I wanted to write a book about how the smartphone changed the world, but the more I researched, the clearer it became that phones were actually the latest step in this evolution of storytelling technology that stretches all the way back to prehistoric times.
The Stasi, the secret police, were legendary for their data files. Their work was based on instilling fear, and they induced stunningly amazing numbers of East Germans into informing on their neighbors. Something along the lines of 1 in 6 East Germans were informants, whether out of fear or out of approval of what the East German government was doing.
The Stasi, the secret police, were legendary for their data files. Their work was based on instilling fear, and they induced stunningly amazing numbers of East Germans into informing on their neighbors. Something along the lines of 1 in 6 East Germans were informants, whether out of fear or out of approval of what the East German government was doing.
When the Academy Award Nominations were announced late last month, you could be forgiven for thinking they were lifetime achievement awards. In the Best Supporting Actor category, 74-year-old Stellan Skarsgård is competing against 73-year-old Delroy Lindo. (Sean Penn, at 65, and Benicio Del Toro, at 58, also in the category, are mere babes.) Amy Madigan, 75, is up for Best Supporting Actress. One of the Best Adapted Screenplay nominees is in their sixties, and one of the Best Original Screenplay nominees is in his seventies.
In the environmental nonprofit sector, "centering frontline voices" has become a familiar slogan, often detached from how decisions are made or resources allocated. It appears in grant proposals, conference agendas, and organizational values statements. And yet, too often, those voices are still positioned as illustrative rather than authoritative-invited to animate strategies already decided, asked to translate lived experience into language legible to funders, or flattened into narratives that travel more easily than the truths they carry.
Throughout many immigrant experiences, stories collected from family members can be a starting point for migrants. The memories gleaned from parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles-who crossed dozens of borders at great risk and with immense pain-can settle into the consciousness of new host communities for decades. For the migrants, these stories and memories represent the first step into a new world and contain lifelines with the potential and promise to build new, resilient identities and a sense of belonging in often hostile environments.
Jackie Smook has spent years crafting characters and props for "Dilly's World," her whimsical web series and touring theatrical show about a girl confronting big issues with the help of some puppet friends. Her life's work was stolen early Monday when thieves swiped a shipping box containing many of her puppets from outside her Beachwood Canyon apartment. Among the missing are Angus the bassist, Phyllis the mail-delivering puppet, Holstein, who was holding an intricate saxophone prop, and Dumont, who had a television stand.
"The object of the Museum is to acquire power," announces a crusty old archaeologist in Penelope Fitzgerald's 1977 satire, The Golden Child. It isn't a goal he respects. He wants the museum where he's settled into semiretirement to genuinely devote itself to educating its visitors. Instead, he correctly charges, its curators act like a pack of Gollums, hoarding "the art and treasures of the earth" for their own self-aggrandizement and pleasure.
Most of the time, when you buy a theater ticket you know what you're in for. Not so with TILT: Stories on the Edge, a production that relies on everyday people to step up and reveal their private reckonings. The stories might be funny, painful or poignant, but at the end of the night they're all meant to be unforgettable.
As if demolishing the East Wing, gutting arts agencies, and slapping his name and face on several federal buildings weren't enough, the US president now wants to do away with a DC building known as the "Sistine Chapel of New Deal art." This week, we reported on a burgeoning campaign to save the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which houses murals by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, Seymour Fogel, and other major American artists. We will continue to follow this story.
