“A satirical song that takes a tongue-in-cheek swipe at religious extremism, militancy and contradictions in Pakistani society has become an instant hit here, drawing widespread attention as a rare voice of the country’s embattled liberals.” The band’s name: Beygairat Brigade (Punjabi for Dishonor Brigade).
Author: Matthew Westphal
Do The Humanities Really Need To Be Protected From The Encroachment Of The Sciences?
On the New York Times‘s philosophy blog, The Stone, German literature scholar William Egginton and philosophy professor Alex Rosenberg debate the issue – along with the question, “Can neurophilosophy save the humanities from hard science?”
Slate Picks The Millennium’s New Classics
“The new millennium is only 11 years old, but we at Slate became curious – as a thought experiment – about which cultural artifacts since 2000 will speak to future eras. What are the timeless expressions being forged in our noisy moment? … To that end, we asked Slate contributors to name the new classics in the fields they know best.” Let the arguments begin!
Cleveland Orchestra Placing Its Bets On European Audiences
“Between an increasingly active panel of supporters in Europe and the growing likelihood of a residency at a new venue under construction in Paris, the orchestra appears to be staking ever larger portions of its future on touring and moving toward becoming a global institution.”
Adam Gopnik On The New Yorker House Style (Yes, There Really Is One)
“I do think there’s a house style, or a collective house choir-voicing … Name its parts? First, a faith in the particular, in the facticity of things – this thing here rather than that thing, a tendency to love ideas but bend them back towards objects … Next, an almost excessive value placed on humor, a belief that … funny sentences can never be bad ones.”
Historic Minneapolis Theater Is Closing – No, Wait, It’s Not
“Rumors of the Loring Theater’s demise have been exaggerated” – reports appeared Monday afternoon that all of this fall’s scheduled acts at the 1920s-era jewel box had been cancelled and that the theater was closing. Says the theater’s director, “We are not going out of business … [we’re] trying to hang on as best we can.”
Sony Music’s Plans For World Domination
Doug Morris, new head of Sony Music Entertainment: “My plan here is very simple: To help create the pre-eminent record company in the world.”
Passport To The Past, Or Why I Collect Old Restaurant Menus
Jeff Weinstein: “[We] couldn’t really know if … anyone from the deep, dark past, moved and felt the same way we did. … That scary, childish doubt goes far to explain my lifelong search for some connection to a particular past, one that, were I able to visit, I could negotiate with confidence and treat as my own. For some reason I can’t explain, food has always seemed to be the most reliable constant, a true passport back.”
How Many Artists Does It Take To Depict A Light Bulb?
“It’s been cast in bronze, stuffed in a jar and painted by the likes of Jasper Johns, Man Ray and Alexander Calder. Introducing one of the art world’s lesser-known icons: the light bulb.” New York’s Pace Gallery has assembled 32 artists’ take on the subject.
Martin Scorsese Makes A 3-D Children’s Film
The director who made tough cabbie Travis Bickle and boxer Jake LaMotta into cinema icons talks about filming “a graphic novel … about a 12-year-old orphan named Hugo who lives inside the walls of a 1930s Paris train station.”