Blog

Can Asia Save The Modernist Masterpieces Of Its Many Cities?

The campaigns to save the Hong Kong post office and Modernist buildings in Thailand, the Philippines, and Japan are about more than the structures. “Many of the structures were municipal buildings that served as downtown hubs of civic life. The campaigns, in a sense, are an attempt to preserve the collective memories stored inside.” – The New York Times

The Pandemic Has Decimated The Live Music Business, Along With All Its Unsung Heroes

Yes, musicians and music venues have been horrendously hard-hit. But “not enough has been said about the workers who make live music tick – the people whom fans and gig-goers barely know about. Managers and tour managers, festival staff, sound technicians, promoters, and booking agents and their long-suffering assistants.” How to help them out at this point? – The Guardian (UK)

The Year In Reading Of A Writer Who Died Far Too Young

Anthony Veasna So’s Year in Reading is a heartbreaker. The 28-year-old died suddenly at the beginning of December, but his essay for The Millions was nearly finished. “I did love Girl, Woman,Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Or maybe I loved knowing the characters of this kaleidoscopic novel. Maybe I need to record the lives of as many archetypal Khmer queers I can imagine.” – The Millions

If The U.S. Wants To Keep More College Students Enrolled, It Can Try This One Simple Trick

What will it take? Money. Cash money. Direct cash money, to the students, for their survival, with few barriers – and given out quickly. “Many students … aren’t sure they can afford to return for another college semester. They need financial support delivered flexibly, quickly, and respectfully. They should not have to demonstrate their poverty or rehash trauma to merit support.” – The Atlantic

As Museums Remain Closed, The Work Goes On Inside

Or, in the case of the Gardner, also in the Museum’s gardens. Just before the museum was shut down again to help prevent gatherings of people from different households, “horticulturists at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum were putting the final touches on one of the city’s most anticipated floral displays: The Holiday Garden, a vivid infusion of more than 400 flowering plants, ferns, and shrubs that each year transform the Fenway museum’s courtyard into a lush bouquet brimming with poinsettias, cyclamen, amaryllis, and orchids.” – Boston Globe

A Composer With Hearing Loss Says Beethoven’s Music Encodes The Experience Of Being Deaf

Gabriela Lena Frank says that she can tell, from her own experience, some of what the composer was doing as he lost more and more of his hearing. “More pitch distance and difference, and more vibration and resonance, create a recipe for happiness for a hearing-impaired person, trust me. A more dissonant and thick language, with clashing frequencies, also causes more vibration, so the language does get more physically visceral that way, too.” – The New York Times

Barbara Rose, Art Critic And Art Historian Who Helped Define Art Of The 20th Century, 84

Rose wrote the 1965 essay “ABC Art,” which helped to define and codify Minimalism. She went on to defy the essay (she loathed its title, something The New York Times noted in its obit), defend the genre of painting, write the textbook American Art Since 1900, and teach, write reviews, produce documentary films, and champion both formalism and individual women artists. – Artforum

The First Movie Theatre Debuted 125 Years Ago, And Despite Everything, Cinema Isn’t Dead Yet

Cannes’ Thierry Fremaux: “Cinemas have been through other trials: they died often, and yet they’re still alive because the public yearns for collective experiences. In their absence, theaters — which are our homes, our churches and our rituals — have never been so present. When will we see each other again? Soon. We must!” – Variety