“The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has a twisted relationship with art. It understands its significance to humanity, and so it is unsurprising that such a brutal and nihilistic organization would want to wipe it out.”
Tag: 12.08.15
When ‘Candid Camera’ Went To Moscow At The Height Of The Cold War
“[Host Allen] Funt, himself the son of a Russian immigrant, didn’t buy into the antagonism and distrust. … Without telling his bosses at CBS, not to mention the authorities of either the United States or Russia, Funt took it upon himself to pull back the Iron Curtain and shoot a special Moscow episode of Candid Camera.”
Museum Sues Wikimedia For Hosting Copyrighted Photos Of Its Public-Domain Artworks
“On October 28 the Reiss Engelhorn Museum (REM) in Mannheim, Germany, filed a lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation for making high-resolution images of public domain artworks from its collection available for download. … The institution is seeking the removal of 17 specific images of artworks that it commissioned from its in-house photographer, Jean Christen.”
Study: Don’t Use Periods While You Text
Researchers led by Binghamton University’s Celia Klin report that text messages ending with a period are perceived as being less sincere, probably because the people sending them are heartless.
North Korea Now Runs A Cheesy Museum At Cambodia’s Angkor Temples
“On Dec. 4, North Korea’s government officially debuted its Angkor Panorama Museum in Cambodia, one of Kim Jong Un’s few foreign allies. The display was created by members of a 4,000-person ‘work unit’ devoted to deifying the Kim dynasty through statues, panoramas and other propaganda pieces. … But this exhibit instead glorifies Cambodia’s ancient Khmer kingdom.”
On The ‘Baby Hitler’ Question: Are Historical ‘What-Ifs’ Really A Waste Of Time?
“In order to truly answer this apparently silly hypothetical, you have to define your own beliefs about the nature of progress, the inherent contingency of events, and the influence of individuals – even very charismatic ones – on the flow of historical change. These are big, important questions. If well-done counterfactuals can help us think them through, shouldn’t we allow what-ifs some space at the history table?”
So There’s This Way That People On YouTube Talk…
“It wasn’t a matter of their accents, or the sound of their voices, it was the way they were talking. The only word that came to mind was … bouncy.”
Survival Strategy: The “Click-Bait” Novel?
“You have to get the reader on the first page of a short story, you have to convince them of a world inside page one. As writers try to capture the scattered attention of readers, I think the novel is moving towards that degree of compression.”
Los Angeles’ Hot New Arts District Creates Problems For Artists
In 2013, Mayor Garcetti posted a photo of himself to Twitter holding a sign that read #ArtsMatter, with the statement: “Let’s make sure L.A. is the creative capital of the world for years to come.” Good idea. Let’s start by finding a way to keep the artists in town.
That Garish New Peterson Museum? I Like It!
“The Petersen looks less like mobility-in-motion and more like an ambiguously unspooled Diet Coke can. What is obvious is that the Petersen wanted to make a splash.”