Tag: 07.10.19

The Great Composer Schumann — Clara Schumann — Is Still Being Overlooked, Even In Her Bicentennial Year

“What we have here, in other words, is the painful and all-too-familiar story of two creative dynamos in the same house, only one of whom was allowed to give full rein to their artistic impulses. Yet the music that Clara did produce is astonishingly fine.” Joshua Kosman fills us in on what most of us have been missing. – San Francisco Chronicle

How Could New York City Opera’s ‘Stonewall’ Have Screwed Up So Badly On Trans Issues?

Brin Solomon: “In casting a trans man to play a trans woman, the Stonewall creative team have botched things so spectacularly … It’s difficult to convey how bizarre this casting choice is. It’s like writing a character who’s a lesbian, casting a gay man to play her, and then boasting of writing a homosexual character for a homosexual actor.” – I Care If You Listen

Ecolinguistics: The Ways That Language And Climate Connect

“It turns out that language has a much more powerful role to play in ecological survival than just describing [today’s] disturbing environmental outlook.” For example, the languages of indigenous peoples are often full of information about the natural world that urbanized folk overlook. “And if we can effectively use language to help to save the natural world, well, language may also end up saving itself.” – JSTOR Daily

The Stampede To Chase Streaming Video Subscribers Is Creating An Avalanche Of Content

As AT&T/Time Warner/HBO, NBC Universal, Disney, and Apple rush to compete with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime (who, of course, all compete with each other), streaming television has become a giant maw that must be constantly fed with new shows. Yes, this gives showrunners plenty of room for creativity with material and format, but it’s also leading from the “Golden Age” of TV to the era of “good enough.” Jonah Weiner offers a longread about the prospects, good and bad. – The New York Times Magazine

Is “Personalized Learning” Just Another Big Tech Con?

Advocates of personalized learning say that the approach has been unfairly conflated with teacherless, online-only education. They invoke Dewey and Freire and Montessori as guiding lights and take pains to emphasize, in almost liturgical unison, that personalized learning is not about tech—and that “tech is just a tool.” But skeptics warn that underneath the language of “student-centered” pedagogy is a tech-intensive model that undermines communal values, accelerates privatization, and turns public schools into big-data siphons. – The New Yorker

Is This Self-Taught South African Uber Drive The Next Star Tenor?

Menzi Mngoma is a self-taught tenor who likes to belt out arias for his passengers. One of his customers, Kim Davey, liked his singing so much that she posted a video on Facebook. That, in turn, attracted media attention and the 27-year-old Mngoma’s career was launched. He is said to be auditioning for Cape Town Opera. A stadium tour will no doubt follow. – The Guardian

Sale Of Sotheby’s Will Change The Art Market In Some Fundamental Ways

Once the deal clears, Sotheby’s can provide cover for consignors who previously would have gone to Christie’s for hush-hush services—protected details surrounding guarantees and the complete discretion of a single-person owner, among others. And this “more flexible private environment” also means that decisions about hefty guarantees and costly talent acquisitions no longer have to be justified to shareholders, some of whom might be perturbed by big-ticket spending. – Artsy

Giant Ancient City Is Being Uncovered, Changing What We Know About Greek Civilization

Dating back 4,600 years, the site may also have been part of the inspiration for a key aspect of Greek religion – the idea that mountain tops were the dwelling places of the gods. The complex – on a mountain peak-shaped islet off the coast of the Aegean island of Keros (part of the Cyclades archipelago) – is totally changing archaeologists’ understanding of prehistoric Greece. – The Independent (UK)