“‘To see what is in front of one’s nose,’ George Orwell said, ‘needs a constant struggle.’ … What about the hidden truths, the buried drives and desires? The things that lie beyond distant doorways, behind the curtains of dreams, deep in the sea-bottoms of memory? Who’s going to see all that while you’re busy looking just past the Orwellian tip of your nose? Over the past half century, no one has taken a harder, clearer look behind those doors, beyond those curtains, and into those deep oceans than David Lynch.”
Tag: 03.20.18
Being A Museum Guard In New York City Is Even Harder And More Poorly-Paid Than You Think
“Guards in New York City’s museums spend most of their shifts on their feet – usually four to eight hours at a time. They should also be able to carry as much as 25 pounds, trudge up and down flights of stairs several times during their shifts, and jump, bend, and run into action if a situation occurs. … These days, many guards must also learn to use complex digital technologies to observe hallways and crevices and communicate with other guards quickly.” And their pay is less than half of New York state’s median wage.
Censorship Or Good Inventory Management? UK’s Three Big Bookstore Chains Pull Racist Books And Hate Literature Off Their Websites
Hope Not Hate, Britain’s largest anti-racism organization, undertook an investigation and campaign calling attention to racist and anti-Semitic tracts, Holocaust denial books, bomb-making manuals and the like that are for sale on the websites of Waterstones, Foyles, and WH Smith (as well as Amazon). So the booksellers have begun removing those items from their sites.
Daniel Hope Named New Century Chamber Orchestra Music Director
With the appointment, Hope, a virtuoso soloist who also directs other ensembles as concertmaster, becomes New Century’s fourth music director, following Stuart Canin (1992-99), Krista Bennion Feeney (1999-2006) and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (2008-17.)
Kill The Optimist! Steven Pinker Argues Things Are Getting Better (Backlash Ensues)
Pinker is an evangelist for Enlightenment values, arguing that the philosophers of that era laid the groundwork for the scientific and social breakthroughs that have lifted millions out of poverty and created a healthier, wealthier world. At a time when it often feels like we’re backsliding, his argument has found a receptive audience.
A Boom In Indigenous Theatre
“We’re experiencing a Native arts revival right now,” said Alaska Native playwright Vera Starbard, whose autobiographical advocacy play Our Voices Will be Heard was performed in Juneau, Anchorage, Hoonah, and Fairbanks. “There was one in the ’70s, and we’re right in the middle of a pretty exciting one now.”
Study: Even Having Your Smartphone Nearby Affects Your Cognitive Attention
The results were striking: individuals who completed these tasks while their phones were in another room performed the best, followed by those who left their phones in their pockets. In last place were those whose phones were on their desks. We saw similar results when participants’ phones were turned off: people performed worst when their phones were nearby, and best when they were away in a separate room. Thus, merely having their smartphones out on the desk led to a small but statistically significant impairment of individuals’ cognitive capacity—on par with effects of lacking sleep.
Did America’s Founding Fathers Have English Accents?
Linguist John McWhorter gives a rundown of what we know about how Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and their fellow spoke. (podcast)
Watching Stephen Petronio’s Dancers Learn Merce Cunningham’s Steps
“The F-word isn’t usually used to describe a dance by Merce Cunningham. But after Rashaun Mitchell watched members of the Stephen Petronio Company rehearse the sextet from Signals, a rarely performed Cunningham dance from 1970, he went there.”
Five Veteran Theater Critics Form Their Own Review Website
“Launching March 20, just in time to catch the spring wave of big Broadway openings that began last week with Escape to Margaritaville and continues this week with Frozen and Angels in America, New York Stage Review comes online with some 20 pieces of criticism about recent spring openings. … For most productions, New York Stage Review will have more than one critic weigh in. That’s taken from the playbook of The New York Times” – way back when, in the days of Walter Kerr.