Ruskin was a man who believed in angels but championed the most radical British artist of his time. He was a social reformer and utopian who was at heart a conservative reactionary and a puritan. He was a brilliant artist who ought to have been a bishop. He hated trains but invented the blog. How can it be that a man so celebrated in his time is only fitfully remembered now, 200 years after his birth – and then mostly for a salacious story. – New Statesman
Tag: 02.13.19
How Leaders Bend History For Their Own Purposes
The past is once more being bent to suit present purposes in the hope of ushering in something that may one day look as bizarre as anything in this history of “past futures”. – New Statesman
Google Translate Is Actually Wittgenstein In Action
“Google employees have previously acknowledged that Wittgenstein’s theories gave them a breakthrough in making their translation services more effective, but somehow, this key connection between philosophy of language and artificial intelligence has long gone under-celebrated and overlooked.” Here’s an explanation. – Quartz
How Barber’s ‘Adagio For Strings’ Went From National Mourning Music To Dance Club Hit
It was played at the funerals of Einstein and FDR; TV and radio stations played it after JFK was shot; it’s been used to signify sadness in numerous films; orchestras added it to their concerts after 9/11. Then the electronica DJs got hold of it, and the remixes went over surprisingly well on the dance floor. – NPR
The Case Of The Ubiquitous Five-Floor Apartment Block, Or, Why American Cities All Look The Same
The style – “five over one – five stories of apartments over a ground-floor ‘podium’ of parking and/or retail” – is dependent on what’s called stick construction, a method begun in 1830s boomtown Chicago. Builders can find cheap material, and cheap, non-union labor, everywhere. Alert, though: “There’s a reason why stick wasn’t the default for big apartment buildings until recently, and why these buildings are limited in height: Sticks burn.” – Bloomberg Businessweek
Why Do Audiences Love Comedy, But Not Comedies?
That’s a bit of an exaggeration – audiences still enjoy seeing comedies at the theatre. But stand-up specials are eating theatre’s lunch. “TV was long seen as the enemy of theatre. … But TV was always fundamentally different than theatre. Comedy, on the other hand, shares a lot. It is a live art form, and the same romantic defenses you often hear of theatre you can also hear from comics—the beauty of its ephemerality, the present-tense nature of the form in a time when everyone is on screens.” – American Theatre
When Science Became Stories (Surprise – It Got Popular)
“That professionalization process had the effect of setting up boundaries between ‘scientists’ and anyone else who might be interested in science, so it led to the exclusion of a whole bunch of people from formal scientific activity. Arguably, popular science created its own demise by making science too popular and too successful.” – Smithsonian
A Project To Democratize The Publishing Of Art Books
Artist Publisher, a new online forum launched by the Chicago-based printing collective Temporary Services, aims to encourage online discussion of art books and to democratize knowledge of a precarious industry. – ARTnews
Chicago Opera Theatre’s New Director: Chicago To Lead New Opera Revolution
Ashley Magnus: “Right now, we’re in a golden era of American opera. Significantly more operas have been written in the US between 1997 and the present than in the 100 years prior. I would love for people to take risks and support new opera the way that they support exciting new projects in other art forms.” – WFMT
Publisher Betty Ballantine, Who Helped Create The Modern Paperback, Dead At 99
“Paperbacks had existed in the U.S. since colonial times, but in the 1930s were limited mostly to poorly made ‘pulp’ novels. … [Betty and her husband Ian] started out as importers of Penguin paperbacks from England and founded two enduring imprints: Bantam Books and Ballantine Books, both now part of Penguin Random House.” – Yahoo! (AP)