“Words are really not so different from sofas and armchairs. They are external objects that do things in the world and, like other objects, they produce effects in our brains and thus eventually, through us, in the world. The only real difference is that, when it comes to what we call thinking, words are an awful lot easier to juggle around and rearrange than bits of furniture.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
How Dance Can Change The Person You Become
“What I know is that dance has made me aware of both emotional and physical empathy. I never fathomed that playing such a wide array of parts in ballet would be a kind of unexpected “cognitive behavioral therapy” that would change patterns in my relation to the real world by forcing me to constantly reevaluate myself and update my perceptions.”
Can Pop-Up Art Clinics Help People Be Healthier?
”You’re doing the art sitting next to people and you start talking to each other. It creates community and is therapeutic in the sense that the hospital becomes less sterile—it gives it a sense of beauty and helps people feel more at peace and connected to others.”
A Tech Pioneer Returns To The Arts As He Learns He’s Going To Die
He had to walk and play at the same time, which was difficult with his impaired sight and depth perception. The orchestra had worked out a plan to cover for him should he suffer any sudden problems onstage. Law and Tyan sensed that, given the importance he attached to “Fiddler,” his decline might accelerate once the play was over. Six weeks after the last performance, he went into hospice care and, less than forty-eight hours later, died
How Very Smart Thinkers Have Been Seduced By Big Brother
Perhaps we should blame it all on Plato. Ever since he introduced his concept of the “philosopher king,” countless intellectuals have been besotted by the notion of finding and working hand in hand with the ideal Big Brother, often with lethal results.
Good Design Is A Public Good (Why Is This So Hard To Understand?)
“The conventional wisdom is that design costs more and is only a luxury. Yet people from all walks of life deserve good design. The power of design to dignify will never be fully explored until average people have some sense that they deserve better.”
How Traveling To Learn Lost Its Edge
“In a world where travel has lost many of its mental and physical exertions, one meets people who fly thousands of miles to do a bit of shopping in Dubai, to lie on a beach in Bali, or to watch a cricket match in Adelaide… Some travellers travel enormous distances and keep all their preconceptions intact.”
Christmas Movies Are Really Propaganda For Capitalism
“In Christmas movies, audiences can bank on heartwarming plots where grouches become kind and misers become charitable. But Christmas movies also tend to reinforce the myth of the “good capitalist,” favoring stories about individual virtue over any real social change. The way Christmas movies tell it, the generosity of individuals is sufficient to mitigate the harms of class inequality.”
The Church Of Bookstores
“Unless you’re just about to board, bookshop browsing can be a deeper and more untethered exercise than other kinds of shopping. Just opening a book and reading a few lines can draw you partly into another world, one you might not have planned to visit. According to Vancouver publishing consultant Thad McIlroy, only 40 percent of bookstore purchases are premeditated. All the rest are decided on impulse.”
London’s First Permanent Virtual Reality Museum
“VR technology offers a new means of creating and subverting our interaction with an environment, allowing images to become sculptural and encouraging a different kind of attention. 360 will allow visitors to view some of these early and pioneering works produced by artists.”