Soaring rents and competition from online shopping have forced out many beloved mom-and-pop shops, which many residents say decimates neighborhoods and threatens New York’s unique character. Then there is the blight that shuttered stores bring, including vagrants, graffiti and trash.
Author: Douglas McLennan
The Arts World Has A Health Care Crisis
Magazines Are Threatened. But The Magazine Cover Still Has Great Power
One very public-facing fragment of the medium remains: the cover. A magazine cover is all at once a cultural statement, a conversation starter, a negotiating asset, a digital selling point, a mood.
What Are Our Ethical Responsibilities To Our AI Creations?
What sorts of responsibilities would we owe to these simulated humans? However else we might feel about violent computer games, no one seriously thinks it’s homicide when you blast a virtual assailant to oblivion. Yet it’s no longer absurd to imagine that simulated people might one day exist, and be possessed of some measure of autonomy and consciousness.
Does The New Use Of “They” Hurt Your Ears?
If English had not changed in exactly these kinds of ways forever, we’d all be speaking the language of Beowulf. Some might wish it so, but count me out. Pronouns change, just as we do. We celebrate language change that has already happened as pageant, procession, progress. Why not celebrate it while it’s happening?
How Do Our Brains Process Art? (It Depends…)
In some cases, the questions that preoccupy philosophers are identical to the questions of psychologists and so are amenable to straightforward scientific research. Sometimes, though, the philosophical questions aren’t empirical—nobody is going to do an experiment to answer the question “What is art?”—but, still, one can study an interesting near neighbor, in the style of what’s sometimes known as “experimental philosophy.” For instance, you can look at what people (art experts, laypeople, four-year-olds) think is art.
1968 Was A Fateful Year. How We Think About It 50 Years On
Revisiting the Sixties leads to a sobering conclusion: everything has changed, and nothing has changed.
Controversial Previously-Cancelled Robert Lepage Work Will Be Produced In Paris
A controversial play about the relationship between whites and Indigenous peoples will finally be presented after previously being cancelled following criticism of content judged culturally insensitive. The Paris-based Theatre du Soleil says in a statement it will put on Quebec playwright Robert Lepage’s Kanata this December.
A Shocking Decline In UK Arts Teachers (And Arts Education)
Current debates about social class in the arts miss a vital point. How are working class young people going to access the arts if they don’t experience them in school?
Why Do We Assume Unhappiness Is Toxic?
Self-help—the enemy of the uncalm—is, unsurprisingly, an American phenomenon. It evinces a sensibility well suited to a country where the self has always been the most relevant unit.