What makes something offensive is that it presents an unwelcome viewpoint that creates discomfort, bruises egos, and hurts feelings. When people take offence, they are trying to silence those who offend them. Call this concept of offence offence-as-hurt. The main theoretical counter to this view is to argue that offence is not about ‘hurt feelings’, but about real harm.
Blog
Is American Ballet Theatre Trying To Do Too Much? (And Not Enough?)
Alastair Macaulay: “How many admirable policies can any company honor at one time? Currently it looks as if Ballet Theater has discarded Fokine, Ashton, Tudor, and — a big departure — the international stars from its scheduling. And who can notice Ballet Theater’s admirable purity of classical style? Its too-many-cooks approach to ballet obscures that.”
How Alexa Will Change How We See The World
For the moment, these machines remain at the dawn of their potential, as likely to botch your request as they are to fulfill it. But as smart-speaker sales soar, computing power is also expanding exponentially. Within our lifetimes, these devices will likely become much more adroit conversationalists. By the time they do, they will have fully insinuated themselves into our lives. With their perfect cloud-based memories, they will be omniscient; with their occupation of our most intimate spaces, they’ll be omnipresent. And with their eerie ability to elicit confessions, they could acquire a remarkable power over our emotional lives. What will that be like?
Puncturing Bunkum: The Subtext of Banksy’s Subversive “Director’s Cut” – Part IV
Banksy’s stealth video of the bidding on Girl with Balloon at Sotheby’s and the sales job that preceded it adds yet another layer of satire to a subversive intervention that has a more serious subtext — a critique of self-sabotaging auction houses that have damaged their credibility as a transparent public marketplace where buyers can feel reasonably confident that they are paying fair market value, equitably arrived at, on a level playing field.
Propwatch: the balloons in ‘Company’
When your life is a perplexity — because your friends are needy-bossy, your cute boys aren’t quite right, your choices are urgent but confused — the last thing you need is balloons. Specifically, huge silver balloons bumping along behind you and reminding you how old you are.
Everything must go
Rightly or wrongly, I’ve come to think of everything that’s occurred since 9/11 as part of “the recent past.” Those events that predate the coming of the twenty-first century, on the other hand, all seem to me to have taken place “a long time ago.” What inspired this train of thought, strangely enough, was the announcement the other day of the bankruptcy of Sears, Roebuck.
Recent Listening: Bruno Råberg With Barth and Cruz
Bruno Råberg Trio, Tailwind (Red Piano Records)
Trump Tower Sues Estate Of Art Dealer Who Died In Fire
The Trump Organization has filed a lawsuit seeking $90,000 in unpaid common charges and fees from a Trump Tower resident– six months after he died in a fire that engulfed his Fifth Avenue apartment. Trump Tower did not have sprinkler system that might have put out the blaze
Fewer People In Their 20s Are Working. Could It Be Cheap Entertainment Has Captured Them?
Over the past few decades, labor force participation has sharply dropped for men ages 20-34. Theories about the root cause range from indolence, to a lack of skills and training, to offshoring, to (perhaps most interestingly) the increasing attractiveness and availability of leisure and media entertainment. In this essay, we propose that the drop in labor participation rate of young men is a result of a combination of factors: (i) a decrease in cost of access to media entertainment leisure, (ii) increases in both the availability and (iii) quality media entertainment leisure, and (iv) a decrease in the marginal signalling utility of (conspicuous) consumption goods for all but the highest earners.
Soon It Won’t Be Possible To Spot Fakes – Video, Pictures, Sound… (And Then What?)
We’re rapidly approaching a point where actors will have a new source of revenue. Sooner than later, instead of offering Robert Downey, Jr. $50 million to play Iron Man, the movie studio will offer him a nominal licensing fee to use his likeness applied to an anonymous actor. Sound crazy? As technology improves (and it is improving at an exponential pace), it will become harder for us to discern what is real and what is fake.