“We’ve become warier, more ironic about praise in general. No one wants to seem like a smarmy suck-up. No one wants to appear too earnest. The language of superlatives has become worn out and phony. If Mike Ovitz is a visionary, what does that make Charles Darwin? If Donald Trump is charismatic, what does that make Martin Luther King? If every flavor-of-the-month actress is brilliant, what do you tell your seven-year-old daughter when she comes home with an 88 on her spelling test?” – Time Europe
Tag: 07.17.00
BEAR WITNESS
In recent years numerous museums and exhibitions commemorating the Holocaust have sprung up. But some argue that attempts to represent the Holocaust falsify it, making it an aesthetic rather than a history. “On the other hand, however uncomfortable academics may be with some of the popular representations of the Holocaust, few would question that films such as ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Life is Beautiful’ have done more to raise public awareness of the Holocaust than a thousand scholarly tomes.” – New Statesman
JUST WHAT IS MODERN ART?
Arthur Danto ponders the meaning of modern and modernism. “The date 1880 cannot be defended as the beginning of modern art, nor is there any consensus as to when modern art began. Nor can that question be separated from the deeper question of how Modernism is to be defined. – The Nation
RADIO FOR ONE
Internet radio is music to the ears of many listeners tired of the predictable hit-list programming of mainstream radio. But whereas traditional radio is an inherently mass medium uniting listeners on common musical ground, “the very multiplicity that makes Net radio so appealing also makes it somewhat depressing. If Net radio delivers us from everything banal and venal about analog radio, it also endangers what’s vital about old-fashioned broadcasting.” – New Republic 07/17/00