“[President Jefferson] knew that future mapmakers, naturalists, and other scientists would rely on the valuable first-hand knowledge that Lewis and Clark collected. He encouraged them to make their observations ‘with great pains and accuracy … for others as well as yourself.’ That meant that every time they encountered an unfamiliar plant, animal, landscape feature, or cultural item – the Louisiana Territory and the western portion of the continent teemed with them – they had to invent a new term.”
Vladimir Nabokov Had Cooler Dreams Than You Do
“In 1964, living in opulence at Switzerland’s Montreux Palace Hotel, Nabokov began to keep a dream diary of a sort, dutifully inscribing his memories on index cards at his bedside in rubber-banded stacks.” And they contained some doozies.
To Decipher The Unreadable, All Eyes Turn To The Isle Of Man
For hundreds of years, history was handwritten. The problem is not only that our ancestors’ handwriting was sometimes very bad, but also that they used abbreviations, old conventions, and styles of lettering that have fallen out of use. Understanding them takes both patience and skill. “I see the job as a cross between a crossword puzzle and a jigsaw puzzle,” says Linda Watson.
Are Museums Pandering To The Selfie Generation And Losing Their Meaning?
“Not only are [visitors] taking pictures of art, they are taking pictures of themselves within these spaces. So in the pre-digital photography era, the message was ‘This is what I am seeing. I have seen.’ And today the message is: ‘I was there. I came, I saw, and I selfied.’ ”
WWJW? (What Would Jesus Wear? Not What You Probably Thought)
Indeed, what did Jesus wear? He almost certainly didn’t dress as he is traditionally depicted, just as he almost certainly didn’t have long, light brown hair and blue eyes. He probably didn’t have a full beard, either. Scholar Joan Taylor gathers together the few clues we have from the New Testament, Roman commentary, and convention of the time and place to make an educated guess about Jesus’s sartorial style. (In a word, shabby.)
The Now-Forgotten Book That Terrified The Antebellum South
“As its title suggested, the book was an ‘Appeal’ to ‘The Colored Citizens of the World, but in Particular and Very Expressly to those of the United States of America.’ Yet appeal was a tame word for the prophecy smoldering between its covers, clearly directed towards the nation’s enslaved laborers. The police may have flipped to page 28: ‘It is no more harm for you to kill a man, who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty.’ Page 35 argued that owners denied slaves education because it would reveal their right to ‘cut his devilish throat from ear to ear, and well do slave-holders know it.'”
A Brief History Of The Panel Show (Which Is Alive And Well In Britain, Even If Americans Have Given It Up)
It was a perfect genre for the early days of television, and was quite successful, as you can see on YouTube in old episodes of What’s My Line and To Tell the Truth. “[It] was a purely American invention, yet somehow it’s become deeply associated with modern British TV. Here’s why.”
Artists Envision The Future Of Jobs
Last month, a team from the digital agency AKQA and the Misk Global Forum attended several panels at the World Economic Forum and used each discussion as inspiration to illustrate a job that could exist by 2030. Many of the jobs seem more like science fiction than reality, but a few are actually pretty grounded in where technology seems to be headed.
Why Isn’t The Orchestra World More Diverse? Because It’s Built That Way
Systemic discrimination occurs when biases like racism and sexism cut across unique organizations. It’s closely tied to, but distinct from, actions we associate with overt bias—a conductor claiming that men are better on the podium or an orchestra defending its discrimination against women and musicians of Asian heritage. Rather, systemic discrimination relies on the abdication of individual responsibility for its consequences, thus rendering it passive and plausibly deniable. In the world of orchestral music, “the system” sustains discriminatory practices even when individuals within it claim to be progressive.
Podcasts, Coming To A Screen Near You
HBO, which has had massive success with its scripted programs, has been searching for nonscripted hits for a few years. Last week, the network released the first of a series of four specials with the hosts of the podcast “2 Dope Queens,” and now they’ve made a deal with the hosts of “Pod Save America” for content that will run through the midterm elections.
A Broadway Bigwig Gets A Web Series, And Takes On The President
Jordan Roth, whose Jujamcyn Theatres owns five of Broadway’s 41 theatres, and “who has had a longtime interest in performing and has dabbled in video production previously, conceived of this new series months ago, with the idea of developing ‘a kids’ show for adults,’ modeled on ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ and ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse.'” And there’s a lot of swearing – not to mention jokes aimed squarely at the president.
Arkansas’s Crystal Bridges May Be The Most “Woke” Museum In America
Philip Kennicott: This may be the most “woke” room in any mainstream American museum today, with works by Native American, African American and female artists far outnumbering the only work by a white man, a virtuosic sepia-toned “landscape” of broken and toppled ancient statuary. But it’s not the crude metrics or race and gender that matter, rather, it’s the utterly new narrative of contemporary art that emerges from the museum’s conscious and thorough effort at inclusivity. And this applies not just to the identity of the artists on view, but to the kind of work they make, as well.
The Berklee School Of Music Is Dead. What Comes Next Might Be Revolutionary
Berklee wants to build new spaces both physical and virtual and break down barriers between all the arts disciplines emphasizing the transferability of skills. And perhaps best of all for the students, it focuses attention upon affordability which in turn will support recruitment and retention. The plan is visionary and under the extraordinary leadership of President Roger Brown more than doable. As Brown puts it, “With music, movement and digital technology converging, artists possess powerful new means of creative expression in the theater, on the concert stage, and through emerging platforms.”
YouTube Disables Ads On One Of Its Biggest Stars
YouTube had previously pulled Logan Paul’s channels from the Google Preferred premium-advertising program following the suicide video. In the wake of the controversy, Paul also lost a series deal with French digital studio Blackpills and was cut from YouTube Red’s original series “Foursome.” He is represented by CAA and affiliated with Studio71.
Are The Border Wall Prototypes Art?
I ask Michael Diers if it’s appropriate to hail the aesthetics of the border prototypes, given their xenophobic political purpose. “It’s always about aesthetics,” he says. “We live in a media world, and you have to present yourself. In 1920s Germany, everybody wore black suits with white shirts because it looked good in black and white photography. Here, the politicians wear red ties and blue suits because they look like the flag — it’s the allegory of the Stars and Stripes. Aesthetics is politics.”
What Happens When You Take People’s Smartphones Away At Concerts
The effects are immediate: At first, people seem agitated and unsure of what to do with their hands. But then they adjust. “In line at the concession stand, you’ll overhear people talking about the artist and the show, and then about the fact that they’re having this conversation because they don’t have phones. You’ll see people fully engaged with each other talking, and the feel of it is radically different.”
High School Cancels Musical And Is Bombarded With Threats
Via Facebook, the students received pictures of themselves with swastikas plastered on their faces. One parent had what was thought to be her home address (it wasn’t) posted online with a comment seeming to encourage harassment: “Do your thing social media.” Another parent received a profane email, assailing her for embracing “anti-white racism,” adding: “I feel sorry for your brainwashed child.”
‘But I Love The Canon!’: A Talk With The Mother Of ‘New Musicology’
Susan McClary: “So when I published Feminine Endings, I thought, Well, I’m just bringing the kinds of questions everyone in the social sciences and humanities were already asking. I just wanted to be able to make sense of music at various moments in history, and to read it in the ways that literary scholars read plays or novels – to talk about how they are making cultural sense. I hadn’t realized how isolated musicology was.”
Inon Barnatan Named Music Director Of San Diego’s SummerFest
“Acclaimed pianist Inon Barnatan has been chosen by the La Jolla Music Society to succeed Cho-Liang ‘Jimmy’ Lin as the music director of SummerFest, the nonprofit arts organization’s annual August chamber-music festival. … Barnatan, 38, will take over in 2019 from Lin, 58, who will conclude his 18th year heading SummerFest on Aug. 31.”
I Watched ‘Newsweek’ Self-Destruct From The Inside
Matthew Cooper, a senior writer who spent decades at Newsweek and its rival, Time – and who quit Newsweek in despair this week – gives his inside of the title’s decline and fall, “from expensing yachts to chasing The Onion.
Michel Foucault’s Final Book Published, Against His Final Wishes
“He said he wanted no posthumous publications. But on Thursday, more than over 30 years after his death, Michel Foucault had a new book, Confessions of the Flesh, published in France by Gallimard. Foucault’s unfinished investigation into the topic of sexuality in early Christian thought and practice is the fourth book in his History of Sexuality project.”
London’s Serpentine Pavilion For 2018 Will Be A ‘Mexican Shadow Clock Built For The British Breeze’
“The phrase Mexican-British fusion might call to mind an ungodly mishmash of fish and chip burritos or steak and kidney tacos. But, in architectural terms, it looks like it could have intriguing results. We’ll find out this summer – in the form of the Serpentine pavilion, designed this year by young Mexican architect Frida Escobedo as a cross-cultural combination of Mexican domestic architecture with a distinctly British twist.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.08.18
Viklický And The JCLO In Brno
In their tour of the Czech Republic, last weekend Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra teamed with the eminent Czech pianist and composer Emil Viklický. Viklický crafted an arrangement … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-02-08
The World’s Darkest Building Has Just Gone Up At The Winter Olympics
A pavilion designed for Hyundai by architect Asif Khan has been covered with a coating of Vantablack – the world’s blackest black, which absorbs more than 99% of the light that hits its surface. (Didn’t Anish Kapoor buy exclusive rights to that?) Oliver Wainwright describes the building as “an angular black hole, … a portal to a parallel universe.” The interior, naturally, is bright white.
The Getty, The World’s Richest Museum, Is Hunting For Wealthy Donors (The Rest Of L.A.’s Art World Is Not Happy)
“The then co-chairs of the board of … sent potential donors a letter in December, just in time for tax-deductible gifts in 2017 that said: ‘We often say that the Getty can do anything, but it cannot do everything.’ The letter invited supporters to ‘join with us in special initiatives that can raise the Getty to new heights’, especially education programmes and exhibitions.” The Getty’s endowment as of last year was $6.9 billion.