When we learn how the world is made through words, we also learn to be sceptical of our current iteration of reality and more tolerant of other perspectives. If life can be differently worded, it can be differently lived. – The Guardian
Tag: 08.10.19
Bob Wilber, Who Specialized In Early Jazz, Dead At 91
“While other budding jazz musicians of the 1940s were enamored of the daring bebop innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Mr. Wilber, … a clarinetist and saxophonist who was a protege of Sidney Bechet, one of the founding fathers of jazz, … looked toward the past for inspiration. He found it in the music of the 1920s.” – The Washington Post
Why Small Talk Matters
Casual conversation—whether at the start of a company-wide meeting, with fellow parents at a school event, or when you’re waiting in line at the airport—serves a real social purpose. These are four reasons to up your small talk game. – Fast Company
Are We Seeing The Beginning Of The End Of Netflix’s Binge On New Content?
The company’s decision to give creators less room to prove their show can be a hit has a lot to do with how Netflix earns money. – The Verge
The Odd, Brilliant Career Of Oscar Levant
He was chiefly renowned for his intimate personal and professional association with George Gershwin; after Gershwin’s early death in 1937, Levant virtually owned Rhapsody in Blue and the Concerto in F. For a time, during the 1940s, he was the highest-paid concert pianist in the United States, spicing his performances with banter and self-lacerating quips. Assaying Beethoven’s “Tempest” sonata, he might promise to play “with my customary arthritic abandon” and add: “This piece has never had a worthy interpretation. And it still won’t.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
Online Language Is Getting More And More Sophisticated
“We no longer accept that writing must be lifeless, that it can only convey our tone of voice roughly and imprecisely, or that nuanced writing is the exclusive domain of professionals. We’re creating new rules for typographical tone of voice. Not the kind of rules that are imposed from on high, but the kind of rules that emerge from the collective practice of a couple billion social monkeys — rules that enliven our social interactions.” – The Atlantic
Will There Be Another Toni Morrison?
Ross Douthat: “Her passing raises the question: Is she the last of the species? The last American novelist who made novels seem essential to an educated person’s understanding of her country?” – The New York Times
Some Museums Are Collecting Performance Art. What Does That Mean?
“You’re collecting an idea and the documentation, if the artist has stipulated, but sometimes they prefer it to be fleeting and ephemeral and totally experiential,” says Amanda Hunt, director of education and senior curator of programs at MOCA. – Los Angeles Times
The Publishing Juggernaut Amazon Has Built
As Amazon Studios does with movies, Amazon Publishing feeds the content pipelines created by the tech giant’s online storefront and Amazon Prime membership program. At its most extreme, Amazon Publishing is a triumph of vertical engineering: If a reader buys one of its titles on a Kindle, Amazon receives a cut both as publisher and as bookseller—not to mention whatever markup it made on the device in the first place, as well as the amortized value of having created more content to draw people into its various book-subscription offerings. – The Atlantic
New York’s Central Park Transformed Into A Virtual Museum
It’s part of “a new initiative by Apple called [AR]T — a curation of augmented reality art, featured in a series of guided walks. Apple worked with the New Museum to select the artists: Nick Cave, Nathalie Djurberg, Hans Berg, Cao Fei, Carsten Höller, Pipilotti Rist and John Giorno. Each created an augmented reality work that’s been choreographed into the landscape of the tour, playing with the canvas of public space.” – The New York Times