“The real revelation in ‘America Is Hard to See’ comes in the works from before World War II – how not-European, not-modernism modern, not-programmatic, not-pure it looks. … At the same moment in the early 20th century when Europe and Russia, especially, were trying to make art dealing with the modern condition, Americans were actually just being modern, living it.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
‘The Game Done Changed’: Reconsidering ‘The Wire’ Amidst The Baltimore Uprising
“I am now seeing what the The Wire was missing, despite its much lauded, painstaking verisimilitude: the voices of people organizing together for change. Everyone on The Wire seeks individual solutions for social problems: the lone cop, the lone criminal, the lone teacher, the lone newspaper reporter. Yes, it is certainly true that when entrenched bureaucracies battle individuals, individuals lose. But when bureaucracies battle social movements, the results can be quite different.”
The Media Needs A History Lesson When Addressing Civic Unrest, Says The Director Of The African-American History Museum
Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture: “In some ways as I watch the media coverage of Baltimore, Ferguson and other things, I’m amazed at how ahistorical the coverage is. How people do not understand that in some ways this is part of a long tradition where people who feel devalued find ways to find a voice.”
Finally, A Step In The Right Direction! This Ballet Company Is Returning To Live Music For All Performances
“It’s the news that dance and music fans have awaited for decades: For the first time in more than 20 years, every major Orlando Ballet performance next season will be accompanied by a live orchestra.”
Cable’s Dreaded Bundle Comes To Internet TV
“This may come as a surprise to those who expected the television of the future to resemble, say, a smartphone screen, where every channel would be roughly like an app that you subscribe to à la carte. But overestimating change in the television industry is a rookie mistake.”
Jorge Luis Borges’s ‘Library of Babel’ Is Now a Real Website
“The Library, subject of a 1941 Borges story by the same name, contains all possible combinations of letters, and is tended to by melancholy Librarians trying in vain to locate meaning within the nonsense. … If that sounds like a less-than-appealing place to spend your time – not to mention a logically impossible one – keep your rational, unfevered brain away from libraryofbabel.info, where Brooklyn-based writer and coder Jonathan Basile has set out to bring Borges’ dream/nightmare to life.”
The Cat-Painting Renaissance Of The 19th Century
“Bourgeois collectors, interested in enhancing plush domestic interiors, bought the cat canvases. It became a good market for artists, some of whom became well known in the genre.” (slideshow)
‘The Bieber Of Buddhism’
“Except imagine if Justin Bieber had been pronounced, from age seven, the most perfectly compassionate and wise being.” His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, visits Princeton.
25 Years After They Were Executed, The Ceausescus Have Become One Of Romania’s Biggest Tourist Draws
See their lavish living quarters! See the People’s Palace, their enormous, garish pile of a public building that can be seen from space! See the spot where they were shot to death!
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.04.15
The Dangers Of Audience Gimmicks
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-05-04
Fight and flight
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2015-05-04
A Union of Four Unalikes
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-05-03
Weekend Extra: Whitfield And Greensill
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-05-03
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