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How Too Much Information Can Make Things Less Clear

IDEAS, Uncategorized Posted: June 17, 2021 1:31 am

Sometimes, attention can mislead us about the world. This is not to say that attention always distorts our knowledge of the world, but it does suggest that it might not be the unproblematic guide to knowledge that we originally thought. – Psyche

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IDEAS, Uncategorized Published: 06.15.21

Read the story in Psyche Published: 06.15.21

The Moral Imperative For Releasing The Patents On Vaccines

Uncategorized Posted: May 5, 2021 1:28 pm

“The pharmaceutical industry and the governments of several vaccine-producing countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Commission, have been resisting the IP waiver, while 150 public leaders and experts have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden in support of it. There is no longer any question about who is right. Given the surge of COVID-19 in several regions, most recently in India, the continuing emergence of new and deadly variants of the virus, and the inability of the current vaccine producers to keep pace with global needs, an IP waiver or its equivalent has become a practical urgent need as well as a moral imperative.” – Project Syndicate

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Uncategorized Published: 04.29.21

Read the story in Project Syndicate Published: 04.29.21

Needed Corrections In Explaining How The Brain Works

Uncategorized Posted: March 4, 2021 11:31 am

“As a neuroscientist, I see scientific myths about the brain repeated regularly in the media and corners of academic research. Three of them, in particular, stand out for correction. After all, each of us has a brain, so it’s critical to understand how that three-pound blob between your ears works.” – Nautilus

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Uncategorized Published: 03.03.21

Read the story in Nautilus Published: 03.03.21

Women Are Getting Stronger, Deeper Roles In A New Generation Of Bollywood Movies

AUDIENCE, MEDIA, Uncategorized Posted: February 22, 2021 4:00 am

Some of the change is due to a worldwide audience. Netflix and other streaming services “have a certain sensibility that they want to see in the kind of narratives that they are promoting on their platform. That has been a great boon for women filmmakers, women writers, women behind the camera and in front of the camera.” – The New York Times

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AUDIENCE, MEDIA, Uncategorized Published: 02.19.21

Read the story in The New York Times Published: 02.19.21

Leslie Odom Jr Almost Passed On Playing Sam Cooke

Uncategorized Posted: January 25, 2021 8:00 am

Those who have seen One Night in Miami will appreciate that the actor, singer, and star of Hamilton made a different choice, especially with his movie-closing performance of “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Cooke’s big civil rights song. The actor says, “There’s a part of me that feels like these projects I take on — and I could be kidding myself — could have a larger significance. Maybe they’ll add up to say something about my life and, in turn, Black life. Maybe when you add it all up can say something like, ‘Black life matters.’”- Los Angeles Times

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Uncategorized Published: 01.25.21

Read the story in Los Angeles Times Published: 01.25.21

Legislation For A New Federal Writers Project?

Uncategorized Posted: December 23, 2020 2:02 pm

David Kipen started lobbying for a new Writers’ Project in opinion columns and letters to lawmakers. One US congressman—Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat—wrote back to Kipen expressing interest in the idea, and now hopes to introduce a bill in the next Congress. The timing and exact details of the bill have yet to be finalized, but Lieu’s office says that a new project could be anchored within the Department of Labor or a cultural agency, and run as a grant program administered through existing community institutions, including news outlets. – Columbia Journalism Review

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Uncategorized Published: 12.22.20

Read the story in Columbia Journalism Review Published: 12.22.20

Could Museums (And Other Cultural Institutions) Better Use Their Investments For The Greater Good?

Uncategorized Posted: December 4, 2020 2:29 pm

Through “negative screening,” institutions can exclude companies for potential investment that are not aligned with an institution’s values or show deficiencies in their environmental, social, and governance practices. Instead, the report suggests, they could opt to invest in businesses like ethical fashion or sustainable food, or even real estate projects that are affordable and target the creative economy, like artist studios. – Hyperallergic

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Uncategorized Published: 12.03.20

Read the story in Hyperallergic Published: 12.03.20

The NEH Will Pay To Erect New Statues Of Columbus And Others

Uncategorized Posted: November 1, 2020 5:30 am

In an open slap at protesters who took down statues they considered to be celebratory of racism, colonialism, and sexism, Trump’s National Endowment for the Humanities is giving money to rebuild or repair three toppled statues. – The New York Times

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Uncategorized Published: 10.30.20

Read the story in The New York Times Published: 10.30.20

How Roman Holiday Took Audrey Hepburn And Catapulted Her Into The Stratosphere

Uncategorized Posted: August 24, 2020 6:45 am

Hepburn wasn’t well-known in the U.S. before William Wyler cast her against Gregory Peck in the bittersweet rom-com. But “her star rose so quickly after this movie. That is crazy. This movie comes out in the summer of ’53 and by September of that year, she’s on the cover of Time as this new discovery, she wins the Academy Award for this early in ’54. And three days after she picked up that Oscar, she picked up a Tony for a different role on Broadway. … So, you know, in a very short period of time, she really is launched into this kind of princesse stratosphere of stardom.” – Slate

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Uncategorized Published: 08.24.20

Read the story in Slate Published: 08.24.20

Mary McNamara: The Luxury Of Being Outraged

Uncategorized Posted: June 1, 2020 11:44 am

Protesting. Even during a global pandemic. Think about that for a second. How furious do people have to be to gather in the streets at a time when a highly infectious disease is killing thousands daily, especially black and brown people, who are dying at disproportionately high rate? – Los Angeles Times

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Uncategorized Published: 06.01.20

Read the story in Los Angeles Times Published: 06.01.20

Inside A Lockdown Bubble, Can Literature Help?

Uncategorized Posted: May 17, 2020 9:00 am

The eternal debate about what books are good for – “I feel that literature is rarely of immediate practical help. I think the kind of knowledge reading fiction imparts is stealthy and slow-burning, and that novels rarely work as instruction manuals that we can pull off the shelf in case of emergency” – turned out to be incorrect. What’s good is that books about quarantines and lockdowns help manage the psychological aspects of the times. – Irish Times

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Uncategorized Published: 05.16.20

Read the story in Irish Times Published: 05.16.20

Met Museum Lays Off 81, Says It’s Already Lost $150 Million

Uncategorized Posted: April 23, 2020 1:32 pm

Salary and benefits constitute more than 65% of the Met’s annual budget. In addition to the layoffs, the museum announced today, April 22, that its top executives will be taking salary reductions. That includes 20% pay cuts for director Max Hollein and president and CEO Daniel H. Weiss and 10% for 11 other museum officers. – Hyperallergic

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Uncategorized Published: 04.23.20

Read the story in Hyperallergic Published: 04.23.20

Viro-Skeptics: Why Are Some Having Trouble Taking The Crisis Seriously?

Uncategorized Posted: April 20, 2020 2:44 pm

It’s not entirely irrational behavior. And it can be explained. It’s the product of several longterm trends that encourage hyper-skepticism. – Good Company

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Uncategorized Published: 04.20.20

Read the story in Fast Company Published: 04.20.20

The Show Is Going On

Uncategorized Posted: April 12, 2020 5:30 am

No matter how bad the technology may be, actors gonna act; singers gonna sing; and a theatre-loving public may get some benefit from the many performance livestreams. – BBC

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Uncategorized Published: 04.11.20

Read the story in BBC Published: 04.11.20

How Schoenberg Evolved Away From Tonality

Uncategorized Posted: January 31, 2020 1:01 pm

Schoenberg and beauty are words that rarely occupy the same sentence. Arguably the most influential composer of all time, his fame derived from his abolition of tonality—the harmonic system of the previous centuries, in which melodies and harmonies relate to the tonic (the home) of a given key. While detractors still demonise him for having destroyed music, the largely self-taught Schoenberg saw his work as a logical evolution of tradition. Frustrated that tonality seemed exhausted and had reached its limits (in other words, what did classical music have to say after Wagner?), Schoenberg felt that he must transcend its constraints. – Standpoint

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Uncategorized Published: 01.30.20

Read the story in Standpoint Published: 01.30.20

Saving Face: China’s New Surveillance System Upends A Moral Order

Uncategorized Posted: January 17, 2020 12:28 pm

China’s rapidly expanding network of surveillance cameras increasingly relies upon AI-aided facial-recognition technology to achieve much of its primary mission: to keep track of, record, control and modify the behaviour of its citizens. Within this system, ‘face’ really has nothing to do with traditional conceptions of moral or social status – at least, their ideal forms; it is not about how one views oneself or how the members of one’s community regard one. Instead, it is to be an object under the gaze of a systematic government surveillance system established by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and guided by increasingly sophisticated AI. – Aeon

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Uncategorized Published: 01.17.20

Read the story in Aeon Published: 01.17.20

Pharoah Sanders On Finding Your Own Sound

Uncategorized Posted: January 13, 2020 5:33 am

A lot of time I don’t know what I want to play. So I just start playing, and try to make it right, and make it join to some other kind of feeling in the music. Like, I play one note, maybe that one note might mean love. And then another note might mean something else. Keep on going like that until it develops into—maybe something beautiful. – The New Yorker

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Uncategorized Published: 01.12.20

Read the story in The New Yorker Published: 01.12.20

The Victor Klemperer Case – How Political Language Shapes What Happens

Uncategorized Posted: January 13, 2020 5:01 am

In Hitler’s Germany linguistic habits shaped attitude and culture, and eventually acquiescence to a system of segregation and dehumanization. The language of the Third Reich was corrosive, and contagious. Forced to repeat “the Jew Klemperer” enough times, one thinks of that person not as Victor Klemperer but as “The Jew.” The Jews were in effect deprived of their name, and in turn of their humanity. – The American Interest

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Uncategorized Published: 01.12.20

Read the story in The American Interest Published: 01.12.20

Helping Artists Thrive

Uncategorized Posted: January 7, 2020 9:43 pm

“In the Arts, we’ve created new avenues for securing long-term, affordable spaces for arts and cultural organizations. We’re also collaborating with grantees to find alternative organizational models for supporting and sustaining artists’ creative practices.” (2nd video) – Kenneth Rainin Foundation (Oakland, CA)

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Uncategorized Published: 12.04.19, sj1

Read the story in Kenneth Rainin Foundation (Oakland, CA) Published: 12.04.19, sj1

Tribal Elder Hears Grandfather’s Voice in Archived Songs

Uncategorized Posted: January 7, 2020 9:31 pm

“Researchers at Indiana University have been digitally preserving recordings of Native American songs made on fragile wax cylinders more than 100 years ago.” – YES! Magazine

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Uncategorized Published: 12.23.19, sjm

Read the story in YES! Magazine Published: 12.23.19, sjm

At the nexus of ethnomusicology and music education: pathways to diversity, equity, and inclusion

Uncategorized Posted: January 7, 2020 8:57 pm

“Teachers in a wide variety of venues, including university professors, who seek a multicultural-intercultural-global array of songs, instrumental pieces, dance, and listening selections are locating them online, where they are finding the results of fieldwork by ethnomusicologists that apply to their curricular practices and programs. … Attention to the two coinciding yet distinctive fields, along with a glance at the emerging studies in Community Music and Applied Ethnomusicology, provide insights leading to policies on pathways to diversity, equity, and inclusion in and through music.” – Arts Education Policy Review

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Uncategorized Published: 01.04.20, sjm

Read the story in Arts Education Policy Review Published: 01.04.20, sjm

How this Kentucky musician and educator gives back

Uncategorized Posted: January 7, 2020 8:33 pm

“Jecorey Arthur uses his extensive knowledge of music to educate kids, entertain people of all ages, and give back to his community. He performs and records his own music under the name 1200, teaches at Simmons College of Kentucky, and brings music education to Louisville public schools. As an artist, his music is genre-defying and experimental, combining classical and hip-hop. … On top of his many musical endeavors, Arthur is engaged in on-the-ground social justice work in West Louisville, including the Parkland neighborhood where he grew up.” – PBS NewsHour (KET)

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Uncategorized Published: 01.08.20, sjm

Read the story in PBS NewsHour (KET) Published: 01.08.20, sjm

Four Dancers of Color Share Their Experiences at the Intersection of Dance and Identity

Uncategorized Posted: January 7, 2020 8:31 pm

“Reconciling one’s dance and racial identities can be a complicated, emotional process, especially since the dance world is so slow to embrace change. But as the overdue push for diversity in dance becomes stronger, many dancers are embracing their racial and ethnic backgrounds in ways that were previously frowned upon — from wearing tights that match their skin color to rocking natural hair onstage. Dance Spirit spoke with four dancers of color about their experiences.” – Dance Spirit

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Uncategorized Published: 01.06.20, sj

Read the story in Dance Spirit Published: 01.06.20, sj

Most Paintings on Princeton’s Campus Are of Dead White Men. But One Artist Is Adding Equally Grand Portraits of Its Cooks and Cleaners

Uncategorized Posted: January 7, 2020 8:29 pm

“These are the works of Mario Moore, a 32-year-old Detroit-born artist who recently painted a series of portraits honoring the African American service workers on the Princeton campus, where he has just completed a year-long fellowship. The project was inspired by Moore’s father, a former security guard at the Detroit Institute of Arts who had a ‘hard-working, industrial belt-type of mentality,’ according to Moore.” – artnet

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Uncategorized Published: 01.08.20, sj

Read the story in artnet Published: 01.08.20, sj

#ENOUGH: A New-Play Initiative Enlists Youth to Confront Gun Violence

Uncategorized Posted: January 7, 2020 8:22 pm

“Theatre artist Michael Cotey was in rehearsal at the Goodman Theatre when the news of the devastating Parkland shooting broke. ‘I started thinking about ways theatre artists could respond to this,’ he recalls. Partly inspired by Tectonic Theater Project’s The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later reading series, in which he was involved, Cotey created the #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence initiative as a way to galvanize a nationwide dialogue around gun violence. Throughout 2020, #ENOUGH plans to provide a platform for middle and high school students across the country to create 10-minute plays exploring the impact gun violence has on their lives and communities.” – American Theatre

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Uncategorized Published: 01.08.20, sj

Read the story in American Theatre Published: 01.08.20, sj

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