“You have to remember you’re taking care of a legacy that has history.” – CBSNews
Author: Douglas McLennan
A New Vision For City Halls Of The Future
“A group of designers, architects, and city planners are rejecting that vision (of the old citadel of democracy) and replacing it with something more human and playful. To their mind, city hall is a space for citizens to act out democracy alongside their elected officials—and perhaps grab a coffee or see a show while doing it. In the face of global unrest, online polarization, and the increasing commercialization of public space, city halls are quietly becoming the communal living room of the future.” – Fast Company
Why Small Talk Matters
Casual conversation—whether at the start of a company-wide meeting, with fellow parents at a school event, or when you’re waiting in line at the airport—serves a real social purpose. These are four reasons to up your small talk game. – Fast Company
Are We Seeing The Beginning Of The End Of Netflix’s Binge On New Content?
The company’s decision to give creators less room to prove their show can be a hit has a lot to do with how Netflix earns money. – The Verge
Pay-TV Providers Lost 1.5 Million Subscribers Last Quarter
The tally marks is up dramatically from the 420,000 losses in the second quarter of 2018. LRG based the figures on its findings for companies representing 93% of the total marketplace. – Deadline
Fact-Checking, Debunking, Truth-Telling And The Illusions Of Objectivity
The adversarial scene of debunking breaks down into a strange collaboration between debunker, charlatan and dupe. This collaboration leaves us with a different way of thinking about ‘modernity’ itself. – Aeon
Study: Political Values Influence Food Choices
“New research suggests that the divergent moral values underlying our polarized politics can influence our judgments even in a presumably non-partisan arena such as diet. The study finds that both liberals and conservatives perceive a food product as less healthy if the advertising pitch fails to align with their values.” – Pacific Standard
The Odd, Brilliant Career Of Oscar Levant
He was chiefly renowned for his intimate personal and professional association with George Gershwin; after Gershwin’s early death in 1937, Levant virtually owned Rhapsody in Blue and the Concerto in F. For a time, during the 1940s, he was the highest-paid concert pianist in the United States, spicing his performances with banter and self-lacerating quips. Assaying Beethoven’s “Tempest” sonata, he might promise to play “with my customary arthritic abandon” and add: “This piece has never had a worthy interpretation. And it still won’t.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
NY Mega-Galleries Are Building Opulent New Homes, Redefining Galleries
In designing such new homes, these heavy hitters — Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner and Pace, which is consolidating its spaces on the Upper East Side and West 25th Street — are redefining what it means to be a gallery, shifting their emphasis from selling and showing art to a more full-service visitor experience that offers food, performance spaces, research libraries and open storage. – The New York Times
Online Language Is Getting More And More Sophisticated
“We no longer accept that writing must be lifeless, that it can only convey our tone of voice roughly and imprecisely, or that nuanced writing is the exclusive domain of professionals. We’re creating new rules for typographical tone of voice. Not the kind of rules that are imposed from on high, but the kind of rules that emerge from the collective practice of a couple billion social monkeys — rules that enliven our social interactions.” – The Atlantic