“All this attention comes not from a greater understanding of mortality but from a greater ignorance of it. The promises of religion are replaced by the promise of science, yet medicine fails to vanquish its ultimate foe, instead rendering death more obscure, a matter for procrastination.”
Tag: 01.25.16
Take That, Borat! And Putin! Kazakhstan Creates Its Own ‘Game Of Thrones’
Spurred by a remark from the Russian president that “the Kazakhs had never had statehood” as well as ongoing chagrin that their nation is best known to much of the world for a fictional, dysfunctional journalist in a mankini, the country’s film industry is producing a lavish 10-part miniseries about the founding, amid the collapse of the Golden Horde, of the Kazakh Khanate in 1465.
All Those Newer Disney Movies With A Strong, Non-Passive Princess Heroine? Turns Out They Have A Problem
“The plot of The Little Mermaid, of course, involves Ariel literally losing her voice – but in the five Disney princess movies that followed, the women speak even less. On average in those films, men have three times as many lines as women.”
Submit Like A Man: How I (Female Playwright) Determined My Male Persona
Mya Kagan: “As a playwright, I am basically a professional character developer, so before I could do anything, I had to get my head around who this person was.”
Knoedler Art Fraud Trial Could Change Responsibilities Of Art-Sellers
“For example, if a jury decides that a doctor must pay millions in damages because he left a surgical instrument inside a patient, other doctors are going to make sure they don’t do the same. Similarly, the jury in the Knoedler trial should signal what is expected from the different parties in art transactions: which red flags should alert galleries to fraud and what investigations should they undertake to safeguard against it?”
How University Museums Are Looking Into The Sciences
“It used to be that university art museums partnered with the French department, and that was considered interdisciplinary. That’s old hat. Now we are looking for new frontiers.”
What Are The Working Conditions You MUST Have To Be Creative?
“Creative individuals suffer, and there are myriad problems to be solved. Unless my observational skills are severely lacking, I don’t know a single individual who would say that living a productive and happy life is easy.”
A Mom Talks About Race In Her Daughters’ Ballet Class
“There are 10 girls in the class. They’re dressed in oversized tutus with sequined trim, baggy pink tights, and pink ballet slippers. Watching my daughters, I take in these small details. But my thoughts are stuck on something else: Eight of the 10 girls, including the teacher, are white. My daughters (ages 3 and 5) are black.”
Everyone – Including You – Is a Conspiracy Theorist About *Something*
“All of us fall prey to the same cognitive biases that are at the root of conspiracy theories. … We seem to be hardwired to suspect that a conspiracy has taken place. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; being mildly paranoid can work in our favor.”
Why It’s So Hard To Tell Whether Artists Are Doing Better Than They Were 15 Years Ago
“It’s tempting to interpret the increase in access that technology has provided to aspiring artists of all kinds as an unqualified boon for society. But to the extent that the opportunity to have a public identity as an artist has translated to expectation of public success as an artist, we may be looking at a system that, in the aggregate, punishes people for pursuing their dreams – a creator’s curse of sorts.”