Past use doesn’t determine what we mean by uttering a word on a particular occasion, but it does shape what a speaker can intend to get across. If I am being cooperative, and I intend to make a request that you pass something on the table, I won’t use a word I know you don’t know. To do so would be to violate a tacit commitment to a basic principle of cooperation, which Grice argues underpins all communication. – Psyche
Tag: 11.04.20
Choreographing Differently-Abled Dancers
“The choreographies are designed for the functionally diverse artists so that they can demonstrate their artistic qualities. As I create, I physically put myself in their place (wheelchair, etc.), testing and experiencing the choreography. I search for innovative ways someone with restricted movement can achieve the same intention, such as hitting the floor with the wheelchair to create what would be the percussion of footwork. – Dance Magazine
Composer Osvaldo Golijov Was A Rising Star. Then Ten Years Of Silence
“I was really depressed,” Mr. Golijov, 59, said by phone recently, of his creative drought. “That is the shortest answer.” – The New York Times
Architecture Critic Wins Pennsylvania State Senate Seat
Nikil Saval — a Bernie Sanders–endorsed democratic socialist, former editor of the literary magazine n+1, New York Times contributor, author of Cubed: Secret History of the Workplace, and community organizer — is replacing Larry Farnese Jr. a Democrat who has been state senator since 2009. He is also the first Asian American to be elected to Pennsylvania’s senate. – Curbed
How To Tell When Societies Are On The Verge Of Collapse
“Just as apocalyptic dystopias, with or without zombies, have become common fare on Netflix and in highbrow literature alike, societal collapse and its associated terms — “fragility” and “resilience,” “risk” and “sustainability” — have become the objects of extensive scholarly inquiry and infrastructure.” – The New York Times
A Robot Choreographer Explains Why Her Job Is Necessary
Catie Cuan, currently working on a mechanical engineering Ph.D. at Stanford: “There are a number of studies that demonstrate that how something moves is even more important [to a user] than how it looks. … I have a set of tools and ethics and practices and skills that I bring to the table, which is ingrained through years of dance training. I can bring those to the application of design, interaction and control mechanisms for robots.” – Dance Magazine
Construction Of Ancient Mega-Stone Henge Might Have Been Resistance To Progress
“You could look at it as the last hurrah of the stone age. They could see the changes coming and decide to resist them – they may have been thinking: ‘We don’t need these changes. We’ll build bigger and better monuments to our gods. We’ll knuckle down and stick with what we know’.” – The Guardian
How Times Square Became A Hotbed Of Resistance Art
“For 20 years, Fran Lebowitz has been dreaming of tourists disappearing from Times Square. ‘Now there are no tourists in Times Square,’ she recently said, ‘but, of course, there’s no one in Times Square.'” Since New York, like nature, abhors a vacuum, along came the artists. – The Guardian
D.C. Begins Pilot Program To Restart Live Theatre
While almost all performance venues in the District remain closed, the first company there to produce a play under new local COVID-safety protocols is GALA Hispanic Theatre, with a staging of Spanish Golden Age playwright Lope de Vega’s El perro del hortelano (“The Gardener’s Dog”, usually known in English as “The Dog in the Manger’). Thomas Floyd reports on how it’s working. – The Washington Post
All That Campaign Money Saved The TV Ad Business’s Bacon
“In 2020, the company [Advertising Analytics] sees nearly $247.5 million being spent between Jan. 1, 2019, and Election Day — marking a 200% increase over the prior record. … The dynamics are welcome ones for TV networks and stations, which [due to the pandemic] have seen advertisers claw back the usual commitments they make each year.” – Variety