Yes, that’s pretty damned alarming for anyone who knows history. “Many cultural leaders in the state Baden-Württemberg, of which Stuttgart is the capital, saw the inquiry about artists’ nationalities as an ominous sign of the party’s increasing interest in the arts — and a possible clue of what the party might focus on if it were to gain greater power over arts institutions.” – The New York Times
Blog
Study: Music Works As Well As Drugs In Calming Nerves Before Surgery
The patients in the trial were either given the drug midazolam or played the song Weightless by UK band Marconi Union for three minutes, while having an anaesthetic to numb a region of the body. – BBC
A Sneak Peek At George Lucas’s New LA Museum
A 30-minute slide presentation provided a brief snapshot of what will be in the museum — a collection, curators said, that will include the poetic paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the bright and rounded comic art of graphic novelist Chris Ware and the work of celebrated L.A. muralist Judy Baca. The pieces that generated oohs and ahhs from the San Diego audience, however, were of a more pop variety, namely those connected to the “Star Wars” franchise. – Los Angeles Times
What Is That Odd Ungrammatical Language People Are Using On The Internet?
Today, thanks to the development of autocorrect, we could all easily write “correctly,” and yet, as Gretchen McCulloch notes, we don’t. We override automatic capitalization when our phones provide it, if it doesn’t suit our purposes. We purposely “misspell” and “misuse” words, ignore and overuse punctuation marks, and modify the basic rules of grammar. Hell, we even retype a keyboard smash (like “asdjhfksaskd,” which I just typed three times) if it appears insufficiently smashy. – The Baffler
London’s Mayor Canceled Norman Foster’s Flashy 1000-Foot Observation Tower. Here’s Why
We Hate To See Orchestras Fail. It’s Just That We Don’t Support Them, Either
Anne Midgette: “I often talk about the way the classical-music world tends to conflate institutions with the art form. When an orchestra closes, it’s seen as an assault on Beethoven and Brahms. By contrast, when a restaurant closes or a car company goes bankrupt, people may bitterly bemoan it, but they don’t see it as a threat to food, nor do they think that cars are endangered.” – Washington Post
Books That Can Take You Deep Into Travel
“As much as I’d like to dissolve the beach read label entirely, I must also admit I have a type: I want a meaty, absorbing book that takes me further into a vacation by connecting with the cultures that produced it. I want a book that can’t be disposed of, one that will take me somewhere entirely new.” – The Conversation
Do We Have An Internal GPS Tuned In To The Earth’s Magnetic Field?
Perhaps our distant evolutionary ancestors, millions of years in the past, also had an innate navigational ability that exploited magnetic field lines. This would be extremely useful, offering advantages not only in barren environments, but when exploring new territories to find resources for survival. – Aeon
Why Do We Do Things To Be Perverse?
Unruliness, perversity, pigheadedness—psychologists have long been interested in this bestiary of paradoxical thought and action. Perversity is a puzzle. It’s hard to explain, scientifically, what Edgar Allan Poe described as “the imp of the perverse.” – The New Yorker
The Rise Of Ambient (Background) Music
Ambient is often as haunting and uncanny as it is gorgeous. But the idea of music that eschews gestural rhetoric—there are no statements, no returns, no developments—is still highly experimental, avant-garde territory in the current state of the classical tradition. – Van