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The museums of tomorrow... ;-) pic.twitter.com/yIZ1HBWVdW — Pierre Levy (@plevy) February 11, 2014

NYTimes: Tom Laughlin, 82, Star of ‘Billy Jack’ Movie Series, Dies http://nyti.ms/18N7R6b

per·fid·i·ous adjective \(ˌ)pər-ˈfi-dē-əs\ : not able to be trusted : showing that someone cannot be trusted ei·det·ic adjective \ī-ˈde-tik\ : marked by or involving extraordinarily accurate and vivid recall especially of visual images ric·tus noun \ˈrik-təs\ Definition of RICTUS 1 : the gape of a bird's mouth 2 a : the mouth orifice b : a gaping grin or grimace Origin of RICTUS New Latin, from Latin, open mouth, from ringi to open the mouth; akin to Old Church Slavic rǫgŭ mockery First Known Use: 1827 el·dritch adjective \ˈel-drich\ Definition of ELDRITCH : weird, eerie Origin of ELDRITCH perhaps from Middle English *elfriche fairyland, from Middle English elf + riche kingdom, from Old English rīce — more at rich First Known Use: 1508

Guerilla tactics: Recent staff cut backs at The Exploratorium, after opening new facility (2013)

The below was a first draft...finally posted by the CJM on its blog here: http://cjmvoices.blogspot.com/2013/08/modern-nostalgia.html Beyond Belief makes me nostalgic. It is an exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum right now. It is also the opening track on Imperial Bedroom by Elvis Costello - not the first record I owned, but maybe the first record I owned , and knew every word in a way where I thought I was the only one in the world who knew every word. It was the summer of 1982 I was 13. My Bar Mitzvah was that year, and I knew I'd be leaving public school that next year to begin a private high school. My performance in school had been less than sterling but my interests at home reflected a different kind of kid. I would steal away from the stiflingly humid Maryland summer heat into the one room that had air conditioning in the nineteenth century farmhouse in which I grew up. It was the guest room beside my parents’ bedroom. On the shelves were my mother's m...

I cannot tell whether I hated this book, could just barely bear it, or what. I was consumed by the idea that it had won the Booker Prize , and really there was something about the studied conversational language that carried me forward through to the end. There were painful, truthful elements about pain, infidelity and lifetime friendships that rang true across the plaza like a church bell. Still, I think maybe it was abysmal. But I am a Jewish professional, as a Deputy Director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and so I felt some sense of obligation to get to the end and more fully grasp over what the author was puzzling. A few quotes made me want to fold down the page and refer to them later: [Parenthetically the author writes,] “(he would have said his faith but Finkler was Finkler and Finkler had no faith)” p. 56 ‘So this museum…’ Finkler said, when the table was cleared. Hephzibah inclined her head on his direction. ‘…don’t we have enough of them already?’ ‘Museums in gen...

Below are notes from reading Notes from Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Curating (But Were Afraid to Ask)   by  Hans Ulrich Obrist , as a sampling of references I wanted to collect links on... "...William Sandberg, the greatest of all post-war museum directors..." p. 38 Marcel Janco 1895, Bucharest, Romania - 1984, Ein Hod, Israel Portrait of Willem Sandberg   Brown chalk and felt-tip pen on paper 21 x 15.8 cm Gift of the Janco Family, Tel Aviv © Dvora Janco, Tel Aviv Accession number: B93.0728 The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications [Paperback] David Deutsch   (Author) ...Suddenly so much in the art world is revolving around money; while on the other hand, parts of the art world have nothing to do with money.  It's like the parallel worlds, as David Deutsch describes in The Fabric of Reality....Today there also exist two corresponding kinds of artists: those who mainly sel...

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Frank Stella and Huang Yong Ping in Conversation

I am spending time synergizing Frances Frei and Anne Morriss' Uncommon Service with  Wendy Pollock and Kathleen McLean's Convivial Museum . It is at the intersection of these two works that I hope to be focusing some of my work in the coming months and years, assessing the balance and importance of the visitor experience and the "content piece." It is the shared experience that seems paramount in the present day, and our museum field is telling us this, right? On the other hand, what are we, if we are not educators?  Illuminators? It is, in fact, at the intersection of these two things --conviviality and uncommon service that the transformative outcome can blossom.  This is the perfectly tepid-to-steamy bathwater environment where good things grow; where we are cleansed and revitalized.  From here, we can shock, teach through participation and invigorate.   The quality of aliveness we see in these images is what we call conviviality. We chose the ...

Rob Gronkowski poses with his new cereal “Gronk Flakes” which are available at Stop & Shops throughout New England. Rob Gronkowski’s new cereal “Gronk Flakes” hit store shelves on Tuesday, and the  Patriots  tight end was on hand to celebrate at a Walpole Stop & Shop. Who is this guy?! He looks like Stephen Malkmus! So I'm all "gronk?"  "Gronk?"  "What the F' is that phrase that guru and GLAM rous mentor Michael P. Edson uses?!..."  Gronk? Grunk? Grok? GROK!  And so I learn it is from Heinlein: grok 664  up ,  95  down Taken from the book ' Stranger in a Strange Land ,' literally meaning 'to drink' but taken to mean 'understanding.' Often used by programmers and other assorted geeks. It took me a long time to grok Perl, but now I can read it without going blind! I get it!  And it's beautiful!!   Drink to me only with thine eyes ... My brother read science fiction, I didn't.  Maybe b...

Arise, shine, [O Jerusalem,] for your light has come, the glory of the Eternal is shining upon you! Though darkness may cover the earth, thick darkness [the] peoples - upon you the Eternal will shine, over you G_d’s Presence will appear. Nations shall walk toward your light, and kings toward your sunrise. Raise your eyes and see! They are gathering, all of them, they are coming to you. Your sons shall come from afar, your daughters borne securely. You shall see it and beam with joy, your heart will thrill with pride, the sea’s abundance shall shower you, the wealth of nations shall come your way. A horde of camels shall cover your land, the young camels of Midian and Ephah, all coming from Sheba bearing gold and frankincense; proclaiming the praises of G_d! The flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you, the rams of Nevayot shall serve your need - a sacrifice welcome on My altar, adding glory to My glorious house. Who are these that fly like a cloud, like doves to their cotes? The coast...

...thanks for sharing, Tosh and Tam Tam Books

Museum Legs: Fatigue and Hope in the Face of Art by Amy Whitaker My rating: 5 of 5 stars "The ability of museums to be institutions of civic importance rides on their collective capacity for intellectual empathy -- their ability to speak to people in their own idiom and to bring in new audiences -- through tireless effort at customization of messages to different groups.  There are any number of reasons why this doesn't happen...Knowledge benefits from this kind of exuberant free trade -- the more it circulates, the more there is.  Obfuscation is a weird and obscure mercantilism, an isolationism that in an economy walls off a country, and in museums circumscribes a field of knowledge." pp. 88-89 View all my reviews

It is impossible to seek out the face of Sitting Bull, and even more the knowing of Crazy Horse; for one, the photograph is never justice, nor his prime. The other never sat for a white man's camera machine. Rebecca Solnit wrote about the Ghost Dance and technology . I have to look that up. I've just come from Little Bighorn, and you cannot but cry and cry. Such nobility in its last. Ignoble.

In the Montana Triennial at the Missoula Art Museum there was a piece by an artist named Tom Foolery from Dillon, MT. Also some Richard Notkins and plexiglas assemblages by an artist with the last name Autio. Lela Autio. Rudy Autio's wife? Daughter? And eye-catching large soft pastel portrait drawings by a woman named Jennifer Pulchinski.

There was a brilliant installation of drawings and sculpture by an Indian (Lakota) artist named Dwayne Wilcox at the Missoula Art Museum (MAM). They were earnest and ironic; scathing, insightful, childish. Drawn on Ledger Paper, and so at once borrowed and repossessed; the material was also highly personal in feel like you'd discovered a trove of a) drawings of a self-taught skilled observer b) a refined, highly-stylized project by an agent provacateur or c) the working thoughts of a 21st c. Indian artist navigating a new language for his own erudition. I also couldn't not think of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith who means south to me.

Loving the Klosterman