Four men face years of incarceration for failing to report Viking treasure worth an estimated $3 million. Police say the find has national importance for Anglo-Saxon coinage and for a greater understanding of a critical time in British history. Some of the recovered coins are helping scholars rewrite history, according to police. – Washington Post
Artist’s Light Installation Lets People On Either Side Of The US/Mexico Border Talk To One Another
On either side of the border, there are three stations, each with a microphone, speaker and tuning wheels that control a searchlight, that can be seen from a 50-kilometre radius. When your light beam intersects with someone else’s in the sky, a two-way audio connection opens up and you can talk to the other person through the microphone. – CBC
The Talented And Busy Street Artists Of Dakar
Their canvases are houses, specifically the canvases of one working-class neighborhood called the Médina. “The neighborhood has welcomed street artists from all over the world to practice their craft in what the founder of the project calls the open sky museum. Dozens of wall paintings dot the neighborhood, bringing color to usually drab cement walls, and adding to the flourishing international art scene in Dakar.” – The New York Times
The Astonishing Breadth Of Turn-Of-The-Century French Director Alice Guy-Blache’s Career
Guy-Blaché is well-known among film scholars, but the film world and the world at large? Not so much. Quick summary: “Starting out as a secretary at Gaumont Studios in Paris, she began directing her own films in 1896 before taking on oversight of the company’s motion-picture production. She emigrated to the United States with her husband in 1907 to promote Gaumont’s Chronophone technology and, several years later, established and headed up her own studio, Solax, in Fort Lee, New Jersey.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
Raymond Kappe, Who Profoundly Influenced Southern California Architecture, Has Died At 92
Kappe founded the Cal Poly Pomona architecture program and was fired for being, as he called it, “free-swinging.” But, unlike many a faculty member could or would do now, he picked up his bags, recruited his own faculty, and started another architecture school: “The New School, soon to become the influential Southern California Institute of Architecture, or SCI-Arc, opened in 1972 with 75 students at its original Santa Monica campus.” – Los Angeles Times
A Bookstore Whose Nooks And Crannies Are Practically The Key To Narnia
Well, no, no wardrobe or fur coats, but “9,000 square feet of nooks, alcoves, labyrinths, and warrens.” Its customers really love it, including the way thousands of books crammed together smell. And “the store is orderly if not antiseptic. Signs are hand-lettered; there are plenty of chairs for contemplation and ladders for climbing; and, whether by accident or puckish design, the crime section stops short at a fittingly dead end.” – The New York Times
Documenting ‘Old L.A.’ As Developers Destroy More And More Craftsmen Houses For Apartment Buildings
It’s not that preservationists don’t understand the need for housing – that’s obvious in L.A., as in most cities and towns on the West Coast. “It seems to me that we should fight the argument that any talk of preservation is anti-housing. Because it doesn’t have to be. We can be for affordable housing but against the kind of utter freedom to tear down and put up just about anything at all anywhere in the name of it that on the block just east of mine has produced the kind of development that makes neighborhood people cry.” – Los Angeles Times
Longtime King’s College Choir Director Stephen Cleobury Has Died At 70
Sir Stephen Cleobury conducted the King’s College Choir for nearly 40 years and instituted the annual commissioning of a new Christmas carol. He retired two months ago. “He was influential in the musical world beyond the choir, conducting a number of ensembles including the Academy of Ancient Music and the BBC Singers, and through his association with the Cambridge University Musical Society.” – BBC
These Two Sisters Meld Inuit Throat Singing With Christmas Carols
Christian settlers and missionaries feared and banned throat singing, so the choice to make a Christmas album wasn’t exactly obvious, they say. “At the same time, they say some of their most cherished childhood memories include Christmas in the North, with the joy and hilarity associated with feasting, games and dancing.” Hence the meld. – CBC
The Painters Reviving A 500-Year-Old Indian Art Form [VIDEO]
Only 16 artists still practice the art of Cheriyal – but they’re working hard to expand (re-expand) their ranks. To grow the popularity, one artist says, “We began making tissue boxes, pencil stands, spectacle holders, and keychains.” – BBC
Mid-Level Movies Are Dying
And, obviously, blockbusters are killing them. (The cheap little awards-bait movies, the under-$20-million movies, might be OK.) – The New York Times
The New Mr. Rogers Movie Isn’t Really About Mr. Rogers
Instead, it’s about the dark abyss of the adult soul. “Adulthood, for most of us, is about acquiring the skills to feel no feelings at all. Feelings are distracting, inefficient, unoptimizable, unprofessional — childlike. They interfere with our capacity to work. In fact, some of us use work, especially if we’re ‘good’ at it, to avoid our feelings.” But of course, Mr. Rogers can short-circuit all of that. – BuzzFeed
The Detailed Sociological Layers Of Musicians In Marching Band
Here’s the deal: “Each section has a reputation based loosely on the personality types drawn to certain instruments and the parts they play on the field. Trumpets generally own the melody, so the section attracts people who want to be the center of attention, at least musically. The perfectionist woodwinds — piccolos, flutes, clarinets and saxophones — are invariably drowned out by the brass section, meaning their dedication to musicianship doesn’t rely on recognition.” And there’s so much more. – The New York Times