Tag: 06.18.18

Athens Was A Wreck. Now It’s Become One Of Europe’s Most Dynamic Cultural Capitals

There are places we live and places we visit, and then there are the other places. Places we return to, where we put down roots, but not strong enough roots to hold us — places that change us, that we haunt and are haunted by. Nowhere embodies this for me more than Athens, a city I’ve watched shift and evolve, endure crisis and chaos and economic collapse, and yet emerge from the wreckage as one of the continent’s most vibrant and significant cultural capitals, more popular than ever as a tourist destination. (Last year Athens welcomed a record 5 million visitors, double the 2012 figure.)

Romania’s National Art Museum Withdraws Its Prized Brancusi Because It Can’t Afford The Insurance

“Wisdom of the Earth, a sculpture considered to be one of Brancusi’s defining works, was taken off public view last week. A lawyer representing the sculpture’s private owners said that the museum could not afford insurance for the modernist masterpiece, prompting the collectors to move the work elsewhere. The Romanian Ministry of Culture, which led a campaign in 2016 to bring the sculpture back into public hands, also refused to respond to requests to foot the bill, the lawyer said.”

Plagued By Politeness?

This sort of thing is everywhere. Children and adults will often say “no offence” before or after saying something crushingly offensive, or introduce a nasty remark with a phrase along the lines of “I wouldn’t want you to think I’m nasty, but…” Politicians sometimes say “with respect” to interviewers before making clear their contempt for the question. There’s nothing new about rhetorical devices that let you have your cake and eat it—“not to mention the weather” gives speakers the chance both to mention that blasted weather and to leave it out. But the subgenre of such remarks that tries to dictate in advance how its targets might categorise it, and by extension the character of whoever might be saying it, does seem to be a recent and peculiar development.

It’s Time For Miami To Get A Real, Full-Time Professional Orchestra

“Local cynics will contend that Miami can never support a professional symphony orchestra, either financially or in terms of a regular audience. Yet … Miami today is a very different place than the city was when the Florida Philharmonic ceased operations nearly fifteen years ago. … There is clearly a new audience in place for concerts in downtown Miami as the Cleveland performances have proved. Unlike in past decades, Miami now has a first-class performing arts facility.”

Don’t Dig Up The Streets Looking For The Missing Ghent Altarpiece Fragment, Mayor Tells Public

“A panel of the 15th century painting Adoration of the Mystic Lamb disappeared from Ghent in 1934, and only a few clues were left behind. But on Friday, an engineer claimed that he had solved the riddle left behind after the disappearance. Gino Marchal, co-author of The Fourteenth Letter, claimed that the panel is hidden under a square in the Kalandeberg area of the city centre — where the mayor is now urging treasure hunters not to dig.”

The Tough Road For Black Women Philosophers

Among the American Philosophical Association’s estimated 10,000 Ph.D-trained philosophers in the United States today, an estimated 125 are black, 38 are black women. Twenty-five years ago, Adrian Piper and I attempted to invite the Ph.D-trained black women in philosophy to join a professional association. We identified about eight eligible philosophers.

The Scary Algorithm-Driven Nightmares Of YouTube Children’s Videos

“Beyond the simple knock-offs and the provocations exists an entire class of nonsensical, algorithm-generated content; millions and millions of videos that serve merely to attract views and produce income, cobbled together from nursery rhymes, toy reviews, and cultural misunderstandings. Some seem to be the product of random title generators, others – so many others – involve real humans, including young children, distributed across the globe, acting out endlessly the insane demands of YouTube’s recommendation algorithms, even if it makes no sense, even if you have to debase yourself utterly to do it.”