Oh yes, people showed up, and they asked real questions. Lee McIntyre, author of Post-Truth and one of the three, offers a report. (The hardest part: the six-year-old girl who looked him in the eye and asked, in all seriousness, “How do I know I’m real?”) – The Conversation
Author: Matthew Westphal
New Conservation Center & Stellar Van Gogh Show: David Bomford’s Last Hurrahs at MFA, Houston
Gary Tinterow, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has a knack for attracting distinguished staff. After Gary’s homecoming to Houston (where he grew up), to assume the MFAH’s directorship in 2012, one of his first and best hires was David Bomford, who became chairman of conservation and curator of European art. — Lee Rosenbaum
Propwatch: the strap-on in ‘When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other’
There is stuff you expect to find in a garage. A car. Metal shelving, peg board. Strip lighting that tints everything stark and queasy. A toolbox. Gaffer tape. An Amazon delivery box (there’s always a swoosh-marked Amazon box). They’re all here in Vicki Mortimer’s design. There’s also a strap-on. — David Jays
British Critic Alun Morgan Is Gone
Morgan’s critiques, reviews and album notes were among the most widely read of those by any contemporary jazz critic. — Doug Ramsey
Lost Soviet Art (Good Art, No Less) Keeps Turning Up In Kazakhstan’s Largest City
Mosaics, reliefs and sgraffiti from the days of the USSR are being found behind boards in Almaty and restored. Why did they escape being destroyed, as Soviet artworks were in so many other places? Most likely, because the capital of the newly independent country was moved somewhere else. – The Guardian
That Old Saw ‘Eskimos Have 50 Words For Snow’? Every Word Of It Is Wrong
Aaron Bady goes through they saying itself and its history to explain why. (For one thing, in Inuit languages, “they can have as many words as they want for almost anything.”) In fact, “what’s been the most interesting discovery is that all the wrong answers are at least as interesting and useful as the so-called right ones.” – Popula
Why Bodice-Rippers Have Become Big Business
It’s not simply that romance novels are “bubble gum for the mind” — there’s plenty of that available in just about every medium and style around. In fact, romance novels appeal largely to a particular demographic, and that’s for a particular reason. – JSTOR Daily
The Six-Foot-Seven Prisoner Who Staged The First All-Black Shakespeare
Richard Crafus, aka “King Dick”, was shipped off to a prison in southwestern England as an enemy combatant during the War of 1812. The biggest and strongest man in a segregated wing of the jail, he ran everything there — including a prisoners’ theatre, where he staged Romeo and Juliet and Othello. – The Stage
The Video Game That Lets You Fight Back Against Jim Crow And The KKK
“[Video game company] Rockstar’s version of American history is not for the fainthearted. The developer took pains to make Red Dead Redemption 2 as historically accurate as possible. Someone at Rockstar was clearly paying attention in history class, because Red Dead Redemption 2 unflinchingly confronts America’s ugly racial history throughout the game.” – Slate
How Music Gives You The Chills
“Neuroscientists have some ideas of about where these [physical responses] come from — essentially neurological reactions to being pleasantly surprised … Music’s ability to trigger moods, emotions, and memories make it a tool that could help treat patients struggling with anxiety or depression, especially when these conditions are related to other physical ailments, and even types of dementia.” – Quartz