Gen. Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who overthrew King Farouk and established the Republic of Egypt, “often used art as a means to convey political messages and decisions to citizens, raise their morale and entrench their sense of belonging to the state.” (Among his collaborators: Umm Kulthum, then and now the Arab world’s most revered singer.) The country’s current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is using a similar approach.
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Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.24.17
Berkshire Museum Disposables: Bierstadts, Bouguereaus, Calders, Church, Inness, “George Washington”
The hit list is out. The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA, today identified (see the above link) all 40 works that it intends to sell through Sotheby’s to bankroll its $60-million reinvention plan. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-07-24
Digging to France
When I tell a U.S. colleague about several concerts I’m playing in France he says: “You’re Jerry Lewis!” The French, it’s true, have a long tradition of appreciating U.S culture, and yes, that silly American … read more
AJBlog: PianoMorphosis Published 2017-07-24
Into the Wilderness
At the bottom of the hill where I live is what used to be called a Dead End. Now, I believe, developers address them more euphemistically – No Outlet, for example. The pavement doesn’t stop … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-07-24
Recent Listening In Brief
It is impossible to review even a smattering of the dozens of albums that land in the Rifftides mailbox. With the Sweden trip looming, time allows for mentions of a few relatively … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-07-24
The New Billion-Dollar Temples Our Tech Giants Are Building
Tech giants are now in the same position as great powers in the past – the bankers of the Italian Renaissance, the skyscraper-builders of the 20th century, the Emperor Augustus, Victorian railway companies – whereby, whether they want to or not, their size and wealth find expression in spectacular architecture.
What We Learned About Fandom After Studying It For A Year
After a year of comprehensive and systematic research, we can safely say fandom is a relationship — a love relationship between the self and an object of fandom, whether that object is a show, movie, book, sport, team, league, band, genre, product, brand, person, activity, or idea. We actually refer to fandom as “love,” differentiating it from “liking something” by the loyalty, devotion, depth of interest, willingness to invest, and desire for closeness that it engenders. While at face value fandom may look unidirectional, reciprocity is underway nonetheless.
The “Beautiful Soul” Idea That Underpins Our Ideas Of Self-Improvement
“At the core of the beautiful soul is the idea that the individual possesses an innate cognitive potential. Subject to the right environmental and educational conditions, this latent potential can be developed to reach a more perfect state of intellect, morality, character and conduct. The beautiful soul is an aesthetic concept focused on developing human capacities and advancing knowledge and culture. It entails the pursuit of personal cultivation to create a convergence of the individual aesthetic impulse with a collective ethical ideal.”
How Parents Can Spark A Life Of The Mind
“Explaining all the way, my father introduced his children to Shakespeare, play by play, as well as to classic Westerns. He explained each and every joke in each and every Gilbert and Sullivan operetta (“You shall sit, if he sees reason, through the grouse and salmon season!”). He read aloud an astonishing number of the works of P.G. Wodehouse, explaining the jokes, however inappropriate.”
The Great Essay Is Rarely About What It Says It’s About
The essay, in Brian Dillon’s account, is both erotic and absent, lapidary and profuse, and is at its best when always concerned with its own realisation of its inherent sense of failure. Before this discussion of etymology, though, comes a bravura cadenza of topics, placed to make us realise the essay is never about what it claims to be at all.
How Cool Became “Cool”
“The history of post-war cool is both a history of these strange convergences – between French intellectuals, African American musicians and white working-class Hollywood heroes – and of the continuing conflicts between and within them.”
Are Pricey University Fine Arts Degree Programs On The Verge Of A Crash?
“In recent days, it was announced that a graduate program in theater at Harvard would suspend admissions for the next three years after receiving a so-called failing grade from the Department of Education that could result in a loss of access to federal student loans. The finding, which I first read about in the Boston Globe, should be a shot across the bow for elitist arts programs with high tuitions, programs that long have ignored the realistic economic prospects of their graduates.”
Has Classical Music “Recovered” From Atonality?
“The tyranny is now gone and tonality is back. But the restoration of reality has not taken place all at once. What began emerging from under the rubble of 12-tone music back in the 1960s was minimalism. In it, tonality returned with a vengeance but was, at first, more like a patient from a trauma ward gradually recovering consciousness. The traumatized patient slowly comes out of a coma, only gradually recovering motor skills, coordination, movement, and coherent speech. The musical movement known as minimalism is the sometimes painfully slow rediscovery of the basic vocabulary of music: rhythm, melody, and harmony.”