. It’s not just stalwart country fans that see country being overrun with chauvinist posers in skinny jeans – it’s everyone.”
USArtists Is Back In The Business Of Supporting Artists
USA, as it’s known (is there a branding doctor in the house?), was launched in the prerecession happy days by four major funders—the Ford, Rockefeller, Prudential, and Rasmussen Foundations. Together they donated $22 million in seed money for a new organization with a double mission: to “invest in America’s finest artists and illuminate the value of artists to society.”
Report Details Digital Failures Of Library Of Congress
“Taken together, the reports reveal library mismanagement costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, and outdated and inefficient systems in the U.S. Copyright Office. And despite the library’s reputation as an early Internet pioneer, various reports have found that it hasn’t kept up with the rapidly evolving digital times.”
How “Sleep No More” Went From Avant-Garde Theatre Experiment To Thriving Commercial Enterprise
When the British company brought its immersive adaptation of Macbeth to New York in 2011 and parked it at an old hotel on the far West Side, the project was still experimental and risky, good reviews or no. Four years later, Sleep No More has a merch table, souvenir programs, and an associated bar and restaurant. It is, writes Alexis Soloski, “a case study of the relationship – sometimes cozy, sometimes uneasy – between art and commerce.”