“The Internet loves optical illusions. Why? Because the Internet is a network of bored cubicle-browsers in search of ways to pass the time. … We’ve rounded up the most viral optical illusions of the year thus far, in all their mind-bendy glory.” (At left: “Disappearing Dots”.)
Tag: 09.12.16
Convincing Berkeley Students To Engage With John Calvin, Even Though They Despise Everything The Man Stood For
“In my history of Christianity course, we read a number of challenging writers. Each one I ask students to read with as much sympathy, charity and critical perspective as they can muster. But nothing outrages them – not the writings of Augustine or Erasmus or Luther – more than two or three pages of John Calvin”, the “Ayatollah of Geneva.”
Why Virtual Reality Has Huge Potential For Music
“Outside of games, music is almost certainly the most popular content type in VR right now, which makes sense both technically—right now, VR’s best for quick viewing periods, about the length of your average song—and creatively. Both formats trade in experiences, connection, and immersion. You don’t go to a concert for the sound quality; you go to be part of something.”
How To Fix The Creative Writing MFA
“The current MFA studio model grafts an MFA program onto an existing English department without a studied consideration of what the degree could be. This is not surprising, since the MFA did not emerge naturally out of an English department curriculum.”
Scotland’s Performing Arts Companies Pledge Gender Balanced Boards By 2020
The National Theatre of Scotland, Scottish Ballet, Scottish Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra have all signed up to the Scottish government’s “50/50 by 2020” campaign. They join 180 other companies from across the public, private and third sectors, who have signed up to the Scottish Government’s Partnership for Change campaign launched last year.
What It Takes To Make It As An Artist In Seattle
“Creativity is often thought of as individualistic. In Seattle, though, with its game companies, design firms, and rapidly closing art galleries, creativity is becoming more corporate. The health of the arts in the region is increasingly tied to the health and success of artistic organizations. There are successful arts organizations, but not necessarily successful artists. In this context, the corporations often charged with pricing artists out of the area become not threatening, but part of the same business partnership.”
Jerry Saltz: Our Art History Is Strangling Us
“Art as we now know it has narrowed. These days our definition of it is mainly art informed by other art and art history. Especially in the last two centuries — and tenaciously of late — art has examined its own essences, ordinances, techniques, tools, materials, presentational modes, and forms. To be thought of as an artist someone must self-identify as one and make what they think of as art. This center cannot hold. Why? It is far too tight to let real art breathe. “
The Toronto man Fighting To Get His Children Out Of Music Classes
“For the last three years, he has been trying to have his children exempted from music classes in a public elementary school. He has stated that music is against his religious views. At this point in time, he hasn’t succeeded in winning an official exemption for his kids – and he’s up against a formidable barrier.”
Watching Pete Wells At Work – The New York Times Restaurant Critic Doesn’t *Always* Have His Knives Out
“Wells is an unassuming man who has become used to causing a stir, and this can be disorienting: it’s odd to hear him wonder, not unreasonably, if restaurants ever think of bugging his table. But a restaurant can’t openly acknowledge him. … Experienced for the first time, this covert cosseting feels slightly melancholy, like an episode of Cold War fiction involving futile charades and a likely defenestration.”
Alexis Arquette, Member Of Acting Family And Trans Activist, Dead At 47
“[She] could have coasted by on her famous surname … Instead, this playful and likeable performer, who was born male but identified in the latter part of her adult life as transgender and ‘gender suspicious’, carved out a career of idiosyncratic and often uncommercial character work before concentrating on promoting awareness of trans issues.”