A new London exhibit on the brain “confronts its visitors with the gulf between our hard-won knowledge about the form of the brain and our as-yet-meagre understanding of its function.”
Tag: 03.30.12
A Peep Goldberg Machine (No Fooling)
Yes, those crafty maker-types built a Rube Goldberg machine – for Peeps. With a little Wile E. Coyote thrown in.
America, Of Cliques We Sing (And Play)
“America, as it is understood as a modern geopolitical entity, is ethnically diverse and the music heard in orchestral halls is a mere fraction of what is heard and played here. It’s not very popular among American citizens. … We still have no real national music. The supra-cultural machine tells us what is popular and we develop our cliques accordingly.”
Paintings Stolen 24 Years Ago From N.Y. Recovered In Germany
Four pieces stolen from a New York gallery in 1988 just turned up in a dead German art dealer’s estate.
Author Anne Tyler’s First Broadcast Interview In 35 Years
The Baltimore-based author of books like The Accidental Tourist and Breathing Lessons talks to NPR. “I don’t have that much to say, so I figure about every 35 years will do it, right? It does make me very self conscious when I go back to writing, after I talk about writing.”
Stop Calling Copyright Infringement ‘Theft’
Pirating a book or movie is not the same as stealing one, but “seeing it as theft makes it easier to steamroll right over issues like ‘fair use,’ which is an incredibly important principle and one that is unique to copyright law.”
Baltimore’s Newest Artistic Director Takes On Some Tough Plays – His Own
“In the insular and collegial-but-touchy world of American theater, his decision to stage both ‘Clybourne Park’ and his as-yet-unwritten response play, ‘Beneatha’s Place,’ is most assuredly not the norm. But the garrulous, opinionated, 45-year-old Kwame Kwei-Armah seems unwilling to let all of his passions take a back seat to his regard for artistic diplomacy.”
Is John Berger’s Ways of Seeing Still Relevant?
Berger’s 1972 show (and accompanying book) “demystified high art, repackaged it in terms that related to everyday life, and proved that a love of great paintings need not be elitist but could co-exist with communitarian values. Today, social and political contexts are so integral to our reading of a picture or story that it is easy to forget how revolutionary Berger’s stance was.” But in an age of Damien Hirst, does Berger matter anymore?
How The Government Is Killing CBC (And How The CBC Is Helping It)
“The main thing to keep in mind is that the CBC has been asking for trouble. It has failed to defend itself adequately. It has been naive. For CBC, and all its radio, TV and online platforms, this Prime Minister is an implacable foe, as imperious in his dismissal of Canadian TV news as he is in dismissing anything that smacks of that European welfare state. For the government, the CBC is a symbol that must be diminished and denigrated.”
Working To Innovate Opera
“The audience demands higher standards now . . . People are paying a lot of money to come to the opera or to go and see any show, and they expect to see work of a high quality, and that’s not only limited to singers.”