“We normally only respond like this to experiences that might ensure or endanger our survival – food, reproduction, or the terrifying plummet of a rollercoaster. How can music – hardly a life-or-death pursuit – move the mind and the body as powerfully as sex?”
Tag: 07.23.15
Why Charging Admission Might Be A Good Idea For UK Museums
“Sometimes you have to think the unthinkable. If we want museums to prosper and thrive in a harsh economic climate with central government talking about 40% cuts, an entrance fee may be the best way forward. And it may have a good side.”
Russia’s Bookstores Cordially Invited To Join Vladimir Putin’s Book Club
“The government plans to begin offering rent and tax breaks to booksellers in exchange for an ‘opportunity’ to provide a selection of titles chosen by the government. Dmitry Livanov, Russia’s Minister of Science and Education said this this new program [will] ‘help promote sales of those books which have historical value’ and ‘can contribute to patriotic education of local population’.”
We All Understand Fear And Anxiety Wrong, Says Neuroscientist Who First Mapped The Brain’s ‘Fear Circuit’
“These days, most people think that the fear circuit gives rise directly to the emotions of fear and anxiety. [Joseph] LeDoux is convinced it doesn’t – and that this distinction matters a great deal.”
How Do You Balance The Rights Of An Artist With The Progress Of A Culture (Who Owns What?)
“The achievements of a people, be they in politics, in science or even in war, must belong on some level to the people for them to bring forth further achievements. And what is true of a society’s great experiment is true of the culture that society produces.”
This Reality Show Thought It Was A Good Idea To Send Contestants To A Syrian War Zone
The show, called Go Back to Where You Came From, “is a three-part reality series aimed at sparking a conversation on immigration by sending six Australians to see refugee conditions in person.” And considering the current Australian government’s policy toward refugees (park them on a distant Pacific island or tow them back out to sea), perhaps showing what it’s like along the Iraqi-Syrian border was a good idea.
When Conceptual Artists Become Aerobics Instructors
“The class, ‘Sappho and Sweat,’ was the second offering from ‘Heavy Breathing,’ which its co-founders describe as ‘a summer series of free critical theory seminars in the form of absurd, artist-led conceptual fitness experiences.’ The idea came to Lisa Rybovich Crallé, a multimedia artist, last year. She and Sophia Wang, a dancer who recently completed her Ph.D. in literature, were collaborating on a sculptural installation when they took a long walk up a hill and discovered that discussing Aristotle’s conception of topos while huffing could be uniquely stimulating.”
What Does TV’s Creep Of The Freudian Uncanny Tell Us About Ourselves?
“Why are viewers so compelled by the weird and inexplicable? Why the increasing glut of uncanny television shows that try to take the world and turn it upside down? Why the clamor to see dead classics resurrected for a second life?”
Foes Of Frick Extension Have An Alternate Plan To Offer
“Instead of building up and out, the alternative plan, developed by New York architect David Helpern, would largely reconfigure the museum’s existing space. Much of the expansion would take place below grade, an approach employed at London’s British Museum, the Morgan Library & Museum and others.”
Your Geographical History, In Books
“When I think of Angela’s Ashes, what I remember most is the way Hong Kong sounded and smelled. The air was muggy, winey, and fishy by late afternoon. Salt blew off the sea. My hostel smelled like cigarette smoke and old newspapers, and the curtains were always closed so that the place sat in a simmering, crowded gloom.”