the thing about this particular brand of low-key wealth is that it can lead to a false sense of self, on both a micro and a macro level. Consumption is still consumption even if it’s less conspicuous. Class may be harder to see here, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Mark Zuckerberg’s still a billionaire, even if he’s wearing a hoodie and jeans. And if you don’t feel or look rich, you don’t necessarily feel the same sense of obligation that a traditional rich person does or should: Noblesse oblige is, after all, dependent on a classical idea of who is and is not the nobility. As that starts to fall away, obligation — to culture, to the future, to each other — begins to disappear, too.
john cage | how to get started
“Claudia La Rocco is a poet and critic. She founded thePerformanceClub.org, and contributes frequently to the New York Times and Artforum.com. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts’ graduate program in Art Criticism and Writing and is a member of the Off The Park poetry press. Recorded live at Bryn Mawr College; guest curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor, Danspace Project.”
This is wholly wonderful.
layers upon layers upon layers
Nancy Lanza’s friends say she was a gun enthusiast, who kept a small armory — two traditional hunting rifles, two handguns, and the semiautomatic rifle — for protection in case an economic meltdown resulted in chaos. She often took her sons to shooting ranges, to make sure they knew how to handle guns, too.
Asperger’s, guns and divorce: What we know about Adam Lanza
More and more I am reminded of last year’s movie, We Need to Talk About Kevin. I don’t know if that’s correct or right given the sad situation, but the truth is the more I read about this event, the more I recall things that happened in the film.
I started another Tumblr site yesterday
Mainly for the more artsy things I find on my dashboard and around the web. I’m calling it “Less Pop, More Culture,” which doesn’t seem very original, but it’s all I could think of. If you have a better idea, let me know. =)
So my recommendation list for the Film Registry is more than 50 films
Time to pare it down. (It’s currently at 73)
Some Films Not Yet Named to the National Film Registry (National Film Preservation Board, Library of Congress)
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner isn’t registered yet?!? I’m making a list of my suggestions that so far numbers 41 (you can only suggest 50 a year).
Marriages are in decline based on a Pew Research Center analysis, where just 51% of adults 18 and over are married. Here’s our 2006 cover story ‘The Marriage Crunch’, and the notorious cover that inspired it.
And then last year, there was this:
Once upon a time, marriage made sense. It was how women ensured their financial security, got the fathers of their children to stick around, and gained access to a host of legal rights. But 40 years after the feminist movement established our rights in the workplace, a generation after the divorce rate peaked, and a decade after Sex and the City made singledom chic, marriage is—from a legal and practical standpoint, anyway—no longer necessary.
Wait—we predicted a single 40-year-old woman was more likely to be killed by a terrorist than get married. That’s insane. Whoops!
So this is the article they reference so often in Sleepless in Seattle.
Source: nwkarchivist
We are in a dangerous place when people can be told, to their faces, that they are not real—that their identities make no sense, and that they are impossible Americans.
npr:
Nearly 700 Native American children in South Dakota are being removed from their homes every year, sometimes in questionable circumstances.
(via Native Foster Care: Lost Children, Shattered Families)
Photo: John Poole / NPR
The part that made me gasp:
The state receives thousands of dollars from the federal government for every child it takes from a family, and in some cases the state gets even more money if the child is Native American. The result is that South Dakota is now removing children at a rate higher than the vast majority of other states in the country.
The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going to Miss Almost Everything
The vast majority of the world’s books, music, films, television and art, you will never see. It’s just numbers.
This stresses me out, too.
I admit that I tend to cull with books. If a book doesn’t grab me within the first few pages or first chapter, I move on to the next one. Now, I don’t say that this book that I had to drop is “bad,” exactly (except for The Historian - I suffered through that whole book and it is AWFUL), I just say, “I couldn’t get into it.” Which is the truth.
Maybe in a couple years I’ll check out the book again and give it another try. But this way, I spend more time reading books that I enjoy, whichever genre they may be.
And of course I surrender as well. I know in my heart of hearts there is no way on earth I can read everything I want to. And I am one of those people who reads at least 100 books a year (not counting re-reads)! Would I call myself “well-read”? Nope. I just call myself an avid reader.
Only vaguely related - I got a copy of Bolano’s Savage Detectives at a church book swap yesterday. I’m not sure when I’ll get to it, but at least it’s an available option.
Source: youtastelikenachos
the Republican Study Committee, made up of about 165 GOP members of the House of Representatives, on Thursday announced a budget-cutting plan aimed at slashing federal spending, and it calls for the elimination of the nation’s two leading makers of government arts grants: the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Also on the chopping block is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
House Republicans unveil plan to end federal arts and humanities agencies and aid to public broadcasting | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times. I knew this was coming, but STILL.
Source: Los Angeles Times
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