The “crisis” cannot be adequately described either by the number of openings on the academic job market, or the number of Great Books on university syllabuses. The health of the humanities should be measured instead by whether our society provides ample opportunities for its citizens to ask the fundamental questions about the good life and the just society. By that yardstick, it seems, the humanities are healthier than the doomsayers might lead us to believe. – The New York Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
Man Brings A Banksy On Antiques Roadshow And…
“I think the message here is that, if you do see a piece of graffiti art out there, leave it, leave it for the public,” Maas said in a manner reminiscent of a not-angry-but-disappointed dad. “I’m not lecturing you. I’m just saying, without that certificate, it’s just very difficult to sell. With it, it might be worth £20,000. Without it, you’re nowhere.” – Artnet
Life Is Getting Better (At Least Until Recently) So Why Are We Less Happy?
“Amid these advances in quality of life across the income scale, average happiness is decreasing in the U.S. The General Social Survey, which has been measuring social trends among Americans every one or two years since 1972, shows a long-term, gradual decline in happiness—and rise in unhappiness—from 1988 to the present.” – The Atlantic
Simon Rattle: Pandemic Is Forcing Many Musicians Out
“My worry is that so many musicians will be forced to leave the profession that we will not be able to return to anything like the cultural life that we enjoyed previously. And that this exodus is happening right now, and that it will not be noticed until it is too late,” said Rattle. – The Guardian
Michael Govan Responds To Criticism Of LACMA Redesign
“Far from representing a reduction in exhibition space, LACMA’s new building designed by Peter Zumthor, the David Geffen Galleries, is the final piece of a two decades-long expansion plan that effectively doubles the museum’s gallery space and replaces its ailing, nonfunctional facilities.” – New York Review of Books
UCLA Study: TV Diversity Up In Front Of The Camera, Not Better Behind It
“There has been a lot of progress for women and people of colour in front of the camera,” Darnell Hunt, dean of the school’s social sciences division and the study’s co-author, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, there has not been the same level of progress behind the camera.“ – Toronto Star (AP)
Baltimore Museum Of Art Chair Defends Sale Of Warhol, Marden And Still
Clair Zamoiski Segal asserts that “there is nothing short-sighted nor nefarious about deaccessioning. It is a regular practice, undertaken by every art museum in the United States. Assertions otherwise are simply a means of inflaming controversy and serve only to maintain the status quo of museums as repositories of riches serving the elite alone.” – ARTnews
It’s Probably Not Possible To Live A Contemplative Life Any More
The contemplative life hits us as a kind of sudden derangement, ripping us out of the fabric of life, driving us into libraries, bookstores, and campus events in desperate efforts to meet fellow travelers. But when we get there, we find that our eccentricity, roughness, and lack of training in academic gentility make such relationships impossible. Letters go unanswered, invitations withheld, applications rejected. – Chronicle of Higher Education
How a 25-Year-Old From Nowhere Became Podcasting’s Go-To Guy
Within a couple years of starting his newsletter, this random guy was able to quit his day job and become, for lack of a better word, a full-time expert, his pod-related opinions and observations quoted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His newsletter Hot Pod now has between 20,000 and 25,000 subscribers (a combination of paid and free) and earns six figures, he says — a substantial figure for what amounts to a trade journal written almost like a personal zine, mixing the latest pod news with commentary and asides. – Medium
The Case Against Pierre Boulez
When conductors manage to continue performing into their eighties, their colleagues tend to soften their views, even of maestros who were once feared and despised. A shock of white hair and a newly tremulous tone of voice in rehearsals has helped many former tyrants come to be seen as benevolent fountains of wisdom. I can think of no other artist for whom this transformation was as complete, or improbable, as Pierre Boulez. When he was a young composer and polemicist in Paris in the 1940s and 1950s (he did not seriously take up conducting until later), he seemed intent on burning down the entire music world. – New York Review of Books