Children see naturally because they have not already stored up and processed information about how they are supposed to categorize what it is that they are looking at. They puzzle through, notice and work out each detail with a freshness that radiates both spontaneity and play. As we grow older, many of us lose our ability to see and we begin to accept the assumptions that have accumulated while looking. – SITI
Author: Douglas McLennan
Why Singing In Choirs Has Become Cool Again
For all of the people running them, a choir is often not just a choir, but also a social club, a community and a charity. For me, it has become a refuge; I can’t check my phone when I am hollering and humming, and holding a note distracts me from the usual clutter of my mind. – The Guardian
Opera Director Harry Kupfer, 84
Kupfer’s career began in Stralsund, then part of communist East Germany, in 1958. After stations in Chemnitz — formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt — Weimar and Dresden, he became director at the Komische Oper in 1981, a position he held for 21 years. – Washington Post (AP)
Picasso Painting Attacked At Tate Modern
The gallery gave no details about its condition. A spokesperson said: “The work of art is with our conservation team for expert assessment. Tate Modern remains open.” – BBC
A Decade That Cultivated Darkness
Michiko Kakutani: “Apocalypse is not yet upon our world as the 2010s draw to an end, but there are portents of disorder. The hopes nourished during the opening years of the decade — hopes that America was on a progressive path toward growing equality and freedom, hopes that technology held answers to some of our most pressing problems — have given way, with what feels like head-swiveling speed, to a dark and divisive new era. Fear and distrust are ascendant now.” – The New York Times
Legendary Leaders: Foundry’s Melanie Joseph and Playwrights Horizons’ Tim Sanford Talk About What They Did Right
Passion for artistic freedom is ballasted by a concern for the economic welfare of artists. Whatever excitement the future holds for the American theater, it’s thanks to artistic leaders likes these whose ethics have been as forward-thinking as their aesthetics. – Los Angeles Times
Longtime Legendary Knopf Editor Sonny Mehta, 77
In an age of blockbuster best sellers and cutthroat competition in a shrinking industry, Mr. Mehta was an almost ideal editor and publishing executive: a voracious reader and instinctive decision maker who could spot great books and, coming from a paperback world, had no qualms about aggressively marketing them. – The New York Times
Eleven Publishing Trends That Shaped The 2010s
For years, the promise of instant book publishing hovered just over the horizon, like the promise of flying cars. This decade, it finally came true. – Washington Post
Notre Dame’s Risky New Phase
The removal of melted scaffolding requires “three levels of steel beams to be positioned around its exterior to form a stabilising “belt”. Once this operation is complete, the same firm that built the scaffolding (Europe Echafaudage) will start to dismantle it, using telescopic crawler cranes that will allow roped technicians to descend into the forest of pipes and gradually cut them away after having coated them with a protective layer to avoid spreading the pollution caused by the melting of the lead roof.” – The Art Newspaper
Disruption? You Can Measure The Cognitive Dissonance
Connected technologies put pressure on our normative concepts like privacy, autonomy, and manipulation by changing the world so that our old concepts no longer apply and by pushing us to come up with new or revised concepts, creating conceptual confusion. – 3 Quarks Daily