Slam Poetry: A History
When the Commonwealth Club's Inforum division hosted a town hall meeting to discuss race relations in the Bay Area, the lineup of speakers included various performances by Bay Area poets. Using words,...
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The New Mongrels: A Resurrection of an Old Idea
The New Mongrels, a collective musical society, have a long history that goes back to the Civil War. As the story goes, a soldier named Henry Brooke who came back from the bloody war shell-shocked and...
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The Art of Coming Out: "Nate & Me"
Self portrait (Matthew Pillsbury) contemplating Wapiti, Museum of Natural History, 2004 As many of my gay brothers and sisters know, coming out is not an easy process. Some of us come out at a very...
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Paparazzi: Was It Rape?
Photo (c) Jean Pigozzi/Centre Pompidou-Metz Was it rape? Or was it art? And when? A strange and strangely provocative spring exhibit on the century long history of Star Photography and photographers...
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Will Eno's Comedy of Discomfort: The Open House
What to do about the American family? Depending on where you stand, the poor thing needs to be either preserved in its traditional form or extensively modernized. And what about the American family...
View ArticleI Testify for Increasing Our City's Cultural Affairs Budget -- Join Me
It is fiscal year 2015 budget season for the City of New York and time for all of us to make the case for arts and culture funding. The year began with the release of a Financial Plan, Fiscal Years...
View ArticleHow the Internet Reshaped My Career
I was on a major label for many years, and I only knew one way to make music: follow the template that has been in place for years, and work within the system the music industry was built upon. But...
View ArticleA Dozen Music Choices for All Ages
This week, South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas offers attendees the opportunity to explore the future of the music industry by giving a platform to over 2,200 music acts on over 100 stages. As...
View Article6 West Coast Roadside Art Installations Worth a Pit Stop
When it comes to classic travel, there is nothing that screams Americana more than a road trip. With the wide open road, the freedom of dictating your own schedule and the potential to discover the...
View ArticleArt Institute President Douglas Druick Talks Art and Life on The Interview Show
Douglas Druick, the Art Institute of Chicago's president and director, visited The Interview Show to talk about the museum, his "eureka" experiences with art and the best time of day to look at...
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Six Practical Reasons to Save Old Buildings
Edited by Julia Rocchi and Steven Piccione; adapted from the article "Nine Practical Reasons to Save Old Buildings" by Jack Neely [Preservation Tips & Tools] Six Practical Reasons to Save Old...
View ArticleAll the Way: Bryan Cranston Shows How LBJ Passed the Civil Rights Act
Five days after the assassination of President Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson went before a joint session of Congress and to the surprise of almost everyone proclaimed that his first priority would be passage...
View ArticlePoetry and Programming
I wrote the below when I first started learning programming. Looking back now, it became my unintended manifesto of intersecting arts and engineering: what one taught me about the other. Not too long...
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PABallet's Carmina Returns and Sublime Balanchine
For its 50th anniversary season, Pennsylvania Ballet revived John Butler's Carmina Burana, literally back by popular demand for audience members of a certain boomer age who love watching those monks go...
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10 Youth Movements That Changed History
Teenagers didn't always exist. They had to be invented. As the cultural landscape around the world was thrown into turmoil during the industrial revolution, and with a chasm erupting between adults and...
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On the "A" w/Souleo: Yoga Activists Fight Human Trafficking
Take a breath. Is it short and strained or is it deep and full? Posing this question to a victim of human trafficking may seem insignificant but according to Lara Land it is a crucial step in the...
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How Artists Are Banding Together to Celebrate the Muppets
Sweetums by Beth Sparks In anticipation of this month's debut of Muppets Most Wanted, many are declaring their Muppets love -- some more creatively than others. Earlier this month, Zwoltopia, an...
View ArticleLiterature, Longevity and Mavis Gallant
I'm in mourning for Mavis Gallant. You don't remember Mavis Gallant? If you're older than 14, you shared a century with her characters. You would have passed them on the streets of Manhattan, or...
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Perseverance: An Evolution of Japanese Tattoos (NSFW)
LITTLE TOKYO -- Home of the Japanese American National Museum is currently hosting a photography exhibition on the history and evolution of Japanese tattoos, Perseverance. The title takes from the...
View ArticleBattered Women Behind Bars
Like most New Yorkers, my family was cooped up in our apartment building during Hurricane Sandy. Many of my neighbors gathered in the front foyer where we allowed our kids to ride tricycles and share...
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