Want a break from politics? Let’s take a look at that 1965 song “Back in My Arms Again,” one of my favorites by the Supremes. Note how subtle and classy the sexuality of their performance is compared to today’s pop … Continue reading →
Whenever I write about dance, I’m handicapped by the fact that all I can offer is a video and some words, and perhaps a few still photos. That’s better than nothing. But it doesn’t even begin to compare with seeing … Continue reading →
Yesterday commenter “Nick” wrote this on the thread about Krystal Ball’s Animal Farm summary: OK, OK, I hate to be this guy, but Orwell would have been fine with Ball’s reading. Orwell was a socialist. His problem with the pigs … Continue reading →
No, her name’s not a joke. And yes, this quote of Ball’s would be funny if it weren’t so sad and so scary that this women hosts a show at MSNBC: For his trouble, Piketty has predictably gotten the full … Continue reading →
Ace writes about Common Core math pedagogy: Common Core needlessly complicates the simple. They complicate the simple, supposedly, to impart “number sense” to kids, to get them to understand not just that 9 +3 = 12, but why 9 + … Continue reading →
Yes, I know that technically spring’s been here for quite a while. But northern climes don’t get to see it so quickly. In 1913, about a hundred years ago, Robert Frost wrote about the transition of the seasons in one … Continue reading →
I know, I know; the actress in the first photo is a bit older than the actress in the second. But still…
Continue reading →From the Nadezhda Mandelstam chapter of Clive James’ excellent Cultural Amnesia [in the following excerpts I have Americanized the British spelling): The main difference [between the Gulag and Hitler’s Reich] was that in Nazi Europe the victims knew…who they were, … Continue reading →
After I posted that video about voice recognition systems and accents, a reader kindly sent me a link to this one: The Scots accent is inherently funny (is that un-PC to say, or is it okay because they’re white?) because … Continue reading →
I was having trouble with my iPod the other day, and while trying to troubleshoot it (it’s fixed now) I came across an entry in my iTunes library that was part of a reel-to-reel tape I had originally made in … Continue reading →
…all is irony. The author focuses on irony and lack of seriousness in art. But the hegemony of irony is certainly something I’ve noticed getting more and more widespread in recent years. It seems to be the default position of … Continue reading →
I can’t tell a Stradivarius from a Curtin. But neither, it seems, could a bunch of professional concert violinists: There were 12 instruments, six old and six new, with new ones “antiqued” to appear older. The violinists, 10 professional soloists, … Continue reading →