Category: issues

A decade of moments…

Last April, an earthquake devastated the medieval-cum-Baroque town of L’Aquila. Emergency relief efforts were successful, but now, “[s]hortages of money, political will, architectural good sense and international attention – along with a distinctly Italian predilection for a kind of magical thinking – threaten to finish what the quake started.”

“[T]he two main customs observed by many 21st-century Jews on Dec. 25 [are] eating Chinese food and being the first to see the Christmas blockbuster. But less well-known are the more historic – and, to be blunt, more bizarre – Christmas Eve customs that Jewish communities have kept secret, even from most Jews.”

“Artists need and deserve work, just as all Americans do. And their industry is a key engine in our economic recovery. More than 5.7 million jobs in this country are generated by the nonprofit arts sector, and that work touches and enriches the lives of all Americans.”

“[H]ow pure does giving have to be? If there’s anything in it for you — like a tax break or your name on a building — [does] that automatically diminish the gift?”

The basic rationale makes perfect sense, of course: No one can read or see or listen to or think about everything, thus we critics rush into the room and wave our arms over our heads and shout, “Stand back, everyone, we’ve got this covered! Listen up!” Another part of me, though, fiercely and irrationally despises the “Best” lists that appear at year’s end.

“What this study seems to call for more profoundly is the opportunity to reassess what we, as well as the NEA, really mean when we are surveying adults about their arts experiences.”

“Over the course of the last quarter-century, the arts look like a bastion of stability compared with other popular leisure activities in which masses of Americans traditionally have invested time, money and the effort it takes to show up in person and sit among strangers.”

“Since 1965, the percentage of graduates of highly-ranked business schools who go into consulting and financial services has doubled, from about one-third to about two-thirds. And while some of these consultants and financiers end up in the manufacturing sector, in some respects that’s the problem.”

“For many, the prospect of handwriting dying out would signal the end of individualism and the entree to some robotic techno-future. … [But h]andwriting slowly became a form of self-expression [only] when it ceased to be the primary mode of written communication. When a new writing technology develops, we tend to romanticize the older one.”