“David M. Rubenstein has resuscitated some of this city’s icons with multimillion-dollar gifts to the Washington Monument and the National Archives. … With his newest duties, Rubenstein – whose day job as co-founder of the Carlyle Group has him steering one of the country’s largest private-equity firms – will oversee both of the city’s major cultural institutions.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Turin’s Top Museum Official Forced Out By Maverick Reformist Mayor
Chiara Appendino, a member of the populiist Five Star Movement who took office this summer, demaded the resignation of Fondazione Torino Musei president Patrizia Asproni “after it was revealed that a major sponsor of a proposed Edouard Manet exhibition was backing out of a plan to host the show in Turin” – a show that Appendino herself had reportedly opposed.
Esperanto: The Constant Battles Over The Language Of World Peace
The inventor of Esperanto, Ludovik Lazarus Zamenhof, explicitly hoped that his simple, easy-to-learn language would lead to easy communication between nations and peoples – and thus to an end to conflict between. Even that ideal was controversial, and was rejected at Esperanto’s first international congress. And the arguments kept going from there.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.26.16
A Star Turn for Giovanni di Paolo
Ever since I first saw Giovanni di Paolo’s The Creation and the Expulsion from the Paradise in the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum, I’ve been a huge fan of the Sienese painter. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-10-26
Get a room!
Looking at an orchestra through the four frames, I don’t see any space designed for innovation, imagination and open questions. I don’t see anything like a workshop. What do I mean by ‘workshop’? I mean … read more
AJBlog: SongWorking
“Wichi-Tai-To” By Towner and Peacock
From his American Indian grandfather, tenor saxophonist Jim Pepper learned “Witchi-Tai-To,” a peyote healing chant of the Native American Church. It became a part of the repertoires of several bands including Oregon … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-10-26
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How A Young Hollywood Actor Stays Motivated Through Countless Unsuccessful Auditions
“Annie Truex, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles, notes how much she’s learned much about the business of entertainment since moving to the city. For The Atlantic‘s ongoing series of interviews with American workers, I spoke with Truex about why she pursued acting, how she stays motivated throughout the audition process, and how beauty standards for women in entertainment affect her at work.”
Is There A White Writer Who Can Tell Stories About People Of Color Without Appropriating? This One
“What of the white writer who wishes to be artistically engaged but who simultaneously does not want to re-create cultural dominance in her work? Are there complex, nuanced representations by other white people which we might turn toward? I suggest that one answer may lie in the unlikely legacy of a pale, sickly writer from the mid-twentieth century, who smoked and drank herself to death by the age of fifty, and whose own personal turmoil and self-destruction may be at the root of the enormous insights about difference found throughout her work.”
The Most Widely-Read Theologian In Human History? Jack Chick, Author Of Hellfire-And-Brimstone Cartoon Tracts, Dead At 92
“A lot of people hated Jack Chick. He wrote furious screeds against Dungeons & Dragons, against Catholicism and against rock music; he waged a long and ultimately unsuccessful war on Halloween. If you were Jewish or Muslim or gay, Chick wanted you to be saved from the fires of hell and wrote a comic to tell you so.”
Presidential Elections And The Laws Of Comedy
Ian Frazier: “Certain timeless laws apply to comedy – ‘Put the funniest word in the sentence at the end,’ for example. But in the modern era, in the world of political comedy, strange laws never seen before seem to be kicking in. The law that the efficiency of microchips increases exponentially every few years may now apply to political comedy, which gets exponentially funnier with every election cycle.”
What Will English Sound Like In 100 Years? Here’s What Some Scholars Think
One influence will certainly be our language’s centuries-old habit of shifting vowel sounds over time. The other will be the huge number of people – well over a quarter of the world’s population – that speaks English as a second language. Here are some educated guesses as to how those influences will take shape. (includes sound clips)
For Centuries, European Painters Used Ground Mummies As Pigment
“From at least the 16th century until as late as the early 1900s, a pigment made from mummified human remains appeared on the palettes of European artists … Painters prized ‘mummy brown’ for its rich, transparent shade. As a result, an unknown number of ancient Egyptians are spending their afterlife on art canvases, unwittingly admired in museum galleries around the world.”