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drawing by David Levine
A German pre-Romantic philosopher, Johann Georg Hamman, held that the sense of music was given to man to make it possible to measure time. The composer Elliott Carter’s fame comes partly from a reconception of time in music that fits the world of today (although there are many other aspects of his music to enjoy). We do not measure time regularly, like clocks do, but with many differing rates of speed. In the complexity of today’s experience, it often seems as if simultaneous events were unfolding with different measures. These different measures coexist and often blend but are not always rationalized in experience under one central system. We might call this a system of irreconcilable regularities.
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Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Knowing how to be noticed was one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s most valuable skills as an artist; she knew that mystery was part of her allure. The aloofness she cultivated extended to her personal life, about which biographers have long speculated. At the time of her death in 1986, it was learned the letters she had bequeathed to Yale would remain sealed for twenty years, thus preserving, for a decent interval, any lingering secrets of her personal life. These were thought to concern, in particular, her difficult relationship with the photographer, collector, and art impresario Alfred Stieglitz.
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Featured Articles
Table of contents »Republicans for Revolution
Mark Lilla
The current public dissatisfaction with our parties is not just about partisanship. It also reflects a sense that the labels we use to distinguish factions, principles, and programs have lost their value. What does it mean to call oneself a liberal or conservative today? Does it make sense to distinguish “progressives” and “reactionaries,” or are those just terms of abuse and self-flattery? It’s hard to know how to talk about the new classes of rich and poor created by the global economy, and their strangely overlapping political commitments. Or where on the linguistic map to put the new populisms spawning around the world, some anti-global, some anti-immigrant, some libertarian, some authoritarian. Words are failing us.
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