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The Semantics Of Cooties (Speaking Of Contagion) And Other Children’s Semi-Nonsense Words

“In a kid’s world, cooties and other similar contagions may not be real — but they’re deadly serious. The North American children’s lore of cooties is ‘a social contaminant that pass[es] from one child to another, a form of interpersonal pollution.’ … Children who play this game learn and absorb concepts familiar to a public health emergency” (such as immunization — remember cooties shots?), “but on their own strange terms. … [The] search for a satisfactory meaning might not mean much when it comes to children. Because nonsense makes a lot of sense in a kid’s world.” – JSTOR Daily

Has Our Sense Of Time Changed In Lockdown? Scientists Are Studying…

Time’s elasticity has perplexed philosophers for millennia. It has inspired writers for centuries. More recently, it has captured the attention of psychologists like Ogden, who have crafted experiments to understand the conditions of time perception: whether people feel time differently when they’re hot or cold, stressed or at ease, watching the clock or focused on something else. Time can disappear when we are deeply immersed in an activity we enjoy—the baking of sourdough bread, or the total absorption in an art project. Other studies suggest that fear and anxiety shape our sense of time just as powerfully. – Wired

How Being Bored Helps Us

We should not fear being bored, say psychologists James Danckert and John D Eastwood, the authors of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom. Their research has revealed boredom to be widely misunderstood, perhaps even unfairly maligned. Boredom evolved to help us, says Danckert. It signals that we are unengaged, in need of an activity to satisfy us. “I think that’s a good thing, in a lot of ways. How we respond to it is up to us. I think you can minimise it. But do you want to totally eliminate it? I don’t think you do.” – The Guardian

Jean Erdman, Dancer/Choreographer/Stage Director, Dead At 104

“A former principal dancer for Martha Graham, Ms. Erdman first came to wide notice as a choreographer in the 1940s, and she remained in the vanguard of the field for decades. She later created performance pieces for the Theater of the Open Eye, an avant-garde New York stage she founded in 1972 with her husband, Joseph Campbell, the scholar of literature and myth.” – The New York Times

We Might Need To Redesign The Backends Of Theatres

“The best analogy I can provide is the changes we’ve seen in travel since 9/11. Once it was clear that security screenings were here to stay, new airports were designed with that reality in mind. There is no finer example than the airport in Indianapolis where space for screening was designed into the original plan and has contributed to the airport being chosen as one of America’s ten best year after year. Contrast that with Newark Airport where security has been shoe-horned into hallways and gate areas that were not designed for it and aren’t the least bit conducive for it either. Nearly every performing arts venue of any scale in the world is the equivalent of Newark Airport.” – Dance Enthusiast

This May Be The World’s Biggest, Starriest Online Ballet Class

“[Worldwide Ballet Class] stands out for offering dancers of all levels the opportunity to take open company class alongside professional dancers, six days a week … taught by the likes of Julie Kent, Christopher Stowell, SFB ballet master Felipe Diaz and National Ballet of Canada principal Jurgita Dronina.” All for free, no less. Here’s a Q&A with co-founders Diego Cruz and Rubén Martín Cintas. – Pointe Magazine

Emmanuel Macron’s Plan For Culture Over The Next Year

He said the coming months should be ones of “learning and culture,” as opposed to travel and leisure. (France has also imposed limits on international travelers for the summer months). He added that artists would need to invent new forms of culture, saying that “nothing prevents us from inventing something else, in smaller forms with no public or little public.” – Artnet

To Stream Or Not To Stream? Arthouse Film Distributors Face Quandary With This Year’s New Releases

Some, like A24 and Sony Pictures Classics, are sticking with the existing theater-first model and waiting the COVID lockdown out; says a top Sony exec, “Without theatrical, the business disappears.” Yet some smaller distributors “have seized an opportunity to release their films as digital links, often through art-house and independent theaters that have eagerly accepted a chance to earn some revenue and keep their homebound audiences engaged.” (Alamo Drafthouse, meanwhile, is launching its own streaming platform.) – The Washington Post