“Research about REM/dreaming began in the mid-1950s and accelerated sharply with advances in neuroimaging. We now know that, independently of sleep – that is, of non-REM sleep – REM/dreaming plays an essential role in learning and memory, mood and immunity, as well as in creativity and artistic expression. Just as important, REM/dreaming stretches, expands and reshapes our very consciousness. From Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, REM/dreaming effectively morphs our fundamental sense of self.” – Aeon
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The Power Of Talking To Yourself Out Loud
“Like many of us, I talk to myself out loud, though I’m a little unusual in that I often do it in public spaces. Whenever I want to figure out an issue, develop an idea or memorise a text, I turn to this odd work routine. While it’s definitely earned me a reputation in my neighbourhood, it’s also improved my thinking and speaking skills immensely.” – Psyche
A New Movement To Champion The Arts?
“Ironically, the arts has a story problem in this country. We are here to become a legislative priority, and part of doing that is reframing the paradigm that we are labor,” he said. “Whether you’re an usher, a milliner, a museum docent, an administrator or a publicist, you’re an arts and cultural worker. ” – The New York Times
Artists We Lost In 2020
In 2020, a year of crisis upon crisis, some of those losses were especially painful, brought on by a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone. – The New York Times
Broadway Fans Are Creating Entire Musicals On TikTok
Just three months after she posted it, TikTokers had conjured up an entire “Ratatouille” musical universe. A composer spiced up her song with Disney-fied orchestrations. Songwriters whipped up tunes for Remy, his brother, his dad, his fellow chef, the food critic Anton Ego. A director explained how he’d stage the show. Dancers demonstrated how they’d dance it. A puppeteer showed how he’d puppet it. A designer created a breathtaking Playbill, in a video that’s been seen nearly 5 million times. Stagehands, ushers, photos of the Broadway marquee — all of it materialized. – Washington Post
How Christmas Became Such A Child-Oriented Holiday
Yuletide wasn’t always an occasion for Santa Claus and toys and families opening presents in front of the tree. Historically, particularly in England, Christmas was such a time of rowdy revelry (not to say drunken debauchery) that, in the 17th century, Scottish Presbyterians and Massachusetts Puritans went so far as to ban it entirely. (December 25 wasn’t a public holiday in Scotland until 1958.) Christmas as Americans think of it today is a more-or-less deliberate creation of the 19th-century powers-that-be. – Zócalo Public Square
Museums Are Still Acquiring Art During The Pandemic
Museum collecting looks a lot different these days. Not only has there been a greater focus on women and artists of colour, but acquisitions have unfolded more quietly than usual for fear of seeming insensitive to the financial suffering of staff and visitors alike. Far less common are the press releases announcing major purchases. Museums are in the unusual position of downplaying instead of promoting their acquisitions. – The Art Newspaper
Capturing The Music Of The Northern Lights
Scientist Karin Lehmkuhl Bodony, who lives in rural Alaska, realized some years ago that, if she could get at least four miles away from human-created electrical sources, she could record the sounds that the aurora borealis makes on a very low frequency receiver. Now she’s worked with composer Matthew Burtner to, in a way, transcribe the aurora’s music: “Rather than a composer writing the notes on the page and the musician playing the horn, the northern lights were playing the horn and writing the notes on the page. So I took myself out and let the lights paint that.” – The Guardian
The Ten Biggest Literary Stories Of 2020
It was pretty bad, overall. Some parts were okay. There were some good books. There were some bad actions. There were some much-needed reckonings. – LitHub
The Weird New Things Choreographers Had To Learn As They Created Dances Long-Distance
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, who’s made more than a dozen short dance films since the COVID lockdowns began, and Corey Baker, creator of the (in)famous Swan Lake Bath Ballet, tell a reporter about how, as Baker put it, “we knew we had to make it all up” and how they handled the snafus they didn’t yet know to expect. – Dance Magazine