Blog

The Cities That Fall Into A Branding Trap

“Look at any piece of city marketing material, from promo videos to airline magazine ad inserts. It’s amazing how so many of them rely on the same basic ingredients: hipster coffee shops, microbreweries, bike lanes, creative-class members, startups, intimations of a fashion scene, farm-to-table restaurants, new downtown streetcars, etc. These are all good things, mind you: things cities should be happy to have. Some of them may even be modern necessities. But you can’t help but notice how few unique things about these cities manage to come through.” – CityLab

Disability As Strength – Except When Portrayed As Cliche In The Theatre

“Modern thinking around disability looks to a social model: people are disabled by society’s structures, the stairs they can’t climb and the doors a wheelchair can’t fit though are simple examples. It’s the job we can’t get, because having a disability is viewed as an inherent weakness rather than living with it being a demonstration of strength.” – The Guardian

What Makes Us Human: Laughter?

Something that sets us apart from these ancestors and primate relatives, and should be of special interest to anthropology, is our unique propensity to laugh. Laughter is a paradox. We all know it’s good for us; we experience it as one of life’s pleasures and a form of emotional release. Yet to be able to laugh, we must somehow cut ourselves off from feelings of love, hate, fear or any other powerful emotion.  – Aeon

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

A Sense Of Doom In The Air (What, Me Worry?)

“Since the financial crash of 2008, across Europe and in the United States, there has been (to borrow a phrase from Frank Kermode) a “sense of an ending”. Liberal orthodoxies have fallen into radical doubt. Populist movements are arrayed against the political and economic order that has stood in place for the past fifty years. Electorates have leaped into unknown futures. The grounds of civilization won’t break up under our feet so much as recede under melting ice caps and rising seas, while the indices of progress – life expectancy, equality, happiness and trust in political institutions – have gone into reverse in many parts of the world.”  – Times Literary Supplement