Last year “Jonah Lehrer wrote that e-readers might be more effective if they were less legible: ‘Our eyes will need to struggle, and we’ll certainly read slower, but that’s the point: … We won’t just scan the words – we will contemplate their meaning’.” Now some research is backing Lehrer – and the widely-detested font – up.
Tag: 01.06.11
Why America’s 20-Somethings Are Still Living With Their Parents
A new study dismantles “the common belief that this generation has been coddled into laziness. Rather, these young adults have come of age at a particularly merciless moment. Even before the recession, which will wreak lasting havoc on their earning power and trust in government, the market had ceased rewarding diligent, low-skilled labour with reasonable pay and benefits.”
Did Vancouver’s Olympic Architecture Succeed?
“For the 2010 Olympics, Vancouver made a conscious decision to eschew big-deal architecture in favour of sustainability, both economic and environmental. The extent to which economic sustainability was achieved is definitely an unanswered question, but there is also another one: Did the world leave with a positive impression of our architects and their designs?”
Why Doesn’t Washington DC Have A Great Public Square?
“It’s a bit dispiriting, as a Washingtonian, to listen to a lecture on great public squares. We have none, of course. Washington is a city of avenues and streets, coming together in circles that do not function well as public spaces. Our grand ceremonial spaces, such as the Mall, are too large to be great public squares.”
NYCity Ballet Chief Charged With DWI
“Peter Martins, the ballet master in chief of the New York City Ballet and one of the city’s leading artistic figures, was arrested at a checkpoint on New Year’s Day and charged with driving while intoxicated, the Westchester County police said Wednesday evening.”
Should Critics Wait To Review A Show?
“If a critic’s job is to assess the total merits of a work of art — or at least a gaudy chunk of entertainment — reason also argues that the entertainment should be allowed to achieve the completed form its creators had envisioned before judgment is rendered.”
Yet Another Issue Around Banksy’s Issue-Riddled Documentary: Intellectual Property
“When Exit Through the Gift Shop, the artistic conundrum of a documentary wrapped around the street artist Banksy, opened last year, it spawned more than a few critical essays’ worth of thorny, postmodern questions. … Joachim Levy had another question: Where’s my credit?”
A Pilot El Sistema in Philadelphia
“Some of the trombonists and cellists had been playing their instruments for only 10 weeks, but their relative polish was surprising. Even more striking was the vibe. The musicians radiated glee and quiet pride. … Many of these families live in down-and-out Southwest Philadelphia, and the triumph of after-school energies being diverted to the pursuit of something positive was lost on no one.”
Why Would an Artist Make an Effigy of the Comatose Ariel Sharon?
Noam Braslavsky: “I [would] build a ritual of visiting him, like you go visit your old grandfather before he died. But it’s a lot like you go visit the body of the leader of communist countries – like the mummy of Lenin. … [If] you listen to what people say about [Sharon], it’s the same emotion they have toward the appearance of the Israeli state.”
Arvo Part Is No Monkish Recluse
Tom Service found the composer “to be the exact opposite of the forbidding, taciturn figure that looms out of some of his photos. There was laughter, humour and generosity in the way he spoke about his compositional and existential struggles, and even his religious feelings.”