The prison library program will give each of the 1,000 prisons the same 500-book collection selected by the project’s leaders. The collections, which Dr. Alexander called “freedom libraries,” are to include a broad variety of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, science, social thought and more. – The New York Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
Why Letting Your Mind Wander Is Good For You
While it is certainly not inevitable that children lose their sense of wonder as they grow up, and while adults are in principle as capable of experiencing wonder as children, it is to be expected that, as the world becomes more and more familiar to children as they age, they will experience wonder less readily. – Psyche
India Bans Chinese Social Media Apps
India has banned video-sharing social network TikTok and messaging platform WeChat along with 57 other Chinese developed apps over national security and privacy concerns, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise. – The Hollywood Reporter
Study: The Ideal Numbers Of Students For Online And In-Person Classes
Laurence Tomei and Douglas Nelson say that, as mentioned, online undergraduate classes should have no more than 12 students. In person, on campus classes should be no larger than 18 students and hybrid models should be only 17 students. Undergrad classes should likewise have an upper limit of 18, while graduate classes should have no more than 14 students and doctoral classes should be just nine or fewer students, though Tomei advised more research around that doctoral level finding. – Forbes
How A Girls Choir Pivoted And Is Thriving Online
Amazingly, not only has the group continued the girls’ education online, it has used the constraints to its advantage by bringing in guest artists for master classes and increasing one-on-one instruction. At a time when many of the girls are deeply moved, not to mention upset by recent events, the continuation of study has doubtless been a lifeline. – San Francisco Classical Voice
The Radicalism Of Current Black Playwrighting
Something is palpably different among playwrights of the millennial generation, who are envisioning, demanding and conjuring into existence a new and more diverse spectatorship. Their relationship with audiences, rather than operating in the quid pro quo manner of our commercial theater or the insider code of the avant-garde, is charged with protest, clarifying anger and targeted love. – Los Angeles Times
Carl Reiner’s Last Interview
“The only thing that really matters in life is your progeny, the people who come after you, the people you send out to the world. They’re either toxic or nontoxic.” – Los Angeles Times
Why Milton Glaser’s Iconic “I [Heart] New York” Worked
Glaser scrawled the first draft of the logo in the back of a cab, in 1976, red ink on a scrap of envelope; the sketch is now, fittingly, in the possession of the Museum of Modern Art. He made it for a marketing campaign for New York State, in 1977, which was a tricky moment for the city in particular—it didn’t seem very lovable. In the final design, the typeface is American Typewriter, friendly and approachable, with a cartoonish cast (notice the rounded bent knee of the “N”) that was Glaser’s signature, as if he anticipated the logo’s ascendance as kitsch. – The New Yorker
What To Do With All Those Dead Malls? Make Housing
Shifts in consumer behavior have been gnawing away at the classic enclosed suburban mall format for many years; then the pandemic completely upended in-person shopping. Converting commercial real estate to housing may be the best use of land in such an over-retailed country. Big shopping centers tend to be centrally located and connected to transit. – Bloomberg
Report: UK Publications Publish Twice As Much Poetry By Writers Of Color Than They Did In 2009
Between 2009 and 2016, the newspapers and poetry magazines published review articles by non-white critics 190 times – 4% of the total for those years. Between 2017 and 2019, non-white critics were published 201 times – 9.6% of the total. – The Guardian