“Reading books is something I was once did compulsively, willingly and joyfully. But as I get older and spend more of my life online, reading books has become harder. Studies suggest I’m not alone – research in both Australia and the US suggests reading novels for leisure has declined.” – The Guardian
Author: Douglas McLennan
Silence’s Central Role In Music
As social beings, we are hard-wired to interpret breaks in the flow of human communication. We recognize the pregnant pause, the stunned silence, the expectant hush. A one-beat delay on an answer can reveal hesitation or hurt, or play us for laughs. A closer listen shows musical silence to be just as eloquent. – The New York Times
New Technology Could Finally Make Ancient Pompeii Scrolls Readable
The two unopened scrolls that will be probed belong to the Institut de France in Paris and are part of an astonishing collection of about 1,800 scrolls that was first discovered in 1752 during excavations of Herculaneum. Together they make up the only known intact library from antiquity, with the majority of the collection now preserved in a museum in Naples. – The Guardian
Ancient Romans Used Infographics
A new book by classicist and historian Andrew M. Riggsby investigates the types of information technologies (IT) drawn, painted, and inscribed on the surfaces of the ancient Roman world and explores how they shaped the daily life of Romans. As Riggsby demonstrates, effective graphic design has been a tricky but important ability for thousands of years. – Hyperallergic
Former Getty Foundation Leader Deborah Marrow, Dies In LA
Marrow was a lifelong champion for the arts. She began working at the Getty in 1983 as a publications coordinator, and went on to serve in various high-ranking roles. Her longest and most sustained position came as the director of what was initially called the Getty Grant Program in 1984. Now known as the Getty Foundation, the program gives out significant funding to institutions, historians, and conservators around the world. – ARTnews
What Placido Domingo Meant To LA Opera
Mark Swed: “He’s been an unstoppable powerhouse, and, in the end, we may very well have to conclude that he’s human, and that maybe he couldn’t have done all the great things he did without also having done what he shouldn’t have, and hurting people along the way. In Domingo’s case, being an unstoppable powerhouse may not allow much time or room for self-reflection.” – Los Angeles Times
MoMA, Modernism, And Times Long Gone By
Jerry Saltz: “Much of modernism and its concerns now feel long ago, forged in a time of rapid industrial change when white European males assumed they ruled the world. The demands of our times call for something else.” – New York Magazine
Nation Within Nation? America’s Problematic Issues With Indigenous Rights
Andrew Jackson’s and Trump’s assertions of US power over Indigenous peoples call attention to their singular political status as nations within a nation, and they speak to the continuing Indigenous struggle for sovereignty. – Aeon
New Trend On Instagram: Getting Real (Yes We Hear Your Skepticism)
Celebrities have always used their social-media accounts as confessional booths, but at some point in the past year Instagram stars began interrupting their otherwise aspirational feeds with a very specific type of revelation—posts that could be described as the “getting real” moments. – The New Yorker
Why We Need To Learn How To Do Nothing Well
Paying attention is not easy to do. It demands “a state of openness that assumes there is something new to be seen”, and the discipline to “resist our tendency to declare our observations finished.” – The Guardian