Miscellany

By now, you’ve probably heard about this series of YouTube videos by “Mike from Milwaukee.” It’s more than an hour of carefully edited clips and furiously intelligent slashing and burning. In the character of a foul-mouthed rambling madman, a perceptive amateur film critic lays out exactly what is so awful about the soulless Star Wars prequel. It’s perfect viewing for the holidays… a wonderfully satisfying experience for the whole family (seventeen and older).

Imagine inheriting the majority of the planet:

“In 1689, Kangxi, the emperor of China, embarked on a tour to inspect his southern provinces, undertaking a two-thousand-mile journey from Beijing to the cities and towns of the Yangzi Delta and back…”

Moving, raw, early Springsteen (via @EttaGirl)

The Senator Theatre, a magnificent and historic art deco movie palace not far from where I live, has been lurching from crisis to crisis for years now.  In a less-than-transparent process involving the Baltimore City government and various other local actors, it now seems clear that the Senator will be changing hands.

A number of proposals have been submitted to redevelop the theater–an anxiety-provoking turn for many architectural and cultural preservationists.  One of the proposals is from WTMD, an outstanding public radio station based out of Towson University.  Here’s what they’ve posted on their website:

WTMD and Towson University have submitted a proposal that would transform the Senator into a multi-use film and concert theater that would also house the WTMD studios and offices.

We envision a space where film retrospectives, gala premiers and themed movie festivals are showcased in the same space as the musical artists you hear on WTMD every day. We want to fill the halls of this beloved palace with children’s programming, fundraisers for community groups and even showcase the multi-media work done by Towson University students. Our goal is to make sure the Senator is alive all day, every day.

Sounds great–as long as indie rock doesn’t drown out great films.  In the right hands, the Senator has a bright future as a cultural hub that could combine a well-preserved heritage and exciting new activities.

The worrisome thing is that the fate of the Senator will be determined by unknown forces within the Baltimore City government…

We’ve been told repeatedly that the age of digital information would help people congregate around idiosyncratic interests, inspire producers to serve infinite niche markets, and make everybody more diversely and individualistically happy.

But what if the Internet age is making cultural consumers more herd-like? Is the world of online culture more homogenized than the offline environment? The analysis behind this graph would indicate that we are now less likely to purchase obscure niche products.

While each customer on average experiences more unique products in Internet World, the recommender system generates a correlation among the customers. To use a geographical analogy, in Internet World the customers see further, but they are all looking out from the same tall hilltop. In Offline World individual customers are standing on different, lower, hilltops. They may not see as far individually, but more of the ground is visible to someone. In Internet World, a lot of the ground cannot be seen by anyone because they are all standing on the same big hilltop.

… Here are Lorentz curves for Internet World (blue) and Offline World (green), in which the products are lined up in order of increasing popularity along the x axis, and the cumulative choices for those products is plotted up the Y axis.

[HT: @Richard_Florida and @GenBub]

This social map illustrates what PCAH members have in common, from Harvard University to the Aspen Institute to Hollywood. | POLITICO Staff Close

It’s not like being named the ambassador to London or Paris, but an appointment to the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities is one of the cushier rewards for supporting a presidential candidate. And the 26 members President Barack Obama named earlier this week seemed like a motley group, with little in common except an ability to raise campaign money. Vogue magazine’s Anna Wintour and Minnesota State Senator Richard J. Cohen? Yo-Yo Ma and the guy who made a pre-fab house that floats?

Disparate, yes. But these 26 private-sector appointees are intricately connected through years of leadership in the overlap of politics, arts and culture. Studying their resumes, some clear patterns and paths emerge. So if you aspire to discuss the future of the humanities with, among others, Michelle Obama (the honorary chair), read on. Here’s a breakdown of the committee members, their connections to each other and the spheres they influence.

An interesting social map of appointments I’ve found a little disappointing (i.e., no librarians, no humanities people, no visual artists).

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s TEDx event here in Baltimore. The Sun has a great article about the event and the army of volunteers who have put it together.  Watch live at the TEDx MidAtlantic website.