Avram Finkelstein: “For public discourse to pierce through the churning perpetual motion machine of the American commons, it needs to come in bursts. Manifestos don’t work. Sentences barely do. You need sound bites, catchphrases, crafted in plain language. The poster is exactly that, a sound bite, and vernacular to the core. The poster perfectly suits the American ear.”
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William Mayer, Prolific Composer Who Ranged From Serious To Whimsical, Has Died At 91
Mayer composed everything from the six-minute opera “Brief Candle” to other, longer operas and orchestral works, choral works, and many, many pieces for children, including the well-known “Hello, World!”
Awards Race: New York Preferred ‘Ladybird,’ But Los Angeles Is All In For ‘Call Me By Your Name’
There’s no clear favorite now, with Spielberg’s The Post getting a different award, and both Ladybird and Call Me By Your Name winning multiple awards – and there’s always Get Out or The Florida Project, both of which are accumulating smaller awards as well. (Does that mean it’s a good year? Hm.)
This Year’s Bestsellers List – And The Book Sale Numbers, Yikes – Tell Us A Lot About Ourselves
Aside from Hillary Clinton’s memoir – which sold well for any kind of book, not just a political book – things are kind of grim, maybe because “leveraging a massive publicity platform is one of the few proven methods of selling a lot of books, but the media has become so balkanized that many best-selling authors are ‘celebrities’ invisible to most of the nation: YouTube stars, radio hosts, reality TV contestants.”
Humans Were Around For A Long Time Before Index Cards, But That Time Wasn’t Very Organized
Though, of course, humans use organization for good and for evil: “The index card was a product of the Enlightenment, conceived by one of its towering figures: Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, physician, and the father of modern taxonomy. But like all information systems, the index card had unexpected political implications, too: It helped set the stage for categorizing people, and for the prejudice and violence that comes along with such classification.”
What Actually Is Free Speech? Let’s Ask The (Ancient) Greeks
Why is the discussion about the First Amendment, and freedom of speech in general, so frustrating right now? “The two ancient concepts of free speech came to shape our modern liberal democratic notions in fascinating and forgotten ways. But more importantly, understanding that there is not one, but two concepts of freedom of speech, and that these are often in tension if not outright conflict, helps explain the frustrating shape of contemporary debates.”
Dance Rules In Cali, Colombia
Cali’s salsa culture runs deep – and has a split: “There are the purists, who like to keep their footwork on the ground, the way salsa was first danced in the 1970s. Then there are the more daring — typically younger — provocateurs, who incorporate demanding tricks and lifts frowned upon by traditionalists.”
The Radical Act Of Seeing, When One Artist Poses For Another
The photo essay by Friderike Heuer, painted by Hank Pander, is absolutely fierce: “It is an act of sheer defiance. It just is. The plan to shed half of your clothes, allowing someone not your lover to peruse your scarred, dilapidated body, simply has no other explanation.”
This 78-Year-Old French Avant-Garde Theatre Director Is Just Trying To Get More (A Lot More) Done
Ariane Mnouchkine, a founder of the Théâtre du Soleil (the founders got the theatre’s acreage in 1970 by squatting at a building the army abandoned), lives her values, including getting ready to cancel a hugely expensive trip to the U.S. if three Afghanistan-born actors can’t get visas. “Among the 100 members of her troupe, 26 countries are represented and as many languages spoken. In an era of creeping nationalism and ambient xenophobia, Ms. Mnouchkine stands firmly opposed to reflexive demonization.”
A Member Of Russia’s Feminist, And Jailed For It, Pussy Riot Curates A Show of Protest Art [VIDEO]
Artists who supported Pussy Riot and their anti-Putin stance were also arrested – and now one member of the punk group has curated a show of those artists’ work. Masha Alyokhina: “A lot of things happening inside prison walls stayed inside prison walls, and we should break this wall because it’s violence, it’s tortures, it’s murders which are happening there.”