City Commissions Public Mural, Fusses And Interferes Over Detail After Detail, Then Finally Paints Over The Whole Thing

“Yesterday afternoon, artist Gary Wynans, who goes by Mr. AbiLLity, learned that [Jersey City] workers had painted over his giant painting of a Monopoly game board at the heavily trafficked Newark Avenue Pedestrian Plaza. … The surprise paint job was not the first time City Hall has made its mark on Mr. AbiLLity’s board. The entire process was riddled by authorities’ demands that the artist edit his work, foreseeing possible controversy around the original image.”

James M. Nederlander, Sr., 94, Theater Mogul On Broadway And Nationwide

“Mr. Nederlander transformed what was a regional theatre business based in Detroit into a New York powerhouse when, in the 1960s, he set his sights on New York City and began buying Broadway theatres. The Nederlander Organization now has holdings [in New York] second only to the Shubert Organization … [as well as venues in] Chicago, Tucson, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Diego and London.”

New CEO At Chamber Orchestra Of Philadelphia

“The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia has hired a rock/jazz guitarist and administrator from New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s to be its next executive director. William Rhoads, 49, vice president of marketing and communications for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s since 2006, starts the new post just after Labor Day.”

Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.26.16

The size of the arts sector is not a rationale for public funding of the arts sector
All sectors in the economy, if they are a sector at all, employ people. Not all sectors warrant public subsidy, which is only called for in the case where there are benefits to society beyond the activity as measured in the market. … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2016-07-26

Diane Arbus, The Met and “The Envelope”
Maybe it was the heat, or the humidity. Maybe it was the artist – Diane Arbus, and the fact that diane arbus: in the beginning is focused on her early works, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-07-26

How to write a press release
As a footnote to my posts on classical music publicists, and how they could do better, here’s a post I did in 2005 — wow, 11 years ago! —  about how to make press releases better. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-07-26

Twitter Swarm: My Storify on Reactions to My WSJ Review of SFMOMA’s New Tech
When I published today’s Wall Street Journal piece on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s technological transformation – Golden Gate Gigabytes (this hardcopy headline is much catchier than the online one) – I knew from the heated tweets … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-07-26

Claude Williamson 1926-2016
Claude Williamson, a piano mainstay of jazz in California for seven decades, died on July 16 in Los Angeles. He had been in decline since he fell in his home in 2015 and broke … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-07-26

A Piece of Zen Music Called ‘Pond’
When I heard it for the first time, I didn’t know what to make of it. I thought of it as a demonstration of the trombonist’s virtuosity. Then I read the composers’ general description of the piece … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-07-26

On Community
Let it be known that my initial response to this prompt detailed the intertwining life stories of the colorful personalities who lived within my grandmother’s nursing home. In Prairie Home Companion style, I waxed poetic …read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-07-26

Community: A song
Torres Hodges, a musician and Creative Community Fellow describes what community means to him in this original song.  … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-07-26

It’s about passion
Growing up, I was part of many different communities. Among them were Girl Scouts, youth group, writing club, a small city just south of Akron and … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-07-26

Another word
Before forming the Wormfarm Institute, my partner Jay and I ran a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm. As newly rural, beginning farmers, our shareholders (the community) were all from Chicago, … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-07-26

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Can A Brain Scan Tell What You’re Thinking? (Here’s What We Know So Far)

“To see if they could actually identify such patterns, the team had 80 people solve a series of math problems while lying in an fMRI scanner. Using a mix of otherwise standard methods from computer science and neuroscience, they identified a sequence of brain-activation patterns corresponding to encoding a problem, planning a solution, making the necessary computations, and providing a response.”