Cultuur en Educatie – Buitenland

On your first day in architecture school, you have to design a doghouse. Having never set foot inside an architecture school, I concede that the previous sentence may well be false, but you have to admit that it sounds plausible. As the simplest form of shelter in common use across... Read more »

On the question of whether novels can successfully be turned into films, the cinephile jury remains out. In the best cases a filmmaker takes a literary work and reinvents it almost entirely in accordance with his own vision, which usually requires a book of modest or unrealized ambitions. This method... Read more »

My issue is that it’s all very well to sit back and complain but when it’s your country you have a responsibility. – Cass Elliot What could be more heavenly than Cass Elliot of The Mamas & The Papas and singer-songwriter John Denver harmonizing on Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet... Read more »

In 1939, Igor Stravinsky emigrated to the United States, first arriving in New York City, before settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard during the 1939-40 academic year. While living in Boston, the composer conducted the Boston Symphony and, on one famous occasion,... Read more »

We all learned a bit about the Second World War in school, or perhaps more than a bit. But for a great many of us, what we know of that period of history comes less from teachers and textbooks than it does from movies. World War II as a cinematic... Read more »

The last we checked in with teenage girl power-punk band The Linda Lindas, they were tearing up the Los Angeles Public Library (Cypress Park branch) with their lockdown-hit “Racist, Sexist Boy.” After eleven-year-old drummer Mila de Garza recounted the xenophobic encounter that led to the song, the band unleashed some... Read more »

Several years before Indian independence as World War loomed, Mahatma Gandhi found he had little sway in international politics even as he built his movement at home. The philosophy of satyagraha did not sound noble to the British in 1939, for example, when the Indian leader wrote a letter exhorting... Read more »

The films of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli have won immense worldwide acclaim, in large part because they so fully inhabit their medium. Their characters, their stories, their worlds: all can come fully to life only in animation. Still, it’s true that some of their material did originate in other forms.... Read more »

What can you do with graphic design skills? More and more, it seems, as emerging technologies drive new apps, software, and games. New design challenges are everywhere, from human-machine interfaces, to 3D modeling in video games and animated films, to re-imagining classic designs in print and on screen. In addition... Read more »

Is “flow state” the new mindfulness? The phrase has gained a lot of currency lately. You may have heard it spoken of in rarified terms that sound like you have to be a full-time artist, professional athlete, or Albert Einstein to access it. On the other hand, we have award-winning... Read more »

When they finally get those kinks worked out of the time machine and we can take a tourist trip back to Rome—having signed the non-intervention paperwork, of course—we’re going to need someone to guide us. I propose that should be Garrett Ryan, host of the Told In Stone YouTube channel,... Read more »

Andrei Tarkovsky understood cinema in a way no filmmaker had before — and, quite possibly, in a way no filmmaker has since. That impression is reinforced by any of his films, five of which are available to watch free on Youtube. You’ll find them on the Youtube channel of Mosfilm,... Read more »

Johannes (or Jan) Vermeer’s tranquil domestic scenes draw larger crowds than nearly any other European painter; he, like Rembrandt, is synonymous with the phrase “Dutch Master.” But for much of its existence, his work lay in near-obscurity. After his death, some of his most-renowned paintings passed through the hands of... Read more »

Museums are the memory of our culture and they’re the memory of our planet. – Dr. Kirk Johnson, Director, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History For many of us natural history museums are emblematic of school field trips, or rainy day outings with (or as) children. There’s always something to... Read more »