“The store’s closing follows a similar move by Vancouver’s venerable Sikora’s, a dedicated classical music store in West Hastings that shuttered in February 28, 2019 after four decades in business. While Grigorian’s has not provided details behind the closure, it’s not hard to see the writing on the wall in this era of music streaming and a diminished profile for classical music on the culture scene.” – Ludwig Van Toronto
Tag: 05.02.19
Science Lets Us Do Magic. But Believing We’re “Playing God” Is Holding Us Back
The more an individual thought the issue involved playing God, the more morally unacceptable they judged it to be. – Nautilus
A Philosopher Argues Why We Should Play God
“We’re playing god every day. As the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes said, the natural state for human beings is a life that’s nasty, brutish, and short. We play god when we vaccinate. We play god when we give women pain relief during labor. The challenge is to decide how to change the course of nature, not whether to change it. Our whole life is entirely unnatural.” – Nautilus
What Makes A Novel Transgressive, What Makes It Unpublishable, And How That Changes Over Time
Bret Easton Ellis grants that almost no house would publish American Psycho today (he wouldn’t even want to write it today), and it’s hard to imagine any American publisher releasing Lolita in 2019 if it weren’t already famous. “[Yet] if Lolita is a scandalous novel about child abuse, why are A Little Life and My Absolute Darling, which are much more graphic, so much less so? Times have changed since 1955, of course, but the idea of the novel’s purpose has changed too.” – The Guardian
The TV Subscription Bundle Is Under Attack – And It’s The Industry’s Primary Business Model
Every day that the TV networks keep their bundles intact is another day for the internet to undermine the bundles. Some of that comes through direct competition: Netflix remains quite disinterested in producing live TV and sports programming, but short of that they have a little bit of everything — just like your old cable TV subscription. – Vox
Instagram Removes #FineArtModel Hashtag From The Platform
Content posted using the hashtag, “often used by live figure drawing models to attract work via the social media platform, was hidden because “some content,” according to a message, did not “meet Instagram’s community guidelines.” – artnet
If You’re Applying For A Grant, Don’t Do These Things
“To improve their chances of winning a grant, foundation officers and professional grant writers say charities should avoid making the following mistakes in grant proposals and applications.” – Inside Philanthropy
Controversial Sponsor Withdraws From Turner Prize After One Day Of Criticism
Stagecoach South East, a bus company that offers service to the host city of this year’s prize exhibition (the seaside town of Margate), has for a chairman Sir Brian Souter, who spent heavily in campaigns to maintain bans on same-sex marriage and discussion on homosexuality in classrooms. The backlash against Stagecoach’s sponsorship was swift and effective. – The Guardian
Portrait Of Leonardo Da Vinci, Only The Second Known, Identified In Queen Elizabeth’s Collection
“A sketch of a bearded man lost in thought, preserved for 500 years among the papers of Leonardo da Vinci, has now been identified as a rare portrait of the Renaissance master himself.” – The Art Newspaper
How Good Are The Acoustics In Philadelphia’s Newest Concert Hall? Complicated Question
“No definitive answer is possible,” writes Peter Dobrin about the 270-seat venue at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, “because it is in a way not a single hall, but many.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer