“Profits at Zaha Hadid Architects more than halved last year as the Arab spring brought several major projects to a halt. A conference centre and a complex of offices and shops in Cairo were put on hold, as was a conference hall in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Ballerinas And Eating Disorders – They Didn’t Always Go Together
“Ballerinas used to be plump by modern standards; indeed, the great Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova was criticised in the late 1890s for being too thin (mocked for her long, slender limbs, she was nicknamed ‘the broom’ by fellow students).” My, how things have changed. (Might Balanchine bear a bit of the blame?)
Want To Make Uncreative People More Creative? Pressure Them To Conform (A Little)
“Admittedly, that sounds like an oxymoron; creative thinking and conformity are usually considered mutually exclusive. But newly published research finds a specific sort of arm twisting can help people who aren’t terribly innovative increase their creative output. The key is pressuring them to think independently, within the confines of a group project.”
Forget The 10,000 Hours Of Practice! To Gain Expert Skill More Quickly, Use Electrodes On Your Brain
For years, research neurologists have been trying to determine what goes on in the brains of top athletes, performers and others when they attain “flow” – that fully engaged state of mind in which they achieve at peak level. Now US military researchers are trying to speed up the learning process (of, for example, expert snipers) by inducing “flow” with electric stimulation.
Could Future Wars Be Fought With Mind Control Weapons?
“Wars of the future might be decided through manipulation of people’s minds, concludes a report this week from the UK’s Royal Society. It warns that the potential military applications of neuroscience breakthroughs need to be regulated more closely.”
Barbie, Simpsons Dolls Banned In Iran
“The Islamic Republic’s morality police, fighting ‘Western intoxication’ as the dispute over nuclear technology has raised fears of war, last month went on a drive against Barbie,” and the country has since banned action figures based on characters from The Simpsons. Yet “Superman and Spiderman were still welcome in Iran – because they do battle for the oppressed.”
And The Critical Hatchet Job Of The Year Is …
Adam Mars-Jones’s review of Michael Cunningham’s novel By Nightfall in Britain’s The Observer. The citation for the prize, awarded by The Omnivore, says “Adam Mars-Jones’s review … was at once erudite, attentive, killingly fair-minded and viciously funny. Every one of his zingers … is earned by the argument it arises from.”
Werner Herzog Insults All Chickendom
From the 40-second video, Werner Herzog on Chickens: “Try to look a chicken in the eye with great intensity, and the intensity of stupidity that is looking back at you is just amazing.”
Eisenhower Family Doesn’t Like Frank Gehry’s Eisenhower Memorial
“The design shows Eisenhower as a youth gazing out at images of his adult accomplishments against a backdrop of the Kansas plains. But the Eisenhower family objects to the design and is attempting to delay approval of the project in a dispute that has pitted a leading American family against one of the country’s most recognized architects.”
Not Dinner Theater, But Dining As Theater
“It’s not often that I take my seat at a restaurant out of breath and disoriented but the Secret Restaurant prides itself on the punter’s total immersion into the setting – on the night I visited, that was Vienna, 1946. Having whispered a password in a Frenchman’s ear and been led a scrambling chase through tunnels, over duckboards and up flight after flight of freezing stairs, the diner finally finds themselves [sic] in a candlelit loft.”