Presuming to speak for that civilization, Trump said, “We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes . . .” The Internet cried with one voice: “We write what?” Like many of Trump’s utterances, the line was at once ludicrous and sinister. His veneration for orchestral music came as a surprise to almost everyone, and the implication that some cultures are incapable of creating symphonies stirred bad memories.
Author: Douglas McLennan
When The Leaders Of The World Went To An Orchestra Concert
As the cameras panned over the orchestra, soloists and chorus, each and every musician (even the terrific timpanist with a goatee that extended down to his white tie) gave the impression of attempting to personally bring light, reason, substance, even love, into the life of world leaders capable of making the world better or blowing it to smithereens.
Meet The 13-Year-Old Indonesian Prodigy Who’s Lighting Up The Jazz World
“Joey Alexander has the world at his feet: his first two albums have attracted Grammy nominations; his playing partners and musical mentors are some of the biggest names in jazz; and he has recently relocated from his native Bali in Indonesia to an apartment in downtown Manhattan.”
Believe Your Eyes? New Technology Is Making That Impossible
“At a time when distrust in journalistic institutions is swelling, technology that further muddies the ability to discern what’s real is rapidly advancing. Convincing Photoshop-esque techniques for video have arrived, and the result is simultaneously terrifying and remarkable.”
Musicians Are Being Warned Not To Talk About Influences On Their Work Our Of Fear Of Copyright Charges
A recent court judgment has worried many in the music industry that acknowledging music and musicians who influenced you could lead to charges of copyright…
Someone Is Flooding The FCC With Fake Comments Asking To End Net Neutrality
The fraudulent letter-writing campaign wasn’t a small-time operation. Thousands of form letters had been filed online, fraudulently signed under the names of real people, from Utah to Maine. “Whoever set this up got a large cloud service to a rate-limited public FCC API that doesn’t allow many submissions. They had to spin up a huge number of servers to make it work.”
Conspiracy Theorists “Love” The Public Art In Denver’s Airport
Conspiratorial “experts” like Jay Weidner assert that the airport’s murals and capstone prove the existence of a secret government plan for a “New World Order.” Others implicate the airport in the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. One local Evangelical Christian group, Cephas Ministries, claimed that the DIA was built as part of a plot to murder the “people that Lucifer hates.”
Why Emojis Are An Important Addition To Our Language
“On one estimate, only 30-35 percent of the social dimensions of meaning, in our daily interactions with others, come from language, with up to a staggering 70 percent deriving from nonverbal cues. This includes visual cues such as the other person’s body language, facial expression, and gestures, as well as how close they stand to us—we’ve all experienced the discomfort of the individual who occupies too much of our personal space for comfort; our emotional response is, invariably, likely to be negative. We also respond to their physical appearance, their dress, and the environment in which we encounter them, which provides information about their occupation or mode of living.”
Ten Years Ago It Became Illegal To Smoke In Public Buildings In The UK. It Had An Effect On The Role Of Smoking In Movies
“Smoking used to be significant, especially on film and TV. It is now even more so. At first, it was a prop; famously, or so it was said, a way of giving actors something to do with their hands. I prefer to think that it is a way of expressing, or evading, some deep inner turbulence. It signifies nonchalance and its opposite, while providing for the camera and our gaze a curling backdrop of smoke with which the cinematographer can make play.”
Polly Carl Writes About What Democratization Of Our Arts Really Means
“The demand for democratization isn’t rebellious, but rather, our responsibility as citizens—to push our field to be more representative of the America we live in. The “gatekeeper types” have represented a small and exclusive part of our democracy and we must be challenged, and we don’t have to react defensively. Rather, we might have to feel the precariousness that women and trans people and people of color know so very well.”