ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

IDEAS

The French Horn Teacher Who Works In Music To Support His Hobby

Andrew Westberg says his wife is "happy it's not tractors. … Pencils are so much easier to store.” - MPR

Just Who, In An Artistic Relationship, Is Whose Muse?

"The truest artist-muse relationship may be that in which the former works with the latter because no other individual talent will bring the art to the exalted level that lives in the artist’s imagination." - Washington Post

Gaming For Culture

For instance, the lead character encounters a blueberry pie on a picnic table. The game reads, “This is the longest word in Anashinaabemowin: Miini-baalashkiminasljigani-blitoosigani-badakiingwesijigani-blitooyiingwesijigani-bakwezhigan: Blueberry pie." - CBC

Octavia Butler’s Birthday Is A Reminder That We Need Black Women’s Visions For The Future

“Octavia E. Butler envisioned with eerie precision: a world of increasing drug addiction and illiteracy, global shifts towards authoritarian populism, vast gaps between the rich and everyone else, and destruction brought on by global warming. Her prophecies, however, ... provided a blueprint for how to fight back.” - Fast Company

The Growing Importance Of Being Idle

Exhortations toward work as the path to truth, meaning, virtue, and salvation suggest the contemporary valuation of work is—although not universal—more than the legacy of a single cultural tradition. - The Walrus

In Praise Of Ambivalence

Ambivalence can be quicksand, slowly swallowing us whole. But some ambivalence, as lyric poetry taught me, is essential to a life. - Poetry Foundation

Why Evolving Our Morality Is Really Hard

When we’re told that something we see as ordinary – like eating meat – is actually wrong, our first reaction is to get irritated and dismissive. If it’s not about bacon, it’s about plastic straws. Or a phrase we’ve been using for years but is now considered offensive. Or having to share your pronouns. - Aeon

Rise Of The Efficiency Gurus

We flaunt long workweeks and disdain anyone working less than full-time. But we’re likewise seduced by get-rich-quick schemes and “labor-saving” gimmicks. The rich may work long hours, but much of their income is passive, the fruit of asset appreciation and other people’s labor. - Commonweal

The Radical Meaning Of Paradigm Shifts

Paradigms and normal science? Sure. But the truly radical idea here is that outsiders—in this case, historians—can offer better insight into the inner workings of a profession than the practitioners themselves. - The New Republic

When, Actually, Is A Crisis An Opportunity?

Overall, we can think of a crisis as an emergency situation requiring a bold decision to go in one direction rather than another. So what wisdom does history offer for helping us to understand what it takes for governments to act boldly – and effectively – in response to a crisis? - Aeon

Duh: Those With A Love Of Thinking Do Better

People who relish mental challenges are not necessarily more intelligent – although some research has found that, on average, they score higher on fluid intelligence, the ability to solve problems and think logically. - Psyche

What, Actually, Is Intelligence? Just A Label?

Instead of a measurable, quantifiable thing that exists independently out in the world, we suggest that intelligence is a label, pinned by humanity onto a bag stuffed with a jumble of independent traits that helped our ancestors thrive. - Aeon

Can We Inherit Memories From One Generation To The Next?

Scientists working in the emerging field of epigenetics have discovered the mechanism that allows lived experience and acquired knowledge to be passed on within one generation, by altering the shape of a particular gene. - The Guardian

AI Is Already Killing Web Publishers

The rise of web-connected LLMs is rapidly undermining traditional web publishing. It’s clear industry professionals are deeply concerned. LLMs reduce human web traffic, evade ads, and scrape content without proper attribution, all of which erode publisher revenue. - Shelly Palmer

The Short, Amazing Life Of The CD-ROM

Remember Encarta? That was a Microsoft product. But in 1994, even "the oldest-school tech giant of them all, IBM, found the strangest of bedfellows in Playboymagazine, whose famous interviews it collected on disc.” But the internet was coming. - Fast Company

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