News, reviews, latest trends, breakthroughs, disputes, and gossip in arts and culture http://aldaily.com/ en-us Copyright 2010 The Chronicle of Higher Education Mon, 8 Feb 2010 07:00:02 EDT rss@chronicle.com rss@chronicle.com http://aldaily.com/ald01.gif http://aldaily.com 128 70 Today's News http://aldaily.com Mon, 8 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT <p>Humor is a far more complex process than primeval pleasures like sex or food, but just as much tied to the inner complexity of the brain... <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527451.400-the-comedy-circuit-when-your-brain-gets-the-joke.html">more</a> </p> <p>Cesare Borgia: ruthless, power-hungry and peacock-vain. But he was also brilliant, charismatic, and educated in the classics, a true Renaissance man... <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012902141.html ">more</a> </p> <p>Alice Waters's Chez Panisse is much more than a restaurant. It is a standard-bearer for correct moral values, and now it will dictate our kids' education. Do we really want this?... <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/201001/school-yard-garden">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Sun, 7 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT <p>Casanova made prodigious use of English frock coats, the "little preventive bag invented by the English to save the fair sex from anxiety"... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/arts/design/05sex.html?pagewanted=all">more</a> </p> <p>Yalta: Stalin, Churchill, and FDR blithely pushing pet ideas or haggling over details that would affect millions of people for generations to come... <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704259304575043561664524730.html">more</a> </p> <p>Constantly updating your "friends" on Facebook, like joining a room full of chattering people, is no substitute for an actual conversation... <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23651 ">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Sat, 6 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT <p>Casanova made prodigious use of English frock coats, the "little preventive bag invented by the English to save the fair sex from anxiety"... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/arts/design/05sex.html?pagewanted=all">more</a> </p> <p>Yalta: Stalin, Churchill, and FDR blithely pushing pet ideas or haggling over details that would affect millions of people for generations to come... <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704259304575043561664524730.html">more</a> </p> <p>Constantly updating your "friends" on Facebook, like joining a room full of chattering people, is no substitute for an actual conversation... <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23651 ">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Fri, 5 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT <p>Should a room that Langston Hughes lived in for a couple of years be turned into a museum, a tourist destination? Will this save the neighborhood?... <a href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_museum_of_ones_own">more</a> </p> <p>North Korea has created a sort of new species. Starving, ignorant, stunted dwarves, living in the dark, brainwashed into the hatred... <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2243112/pagenum/all/">more</a> </p> <p>Robert Lipsyte is a Super Bowl ad fan. He'd rather go to the bathroom during a third-down play than miss a commercial. And he is always ready to share his all-time favorites... <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175200/">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Thu, 4 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT <p>Percussionists of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra can beat the bejesus out of their drums, to comic effect. But they too are victims, as much as the Iranians... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/arts/music/04abroad.html?hp=&pagewanted=all">more</a> </p> <p>Herg&eacute;'s characters never age. Tintin is outside of time. Children also have a sense of existing outside of adult time and can identify with this... <a href="http://www.tnr.com/book/review/and-out-history">more</a> </p> <p>Let the West bring a WTO free-trade case against China for Web censorship. As Marx said, trade is the "heavy artillery" that "batters down all Chinese walls." Including computer firewalls... <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/02/battering-down-the-great-firew">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com New material is added to Arts & Letters Daily six days a week. We continually test links for reliability. Despite our best efforts, links may fail (often only temporarily) without warning. We apologize for any inconvenience. Our motto, "Veritas odit moras," is from line 850 of Seneca's version of Oedipus. It means "Truth hates delay." Arts & Letters Daily is a service of The Chronicle of Higher Education.