TV satire’s lacklustre election reporting is, in part, due to Donald Trump’s immunity to ridicule. Over the last four years, he has embodied many of satire’s central characteristics including exaggeration, irony and stupidity. It has become increasingly difficult for satirists to skewer him. – The Conversation
Author: Douglas McLennan
Fashion Is Fashion. Art Is Art. But…
“I don’t think you necessarily have to own it to appreciate couture. It’s like art. I don’t really like when people talk about fashion as art. Fashion is fashion. Art is art. But yes, I don’t think that you have to own art in order to appreciate art. You can go to a museum and you can appreciate paintings and whatever you like. So why not for couture? – Washington Post
What Are Our National Arts Support Organizations Doing For Equity?
“We look to service organizations like Americans For The Arts to help support us as we support our communities. However, we can no longer wait for them or organizations like them. These requests are not made to hurt the organization, but to serve the people it exists to serve: the entire national arts community.” – Hyperallergic
Is Baltimore Museum’s Plan To Sell Art Really About Pay Equity?
“The BMA is hardly the only museum with stark pay-equity problems in its lower ranks. But its attention to the issue has set it apart from countless other institutions that have largely ignored the issue. For the sake of the museum’s service workers — and service workers everywhere — here’s hoping they figure it out.” – Los Angeles Times
Tower Records Returns Online
The new online version of Tower Records was originally scheduled for introduction at the 2020 South by Southwest, but pulled back when that event was curtailed by the pandemic. It was also envisioned as a series of pop-up shops, an idea also delayed by the coronavirus. – Deadline
Painter Wayne Thiebaud @ 100
Thiebaud is still painting, still driving, still in touch with students and disciples gathered over a career that included decades of teaching. He works most days and describes himself as “still a struggling painter.” – Washington Post
Is Mask-Wearing An Impingement On Our Freedom?
Western political thinkers ranging from Herodotus to Algernon Sidney did not think that a free society is a society without rules, but that those rules should be decided collectively. In their view, freedom was a public good rather than a purely individual condition. A free people, Sidney wrote for instance, was a people living “under laws of their own making”. – The Conversation
The 1800’s Version Of Live Theatre Streaming
From 1893 to 1925 the London Electrophone Company streamed the sound of live theatre into the home using a telephone device known as an Electrophone. – The Conversation
1647 – The Year They Canceled Christmas (It Didn’t Work Very Well)
Back in 1647, Christmas was banned in the kingdoms of England (which at the time included Wales), Scotland and Ireland and it didn’t work out very well. Following a total ban on everything festive, from decorations to gatherings, rebellions broke out across the country. While some activity took the form of hanging holly in defiance, other action was far more radical and went on to have historical consequences. – The Conversation
A Historian Concludes Systemic Civilization Failure
“If you have a discussion among the crew about which way to turn, you will not turn in time, and you hit the iceberg directly. The past 10 years or so have been discussion. That sickening crunch you now hear—steel twisting, rivets popping—is the sound of the ship hitting the iceberg.” – The Atlantic