“Humor in the time of Trump is a triumph for our democracy. There’s nothing he can do to stop it and the message has plenty of messengers. Information is there for anyone who wants to know, as comedy takes on a pioneering new role in the dissemination of that information. Resistance takes many forms, and humor may turn out to be the most potent of all.”
Blog
How The Big Auction Houses Are Mutating To Survive
“Though the hammer’s coming down on a major price in front of a crowd is good for headlines, auction houses have dealt with the pressures of the business by branching out. Private sales are increasingly important to the bottom line, as are advisory businesses — the auction houses help a collector manage her treasures, for instance, or broker acquisitions for museums.”
A Visit To Google’s ‘Moonshot Factory’
“A snake-robot designer, a balloon scientist, a liquid-crystals technologist, an extradimensional physicist, a psychology geek, an electronic-materials wrangler, and a journalist walk into a room. The journalist turns to the assembled crowd and asks: Should we build houses on the ocean?” Is this the set-up to a joke? No, it’s The Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson proposing his own “moonshot idea” on a reporting trip to Google’s X, “perhaps the only enterprise on the planet where regular investigation into the absurd is not just permitted but encouraged, and even required.”
Eight Ways Non-Profits Talk About Exploiting Workers
“The nature of nonprofit exploitation is revealed in the language we use uncritically. I’ve ranked eight common nonprofit phrases from least to most exploitative.”
The Insane History Of The Ballpoint Pen
Invented by a Hungarian in Argentina, re-engineered by an American high school dropout, it created such a sensation when it appeared in a New York department store that the police had to control the crowds. (This even though it sold for the present-day equivalent of $165 each.) Inventory sold out in a flash (and disappeared mysteriously from the factory). And that’s not even the first year.
Image Fees For PhD’s? Outrageous!
“As one-off fees, you might say, ‘that’s not so bad’. But consider that your average art history PhD will have dozens, if not perhaps hundreds, of images, then soon even an unpublished PhD can become prohibitively expensive. You want to discuss mid-18th Century portraiture, and show perhaps 50 images? That’ll be £750. You want to turn that PhD into a book? £3050 please, before you’ve even thought of printing costs. Want to put on a Hogarth exhibition, with a decent catalogue? £8600. Ouch. And Tate are on the cheaper end of the scale.”
The 10 Best Places In DC To Sit And Really Enjoy Art
“Sitting down, in a museum, can be an almost radical act: a refusal to flow along with the distracted crowd, idly passing by art as if it was just one more stream of visual enticement in a visually saturated world. A good sit is all about committing to the depth, not the breadth, of the art itself, seeing more by deciding to see less.” Philip Kennicott picks the finest spots in greater Washington to do just that.
A Jazz Revolution In Philly
The October Revolution in Jazz & Contemporary Music was something like a State of the Union for free improvisation and avant-garde composition, and also a statement of potential. An intergenerational sweep of experimentalists — including younger acts as well as many of free jazz’s first-generation heroes, now in their 70s, 80s and 90s — appeared on a well-appointed stage in a city not known for high-budget jazz presentations. It was a rare institutional moment for the improvising avant-garde and maybe proof that in a moment when jazzis surging, the United States can respect its fringes on a level that only Europe historically has.
How to Become A Rockette, According To The Coach Who’s Trained 36 Of Them
“After 12 seasons dancing with the Rockettes, Rhonda Kaufman Malkin knows a thing or two about becoming one of Radio City’s iconic dancers. … At the most recent Rockettes callback, over half of the 25 dancers were Malkin’s students – and seven of them were offered contracts. Here’s how to get to Radio City, according to Malkin.”
The Very Modern Life Of An Old-Timey Baseball Organist
A reporter climbs up to the equivalent of the organ loft (which looks “more like an air traffic control booth”) at Fenway Park to watch Boston Red Sox organist Josh Kantor and his high-tech equipment at work.