Peter Dobrin: “It’s hard to overstate the significance of this recent $50 million infusion to the endowment plus an additional $5 million toward operations from an anonymous couple. In real financial terms as well as symbolic ones, it promises to be a turning point for the long-troubled organization.” – Philadelphia Inquirer
Tag: 07.13.19
Egypt Reopens 4,600-Year-Old ‘Bent’ Pyramid To Public After 54 Years
“The 101m-high structure, in the Dahshur royal necropolis, just south of Cairo, is one of two built for Sneferu, the pharaoh who founded the Fourth Dynasty. Tourists will be allowed inside the ancient structure after archaeologists found ‘hidden tombs’ containing mummies, masks and tools.” – The Independent (UK)
Star Dancer, Felled By Autoimmune Disease, Gets Back To The Stage
Once a soloist at New York City Ballet with an auspicious future, Kathryn Morgan was forced to leave the company in 2012, felled by an autoimmune disease that saw her hair fall out, her weight rise and her balance disappear. – CNN
Years After Falling Ill With A Mysterious Disease, This Ballerina Says She’s Ready To Return To The Stage
Kathryn Morgan had to leave City Ballet in the fall of 2012 after an autoimmune disease screwed up everything from her hair to her balance, starting a couple of years earlier. “What Morgan initially believed would be a few months of recovery became a nine-year ordeal: of doctors who dismissed her, of surrendering a dream, of personal turmoil and a life repeatedly upended. And, now, as she prepares to return to ballet on her own terms, a rebirth.” – CNN
An Author Explains The Most Overrated Novel
In short, Sarah Moss says, “I think it’s called the Great American Novel.” Zing! – The Guardian (UK)
The Complexities Of Making A Musical About Race, Told From The Point Of View Of A Young White Woman
When a team decided to adapt Sue Monk Kidd’s 2002 book The Secret Life of Bees into a 2019 musical, and the only African American person on the production team was playwright Lynn Nottage, well, they knew they had some discussions ahead of them. Nottage says, “What makes this very different from those other stories [like The Help or Green Book], is that this white girl enters into a black space, and she has to negotiate a space that’s alien to her, rather than the black body entering the white space.” – NPR
Why Are Audiobooks Booming So Much Right Now?
And are they OK for the brain? Some studies show that people retain information from a printed page much more than from an audiobook. “it might be that the particular cadences and timbre of an actor’s voice in audiobooks provide musical information that helps longer-term recall, just as the visual and tactile information of where a passage lies in a printed book can.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Uber Driver Whose Opera Singing Videos Went Viral
Actually, he’s an opera singer by training and design and only an Uber driver – in Durban, South Africa – by economic necessity. Still, though, the viral videos taken by a passenger were a welcome surprise. “The exposure has rocketed Mngoma to semi-stardom. He has since been interviewed by radio and TV stations across the country and auditioned for the Cape Town Opera. He has even been invited to participate in iPop, an international talent contest in L.A. this December — a step toward his dream of international stardom.” – NPR
Opera Is Tasked With Saving This Small Town In ‘Empty Spain’
Between Madrid and Barcelona, there’s now little but empty space where towns used to be – except for the 700-person town of Medinaceli, where “in August, [the town] becomes a stage for high art, due to one man’s eccentric vision of bringing elite opera to the slumbering central town in Soria, the least populated of Spain’s 50 provinces.” – BBC
Why YouTube’s Feedback Loop Is So Toxic
It COULD get fixed, but it probably won’t. Why? Engagement. “As the AI improves, it will be able to more precisely predict who is interested in this content; thus, it’s also less likely to recommend such content to those who aren’t. At that stage, problems with the algorithm become exponentially harder to notice, as content is unlikely to be flagged or reported.” – Wired