China Cracks Down On Social Media – And Artists Find Their Work-Arounds

Digital restrictions are the backdrop to the work of all Chinese artists, and for some, the so-called Great Firewall—the online surveillance structure that blocks data from foreign countries—provides both subject and medium. “The Chinese internet is such a unique and rich material, I am often inspired by it,” says the New York- and Shanghai-based artist Miao Ying. “For anyone who resides in China, you will be shaped by it, not just because of the firewall. China has its own internet environment and it is developing more rapidly than anywhere else.”

Chill Out And Let The Kids Watch TV

Even the American Academy of Pediatrics has started to relax a little about screen time. Also, the entire discussion is a status marker: “The ability of parents to limit screen time, like the ability to limit unwholesome food, has become more than a matter of health. It has become a statement of class, order, purity and parental authority.”

Ernest Hemingway, Chatty Sensualist

Adam Gopnik looks at Papa’s biography, writing style, and (yes) kinks, and finds that, for all the “stoical stance” in his prose and his persona, he had quite a sensual (if not quite hedonistic) side – and, what’s more, “he was naturally garrulous and jocose: indeed, by the time he was a celebrity he was so garrulous and jocose that it shocked people, though he was just being himself.”