I’m snowed into a hotel room in Madison, Wisconsin, setting the alarm for 4:15 a.m. to make my replacement flight home. Ah, life on the open road! What to do with my suddenly free time? Blog, of course. One of the dedicated arts people I met on this trip forwarded me an article from The …
More and more, the things I care about seem to turn on a single question: can we human beings choose our actions, or are we in some very real sense controlled by other forces (whether our own brain chemicals or the commands of those in authority)? The oft-cited behavorial studies of Stanley Milgram in the …
We Americans have strange ideas about social class. In study after study, the vast majority (often more than 80 percent) self-identify as “middle class,” suggesting that for some people identity is aspiration and for some illusion. When social scientists study class distinctions based on measurable factors such as income, it turns out unsurprisingly that 1/3 …
I took a short trip to an alternate universe the other night. It started with a 5-minute ride on a party bus equipped with a huge refrigerator and gleaming stainless-steel sink. Tiny twinkling stars were set into the ceiling. From my cushioned seat, I stared at freeform glass panels separating passengers from the driver: they …
In my travels over the last few weeks, I’ve encountered quite a few arts advocates in the grip of a singular and persistent obsession, conveying art’s value through “hard evidence” such as numbers, graphs and charts intended to convince funders and policy makers to invest in cultural programs. The dean of an arts college confided …
I’m off to Mississippi to visit with Thousand Kites, one of the projects described in my just-published book, New Creative Community. In prison slang, a “kite” is a message, such as a note or letter to a prisoner. The project is a collaboration between Holler to the Hood (H2H) and Roadside Theater, two groups based …
There is no more powerful reminder that something has value than to see another risk everything to embrace it. Brave immigrants have been marching this week through my memories, reminding me that the essence of human freedom is to stand and be counted. My ancestors have been immigrants much longer than I know or can …
Consider the tale of DP World, Dubai’s state-owned company trying to spend almost $7 billion to buy a company that operates port terminals around the world, a few of which are in the U.S.A. This morning’s New York Times tells us that President Bush was shocked—I say, shocked— at the breadth and intensity of objections …
I love the idea of protected public space within the culture. National parks are the physical analog for the kind of thing I’m talking about: public libraries, public radio, monuments and murals of the type muralist Judy Baca calls “sites of public memory.” These are spaces of meaning freely available to each and every one …
Yesterday’s New York Times carried an interesting column about citizenship tests. The most anxious nations—Britain, Germany, Canada and of course, the USA—have been revising their tests to raise the threshold for citizenship, making sure that prospective citizens get with the program before they are admitted to the club. The new tests are a fascinating Rorschach …