Hey, good news: Novelist Emma Straub’s “Books Are Magic is opening in the midst of a renaissance for independent booksellers. The American Booksellers Association counted 1,775 members around the country in 2016, up from 1,410 in 2010.” (Now here’s what to buy from them.)
Tag: 05.25.17
The Physical Brain Versus Consciousness
“At its most general, the hard problem of consciousness is the expression of a familiar kind of puzzlement or mental cramp. We know that the brain is causally responsible, in some way or another, for consciousness – but we remain utterly baffled as to how its fatty, yoghurty matter could be up to the task. The puzzlement is not restricted to philosophers, neuroscientists or those who know a lot about the brain.”
Italian Court Cancels Appointments Of Five Museum Directors
“Italy has over the past two years recruited 20 highly-qualified new directors, seven of them foreigners, to shake up institutions which are richly-endowed with cultural treasures but often poorly run and badly promoted. But a regional court ruled that five of the appointments were null and void, saying that the selection process had not been transparent, that some interviews had been conducted via Skype and that the one foreigner appointed should never have been eligible.”
Jamaica Kincaid At 68: What I’ve Learned
“The thing that I am branded with and the thing that I am denounced for, I now claim as my own. I am illegitimate, I am ambiguous. In some way I actually claim the right to ambiguity, and the right to clarity. It does me no good to say, ‘Well, I reject this and I reject that.’ I feel free to use everything, or not, as I choose.”
What Beethoven Teaches Us About Hearing Loss
“The extraordinary thing about Beethoven’s hearing loss journey is that he found a way forward at every stage. Once he accepted his deafness at Heiligenstadt, it was no longer a source of shame, and he was open about it from then onwards. Even for the last 10 years of his life, when he could hear nothing, he kept composing. Many people will know the story of his conducting what seems to be an orchestra in his head at the premiere of his 9th Symphony. Eyes still shut, he had to be stopped and shown the smiling musicians, the appreciative audience applauding.”
What Makes A Good Conductor?
Angel Gil-Ordóñez: “Authority through knowledge. People respect you if you know what you are asking them to do. Then you have to be able to convey what you want. All simply. Through gestures and communication that goes beyond language. I think the orchestra is the most extraordinary achievement of humanity. Can you imagine something more sophisticated than that? One hundred people without verbal communication playing together for one hour? That goes beyond everything. Beyond thinking. To me [it] is the most incredible achievement. People making music together. It’s a miracle.”
LA County Museum’s New Home Won’t Just Be About A Building; It Seeks To Change The Ways We See Art
“In its new home, expect LACMA’s permanent collection to break all the rules. The permanent collection won’t exactly be permanent. LACMA instead plans to install the collection as a continuing series of temporary exhibitions — cross-cultural and interdisciplinary. An impermanent permanent collection, the scheme is unprecedented.”
Comic Timing Is Something Most Of Us Completely Misunderstand
“It may be that our sense of the importance of comic timing comes more from how we perceive jokes than from how they’re delivered. And, for comedians, the timing after the punch line” – as opposed to before, which is what most laypeople assume – “is what really counts.” Thomas MacMillan explains.
Movie Theater Plans Women-Only Showing Of ‘Wonder Woman’ – And (Some) Men Flip Out
The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin had the idea, and it sold out so fast that they added a second date and plan to extend the idea to other cities. What’s more, the Austin Drafthouse’s social media person deftly handled all the male butthurt on Facebook. (includes examples of butthurt)
What Exactly Is Going To Happen In “The Shed”?
“The opportunity for us to design a ground-up building for the arts forced us to ask the question: ‘What will art look like in 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?’ And the answer was that we simply could not know. Artists today are working across disciplines, in all media and all sizes. That will continue to change. The one thing that we could always be certain of is that there would always be a need for space, a need for structural loading capacity, and a need for electrical power.”