In this video, “the museum is using high-tech methods to carry out a forensic examination of exactly how Rembrandt painted the picture.” What’s the most 21st century thing about the research and restoration? It’s being done in full public view in a gallery, and live-streamed as well. – BBC
Tag: 09.27.19
How Does ‘Sesame Street’ Keep The Alphabet Song Fresh?
It’s been literally half a century since the show began trying to teach little kids not only the alphabet song but also how the alphabet corresponds with letters in their lives. Now Sesame Street” has a library’s worth of pop song parodies about the alphabet, with A and C songs (as in “C is for Cookie”) among the most popular. And they’ve done dozens of original versions of the whole ABCs too. But just how do you reinvent a tune that’s as elemental as language? And how do you do it, over and over again, for a half-century?” – The New York Times
New Concept: Asian Actors Voicing Asian Cartoon Characters
Whoa. For the new movie Abominable, Asian American and other actors of Asian descent play the Chinese cartoon characters. This, says a critic, is “an occurrence as rare as a solar eclipse. The last time I could remember this happening was more than 20 years ago with Disney’s Mulan.” (When this story was published, there were worries about how Abominable would do at the box office. Well, headlines say it all: ‘Abominable’ tramples the competition.) – The New York Times
As K-Pop, Bollywood, And Turkish TV Arise, Are The Days Of U.S. Cultural Dominance Over?
Author Fatima Bhutto thinks so. “Hollywood is no longer the center. America is no longer the center. Now we have a multipolar world. So Turkey is a center. India is a center. Pakistan is a center. China is certainly a center. Nigeria is a center. South America – so many centers. And I think that’s – I mean, as a viewer, as a listener, I find that really, really exciting.” – NPR
Myron Bloom, French Horn Player Who Helped Mold The Cleveland Orchestra, Has Died At 93
Bloom “was horn royalty. As Szell’s principal horn in Cleveland for more than two decades, he appeared on many of the orchestra’s celebrated recordings, and was the soloist in its classic account of the Horn Concerto No. 1 by Richard Strauss. He later became principal horn of the Orchestre de Paris under the conductor Daniel Barenboim, and an influential teacher.” – The New York Times
Hollywood Is Fascinated With Beautiful Women’s Descents And Deaths
And so, it seems, are audiences. What’s the deal with these less than biopics, more like thanatopics? Ah: “Each movie is too enamored of its legend, of her talent and beauty, to acknowledge that her circumstances and pathologies aren’t exceptional but widely shared, borne largely of gendered inequality: unequal pay, imbalance of power, public hypersexualization, and the fast-approaching or long-past expiration date on her usefulness to Hollywood.” – Slate
The Nonsensical Book Policies In Prisons Across The Nation
Seriously, excuse us? “A prison in Ohio blocked an inmate from receiving a biology textbook over concerns that it contained nudity. In Colorado, prison officials rejected Barack Obama’s memoirs because they were ‘potentially detrimental to national security.’ And a prison in New York tried to ban a book of maps of the moon, saying it could ‘present risks of escape.'” – The New York Times
Kehinde Wiley’s New Statue In Times Square Directly Takes On Confederate Idols
Who could say it better than Philip Kennicott? “The old-fashioned, ceremonial unveiling of a statue is mostly extinct as a cultural spectacle. New art works are generally introduced quietly, amid white wine, canapés and polite chatter at exhibition openings. Now and then, perhaps a new museum may open with a ribbon-cutting. But Kehinde Wiley, the man who painted the portrait of Barack Obama that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, tried to reinvent the unveiling Friday afternoon in Times Square, complete with a brass band, gawking crowds, speeches by a phalanx of political notables and, finally, a few tugs on a shimmery silver cloth draped over his latest work, a monumentally scaled bronze equestrian statue.” – The Washington Post
The Whistleblower Sure Can Write
We don’t know who he is, or at least many of us don’t, but one instructor says it’s time for writing students to take lessons from his clear prose. He has great topic sentences! He knows how to use active verbs! – The New York Times
What’s Going On Behind The Scenes At This Hip Evangelical Culture Magazine?
A post about race and racism from The Relevant‘s former managing editor went viral, and the fallout “has already led to a ‘sabbatical’ for Relevant Media Group’s founder and CEO, an outpouring of solidarity from other ex-employees, and a sprawling online conversation about race, gender, and office politics in Christian organizations.” – Slate