By the time the software was euthanized earlier this year, it had become an embarrassment, a mess of greasy preference panes and grayed-out, unreliable content. We were glad to see it go. – The Atlantic
Author: Douglas McLennan
Now In The Public Domain: These Works Came Out Of Copyright This Week
“These works include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, silent films by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and books such as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young. These works were supposed to go into the public domain in 2000, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.” – Public Domain Day
Who’s Still Reading The Supermarket Tabloids?
Though their circulation has been decimated — the once-mighty National Enquirer, which approached 8 million in paid circulation at one point and reached millions more, is down under 180,000 as of June, according to industry monitor the Audit Bureau of Control — tabloids still occupy a unique place in American culture. – Los Angeles Times
New York Is Losing Its Human Scale – Here’s How It’s Happening
“If we continue to allow the erosion of the human-scale city and long-evolved urbanism on which it depends, then I fear for the future. The first thing needed is a public exhibit of the many empty sites across the boroughs of New York, and a representation of what further, unchecked upzoning will it make possible to build in the future. But without a well-organized, well-financed campaign like the effort to save Grand Central, or a singular leader like Jane Jacobs able to take on the powers that be and a press willing to give these battles full coverage, the perilous undermining of authentic urbanism will continue.” – New York Review of Books
How Yellow Lost Its Good Reputation
The most significant development was the increasing association of yellow with vice and evil – often with the deadly sin of envy (incidentally, though green may be the traditional colour of envy in high culture, in playgrounds of the 1960s, ‘yeller’ meant ‘jealous’, possibly because it was a close soundalike). – Literary Review
The Ecological Information Embedded In Indigenous Music
For Indigenous Peoples who have lived within their traditional territories for generations, music is a repository of ecological knowledge, with songs embedding ancestors’ knowledge, teachings and wisdom. – The Conversation
Scholar Gertrude Himmelfarb, 94
Few families contributed as much to modern conservatism, although they did so in different ways. While her husband helped organize an influential network of politicians, think tanks and media outlets, and her son became a leading Republican pundit and strategist, Himmelfarb concentrated on social criticism and history’s lessons for the present. – Washington Post
Historic San Francisco Printing Plant To Become Arts Space
“The long-term vision is to create a constellation of buildings to address the whole issue of affordable space for artists.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Wendy Perron: The Dance I Loved In 2019
“I like it when the dancing doesn’t fall into the easy thing, the cliché, but gives off a whiff of humanity in a new way. This list is limited by what I happened to see this year. These are the (admittedly New York–centric) performances that have left me with that kind of imprint.” – Wendy Perron
The 20 Least Powerful In The Art World
Hyperallergic makes a list of those who “are rendered powerless in a system greatly influenced by the super wealthy and the commercial galleries and vanity museums that serve them.” – Hyperallergic