Phineas Harper: “Across architectural culture we dread the label of unoriginality like a curse. We deride the derivative, we mock mimics, we fear facsimiles. Call us dull, call us sellouts, call us gentrifiers – just don’t call us copycats. I believe this sneering snobbery of derivation is deeply flawed and at odds with the potential of architecture as a collective creative force.” (For instance, Shigeru Ban is not the only architect allowed to use cardboard tubes.)
Author: Matthew Westphal
Nobel Winner Svetlana Alexievich On Why She Writes About Women At War
“Everything we know about war we know with ‘a man’s voice.’ We are all captives of ‘men’s’ notions and ‘men’s’ sense of war. ‘Men’s’ words. Women are silent. No one but me ever questioned my grandmother. My mother. Even those who were at the front say nothing. If they suddenly begin to remember, they don’t talk about the ‘women’s’ war, but about the ‘men’s.'”
Another Civil War Alternative-History Series Is Coming: This Time, Freed Slaves Get Three States As Reparations
A couple of weeks ago, HBO announced a series called Confederate, depicting an independent 21st-century Confederacy (the South won) where slavery is still legal. (There’s been a lot of queasiness and worse about this project on social media, not least because the producers, the Game of Throines guys, are white, although the head writers are black.) Meanwhile, Amazon has been developing a series titled Black America, in which ex-slaves were given Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and created the nation of New Colonia, which has been the United States’ neighbor and frenemy for 150 years.
Rule 34 In Action: Jon Ronson Visits The Booming World Of Made-To-Order Fetish Porn
There are condiments videos (a woman pouring tubs of mustard, ketchup, etc. over herself), flyswatting videos (a clothed woman swatting flies), drowning-rescue videos, a Wonder-Woman-attacked-by-a-gremlin video .. and then there’s the client referred to as Stamps Man. As Ronson tells a pair of custom producers, “You’re really on the coalface of the quirks of human sexuality.”
Philadelphia’s Dance Scene Is Totally Underrated, Says Dance Magazine
“You know Philadanco and Pennsylvania Ballet. But other than those staples, you may not think of Philadelphia as a huge dance hub. We’re here to prove that Philly is filled with underrated dance talent – and these six companies are just the start.”
Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra Closes Down
“The decision follows a Board vote in April to suspend operations for the 2017-18 season, pending a review of the organization’s prospects.”
Lost Play By ‘Peter Pan’ Author Turns Up In Texas
The script of the brief farce, titled The Reconstruction of the Crime, was found among J.M. Barrie’s papers at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin.
Met Museum Turns Over A Second Ancient Artwork To Police
“Manhattan prosecutors have taken custody of an ancient bull’s head that was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art because of concerns that the antiquity was looted from a Lebanese storage area in the 1980s during Lebanon’s civil war. … Last week, the Met surrendered an ancient vase that it bought at auction in 1989 because of concerns that it might have been looted from Italy.”
After Five Years, What’s Next for Crystal Bridges Museum?
“Founded by Walmart heiress Alice Walton, currently the wealthiest woman in the United States, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened its doors in 2011, but despite a commendable five-year record of accomplishment, it remains a perplexing outlier among the country’s well-endowed art museums – and not just because, like Walton, it grew up in Northwest Arkansas.”
Harold Williams, Founding CEO Of J. Paul Getty Trust, Dead At 89
In his 17 years there, he oversaw the construction of the hilltop Getty Center and led it to become one of the country’s most-visited museums; he also more than tripled the Trust’s endowment.