Marcel Duchamp’s urinal was named most influential work of modern art of all time, according to a vote by 500 critics. Duchamp named it Fountain. It was initially rejected for display at the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917, whereupon Duchamp’s allies argued that it was a worthy work of art along four lines: […]
Marcel Duchamp and Lillian Rearden Read More »
I’m reading Steven Johnson’s The Invention of Air, which is primarily about the Joseph Priestley, the great chemist and adviser to the American founding fathers. Along the way, Johnson quotes historian Tom Standage: “The impact of the introduction of coffee into Europe during the seventeenth century was particularly noticeable since the most common beverages of
Coffee and the Enlightenment Read More »
The Non-fiction “Ayn Rand.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001. Ayn Rand was a major intellectual of the twentieth century. Born in Russia in 1905 and educated there, she immigrated to the United States after graduating from university. Upon becoming proficient in English and establishing herself as a writer of fiction, she became well-known as a
My theme will be the relationship between art and liberal cultures, focusing on economically free cultures especially.
Is capitalism bad for art? Read More »
1/31 Well worth browsing: peripheral artists. 1/30 Frederick Douglass: “Everybody has asked the question . . . ‘What shall we do with the Negro?’ I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples
Worth Reading for January 2006 Read More »
1/31 Update: Tim Blair has an excellent set of photo-essay on the Iraq election. And The Female in Aristotle’s Biology. And required reading for students of Aristotle’s politics is Fred Miller’s classic study, Does it matter which college you go to – or that you go to college? And at 2 Blowhards: the FDA’s drug-approval
Worth Reading for January 2005 Read More »