You may be surprised to learn that those big, prominent nonprofits soliciting your holiday donations, and maybe a place in your will, are very profitable for the administrators (and in some cases, the artists) in charge. How did that happen? Mostly because executive salaries are set by boards of directors, and these boards, especially at prestigious institutions, are comprised of the richest people those same administrators can round up, folks to whom a half-million dollars sounds like, if not pocket change, nothing more than a reasonable salary. – Chicago Reader
Tag: 12.21.18
Doctors Perform Brain Surgery While Patient Plays The Guitar
The technique, known as “awake craniotomy,” allows doctors to operate on delicate areas of the brain — like the right frontal lobe, the site of Mr. Manzini’s tumor — without causing damage. Presumably, had he hit a wrong note, it would have been an immediate signal for the surgeons to probe elsewhere. – The New York Times
Facing Campus Protests, ‘Hamilton’ In Puerto Rico Moves Into The City Of San Juan
Lin-Manuel Miranda is set to return to the stage in this version, which abruptly moved to a theatre in the capital city after producer Jeffrey Seller determined that there wouldn’t be enough police protection on campus. Seller “said he welcomed activism — noting that Hamilton, a show about the American Revolution, is essentially a celebration of protest.” – The New York Times
As Advertisers Flee, Will Tucker Carlson’s Show Survive?
The Fox News host has lost advertisers en masse after “recent on-air comments that described mass immigration as making the country ‘poorer and dirtier and more divided.'” – Los Angeles Times
Classical Ballet Is Rooted In One Russian’s Sexist Assumptions, But Is That A Problem?
Marius Petipa’s 19th century choreography for Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and many more classical ballets is focused on how a ballerina becomes a sculpture in male hands. “The woman goes on point; the man does the partnering. The positions may not be reversed. What’s going on here? Is he serving her or controlling her? He subordinates himself to making her all the more spectacular, but which one is in charge? We can say that such behavior glorifies women — or that it falsifies them.” – The New York Times
The Tell-Tale Horror Of Christmas
In Britain, ghost stories – not only in Christmas Carol – are a vital part of the holiday season. – Paul Levy
Three Recent Shows All Depict Drag Queens In Positive Ways – But Also As Inspirational Props
And that’s really not OK. “Because all of these projects are about straight women, the way they depict drag queens feels little more progressive than the convention of the gay best friend, popular in 1990s romantic comedies like My Best Friend’s Wedding.” – The New York Times
A Comics Creator Says The Genre Is (Finally) Opening Up To Everyone
Creator and editor Tameka Stotts won an Eisner Award for her anthology Elements: Fire — A Comic Anthology by Creators of Color, and she’s making plans for a lot more. “We’re the main characters, we’re not the token characters, and we’re taking our adventures on a completely different level where our narration is no longer whitewashed and it’s no longer controlled by a medium that would like to see us palatable for a national audience.” – NPR
Alice Walker Defends Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theorist As ‘Brave’
The writer she praised in an interview that caused protests both against her and against The New York Times for running the interview (or not better editing it) is David Icke, who, among other things, “has posited that a cabal of a child-sacrificing, bloodthirsty lizard people, many of whom are Jewish, are secretly running the world.” – The New York Times
Not To Go All ‘Black Panther,’ But Is The British Museum Ever Going To Return Its Loot?
Nigeria, among others, would really like to know. “In 1897, British troops stole some 4,000 sculptures after invading the Kingdom of Benin (now southwestern Nigeria). Over a century later, surviving bronzes are on display at museums in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and the United States, but not in Nigeria, their country of origin.” – History