The Cooper Hewitt’s curators are illuminating how environmental challenges are scrambling the roles of designers, scientists — and the museum itself. – The New York Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
The Subversive Genius That Was Mad Magazine
Sixty-seven years is a good run for anything, but, when Mad confirmed that it was joining National Lampoon and Life and Spy in the magazine graveyard, and the Elysian Fields of online archives, the pang that many felt, as if leaving a childhood bedroom for the last time, was that its departure was nonetheless abrupt and premature. – The New Yorker
Neuroscience: Making Music Together Puts Us In Sync With One Another
“The way we interact with music is very much in line with developing empathy, and how we put ourselves in the shoes of the musician. Our brains mirror what we’re seeing. So when we’re in sync, many of the rhythms of our brains and bodies entrain—heart and respiration rates, certain brain wave patterns. When you’re moved by music, we see levels of the attachment-hormone oxytocin increase. – Nautilus
Groups Sue To Stop Demolition Of LA’s Iconic Amoeba Music Building
Weeks after Los Angeles officials gave the green light for a new development on the Hollywood site now occupied by Amoeba Music, critics are suing the city to stop it, arguing that it would tear down a “cultural resource” that deserves protection. – Los Angeles Times
Is The Reason Movie Comedies Are Failing This Summer A Culture Wars Thing?
“Part of me wonders if audiences aren’t giving these movies a pass because, like everything else, our comedies have gotten wrapped up in the interminable culture war.” – Washington Post
Monica Ali: On The Myths Of “Positive” Discrimination
“While prejudice and disadvantage persist in ‘the real world,’ in the literary world we BAME writers (that’s Black and Minority Ethnic folk) are insulated by liberals falling over themselves to provide us with feather beds and glittering prizes. From this position of privilege I experienced a prolonged and profound sense of shame and failure because after the success of my debut novel, Brick Lane, each subsequent book was largely met with scorn or bemusement by reviewers.” – LitHub
Meet Boris Johnson’s New Culture Minister
A former education secretary, Nicky Morgan came under fire from the arts sector in 2015 when she claimed that young people choosing to study creative subjects at school could “hold them back for the rest of their lives”, and argued that the subjects that “keep people’s options open and unlock doors to all sorts of careers are the STEM [science, technology, engineering and maths] subjects.” – The Stage
Montreal Symphony Signs Deal To Create Virtual Immersive Content
For the next three years, the team from la Société des arts technologiques will spend a week each year recording OSM rehearsals and concerts to create immersive acoustic projects. “For sure we want to use these recordings for an augmented reality smartphone app that we will be launching in the upcoming months and years,” said Simon Ouellette, head of special projects for the OSM. – Montreal Gazette
The Problem With The Mindfulness Movement
With its promises of assisting everyone with anything and everything, the mistake of the mindfulness movement is to present its impersonal mode of awareness as a superior or universally useful one. – Aeon
Of Course We Make Decisions Based On Rational Information… Don’t We?
“Even statistical decision theorists do not make serious choices by consulting cold, textbook models. Like the rest of us, they resort to a knottier combination of deliberation, gut feel and blind hope. For choices, so too for beliefs, which, when met with evidence, are pushed and pulled by processes that are equally mysterious.” – The Guardian