“We don’t need digital detox. Or more accurately, we do need a detox, but we have misidentified the toxin. Interacting online is not inherently poisonous, and online interactions are no less meaningful than talking face to face. Different, yes, but just as valuable. If we experience problems relating to each other online, I believe it’s because we’re doing it wrong.” – NewMusicBox
Author: Douglas McLennan
In The Moment: The Essential Challenge For Dance
There is no full way to capture the presence of dance except through dance itself. This tension—between dance and the representation of dance—is always at the heart of dance; dancers feel it, too, and so do the people who watch dance and the people who write about it. – New York Review of Books
“Avengers” Edges Out “Avatar” To Become All-Time Movie Box Office Champ
What do all of these films have in common, besides an undying commitment to computer generated aliens? They’re no longer truly competitors now that they’re all owned by Disney, which is slated to continue its monopolistic dominance well into the future, with nearly a decade of theatrical releases and television series planned for Disney’s streaming service Disney+ already planned out. – Slate
Extinction Rebellion Protests Have Disrupted The UK. Is This The Way To Get Action On Climate Change?
The disconcerting thing about such radicalism, at this moment, is that it is the activists—rather than the state or law enforcement—who have the facts on their side. One of Extinction Rebellion’s favored tactics is to quote the first line of the executive summary of the 2018 report of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” – The New Yorker
Sometimes Our Most Important Architecture Is Ordinary
“Architectural preservation is often an issue of grandeur, both in a sense of size and richness, and decay. When we think of buildings that already been lost, they are almost always imposing structures—cathedrals, skyscrapers, temples. Yet the places where we enact our daily lives, and which reflect them even more than grand architectural statements, are smaller, more seemingly trivial and thus more vulnerable.” – CityLab
Epicuious: A Philosophy For The Modern World?
In the popular mind, an epicure fine-tunes pleasure, consuming beautifully, while a stoic lives a life of virtue, pleasure sublimated for good. But this doesn’t do justice to Epicurus, who came closest of all the ancient philosophers to understanding the challenges of modern secular life. – Aeon
Former Yale Law School Dean: Universities Need To Treasure Their Elitism, Not Hide It
Anthony Kronman: “Our most elite universities are today running away from their elitism, denying it, doing their best to conceal or suppress it. In running away from it, they not only disown values and traditions that are an important part of their identity, but they also disserve the great democratic country in which they sit. These elite schools are national treasures. Their elitism is what makes them such. It’s not a problem, it’s an asset, a value, something to be cherished and cared for.” – Chronicle of Higher Education
The Algonquin Round Table Crew Was Famously Witty. But They Made Little Lasting Impact
“The Algonquin Hotel became a city landmark in 1987, in large part because of the vicious circle’s outsize fame. This is a fine way of acknowledging a tourist destination, but it shouldn’t be mistaken as an endorsement of the group’s larger intellectual significance — because in the end, there isn’t much of one.” – The New York Times
San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum Was The Victim Of A Ransomeware Attack. Are Other Museums Next?
The museum was able fight back, enlisting the city’s IT security experts to regain control of its computer network. But the incident raises concerns about the vulnerability of cultural institutions when it comes to cyber security. – Artnet
What’s Missing In The Ways We Teach Music… Context?
“We’ve become very well-grounded in traditional education theory, techniques and subject matters. But being culturally responsive means teaching music where kids are, and with what interests them. It means using songs by Bebe Rexha or Wiz Khalifa before an American folk song. It means teaching kids to play a synthesizer, electric guitar or drum kit, not just a violin or recorder.” Washington Post