by Thomas O’Dwyer

On April 1, one hundred years ago, Walter Gropius established the Bauhaus school of design in Weimar, central Germany. It lasted a mere 14 years — exactly the same time as the Weimar Republic. In 1933, the Nazis destroyed both. Short life or not, Bauhaus opened up a modern way of thinking about arts and crafts, the marriage of form and function, education, and the growth of cities.  Its ideas have had an impact well beyond the school, its locations and its era. And there have been some resurrections. Sleepy Weimar has regained its pleasant obscurity and the recovery of Bauhaus has been a little uneven, but robust and international. Nazi thuggery was dealt a satisfying poke in the eye by one living monument to Bauhaus, the White City of Tel Aviv in Israel — a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Gropius’ revolutionary school of art and design was an achievement of modernism itself. It began as the Thuringian state Bauhaus in Weimar, moved as a school of design to Dessau, and finally as a private institute to Berlin. Its themes grew from an active arts and crafts movement and when the Nazis crushed it, these ideas flooded out of Germany with thousands of emigrants. The influence of Bauhaus has been immense, especially in the United States, where many artists moved before and during World War II. As well as Tel Aviv, built by Jewish German refugees, there are World Heritage Bauhaus sites in a dozen states around the world. The 100th anniversary this year is being marked by exhibitions, theatre, music and modern dance events. A flood of books has appeared, most destined to languish unread on post-Bauhaus bookshelves.

What the term Bauhaus means to the wider public today is hard to pin down. Read more »

by Mary Hrovat

I was struck by a sentence in Susan Orlean’s The Library Book: “If nothing lasts, nothing matters.” This line was part of a discussion of memory, the fear of being forgotten, and the value of passing things on to future generations. I share a passion for the idea of continuity between generations (and I highly recommend Orlean’s book), but ultimately I don’t think that something has to last to matter. Alan Watts, in his book This Is It, says that “This—the immediate, everyday, and present experience—is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe.” It’s not about connecting with anything but what’s here in front of me now. (Easier said than done, of course.)

The idea that impermanence can be embraced is both a difficult one for me and something I sorely need. When I was in my early 20s, I rejected my parents’ religion, including its teachings about an afterlife. One of the longest-lasting effects of having once believed in an immortal soul has been the persistent sense that this brief existence, limited to 70 or 80 years on this planet if you’re lucky, can’t be as worthwhile or meaningful as a life that endures forever. On the other hand, being out from under the disapproving gaze of a punitive god and outside the limiting story of sin and redemption has ultimately been tremendously freeing. Read more »

by Gabrielle C. Durham

I teach two kinds of group exercise classes, and part of the certification processes for both disciplines devoted no small amount of attention to how to speak to your minions, uh, students.

• Negative forecasting is a no no. (Example: “Don’t think about the searing pain you’re probably feeling” is not considered positive forecasting.)
• Use the imperative rather than the interrogative. (Examples: “1, 2, 3, lift those legs behind your neck. Now!” vs. “Could you please move this way, pretty please?”)
• Try not to use overly involve anatomical terms, especially when referring to the butt. (Example: Use “seat” rather than almost any other term that all students would understand and potentially complain about. It’s happened.)

To be fair, the setting for such interactions matters. I teach in a gym, so word of mouth is terrifically important to getting bodies in the room, and you never know when you are going to offend someone with an offhand remark. At the studio where I also torture people for money, I have a bit more leeway with such rules. I’m still not supposed to say that a particular move will hurt or cause pain. Other rules include expectations such as: Don’t kill your client directly, try not to insult the client, come on time, wear clothing, et cetera.

Most dance classes, such as Zumba, NIA, Polynesian, or hip-hop, but not ballet, require almost no words, so that’s a factor that you can reasonably eliminate from this consideration of how language is used. If you can find the beat and see the instructor reasonably well, you can follow along as expertly as you can manage. When I took ballroom dancing, this was not the case, but the less said about that, the better. Read more »

by Jeroen Bouterse

“…And now to introduce our second panelist: Martha. Martha does believe that academic philosophy is worth pursuing, and she has – of course – written a book about it. Martha, can you briefly summarize your argument?”

M: “Thank you. Yes, well, you can imagine that, though I told my publisher that my book is aimed at a broader audience, I should also like to emphasize that my argument will not easily be shortened to 140 characters. Even though I have no doubt that Rob here would find a way to do so.”

R: “Not in your case, Martha; your books are a three-tweet problem. But in all seriousness: I see what Martha is getting at here. It is the contrast between highbrow academic philosophy and ‘pop philosophy’ – a contrast I believe to be mostly a fiction. The notion that what happens in the universities is real philosophy, and that whatever the public can digest can only be a shadow of that, is misguided. It is an artifact of the fact that a few generations of great philosophers happened to work in a world where the highest intellectual authority was that of the university professor.

That Hegel’s lectures were well-attended does not mean that philosophy is, of its essence, most at home in the university. On the contrary: it is illustrative of the fact that a certain, very abstract type of thinking is suitable to the university. But it is not for school, but for life that we learn; there are other types of philosophy, and I am not ashamed that on my Twitter account I try to connect traditional philosophy to topical and pressing issues. I also write books, by the way..”

M: “That is all well and good, but I’d say that now Rob has replaced one doubtful contrast by another: his approach to philosophy concerns ‘life’, and academic philosophy, by contrast, is scholastic – which apparently means dead or lifeless.”

R: “Those were not my exact words, but I will happily embrace a similar statement in the same spirit: philosophy, in the classical sense of that notion, is not a system of more or less well-founded claims, but a way of life, defined and inspired by a reflective attitude towards life. And yes, that requires it to engage in conversation with life.” Read more »

by Joshua Wilbur

I wake up just before sunrise.

For weeks, I’ve gone to bed at exactly 10 PM because—as Shawn Stevenson shows in Sleep Smarter—a consistent bedtime is the single most important factor in waking up well-rested. Before getting out of bed, I perform a series of stretches to prime my body for the day and gently transition to a waking state. I stand up feeling energized. I go to the window, open the blackout shades, and take a moment to appreciate the view. I’m ready to win the morning.

It’s hard to overstate the value of a morning routine. According to Hal Elrod, the author of The Miracle Morning, “By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible.” My morning routine begins with some vigorous exercise, a HIIT of strength and cardio. With the Scientific 7-Minute Workout, I “essentially [combine] a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of discomfort.” This leaves me with plenty of time to meditate afterwards.

For a long time, I struggled to choose between mantra meditation, body scan meditation, and breath awareness meditation, so now I cycle through and reap the benefits of all three. I spend half an hour chanting, scanning, and breathing before taking a short contrast shower, alternating between warm and cold water in order to boost circulation and relieve tired muscles. I get dressed for the day, choosing an outfit that is both comfortable and likely to impress. I tidy my room and go to the kitchen. Read more »

by Christopher Bacas

My answering machine whirrs. From an echoing room, the chainsaw-voice shouts into a speaker phone:

THIS IS GOD.
ANSWER THE PHONE…
SON….OF….A….BITCH
PICK…
UP…
THE…
GODDAMPHONE……
CALL ME…GOD
‘click’

Creator of the universe overloads a magnetic comb-and-wax-paper. Failing to make contact, he curses his fragile creation, then himself. W was that God. In truth, he was an atheist. Son of a Vaudeville pianist, Confirmed Catholic, drummer and devout musician (per Prophet Charlie Parker), W realized early his Washington, DC parish was as ignorant and segregated as its city, so he kept only the latter faith.

In the sixties, W opened a music store in a sleepy neighborhood just beyond the District line. As the population grew, it got rougher. During a lesson on a hot day, one kid asked to go out for a cold drink. W pulled a pistol from an ankle holster, then headed to an open window, saying over his shoulder. “Run, I’ll cover you.” Read more »

by Samia Altaf

After an anxious and grey winter, the gloom of an unraveling economy, topped by the ominous beating of war drums, spring arrived in Punjab and Lahore’s academies and activists put aside their concerns to celebrate Women’s International Day on March 8. Amidst the blooming of flowers and the heady fragrance of newly sprouting jasmine—feminism and feminist concerns and the doings of women suffused the air.

There were reviews of achievements by Pakistani women—Malala, Sharmeen Chinoy, Mukhtaran Mai, Fehmida Riaz, Hina Khar were lauded. There was the woman’s march of sisterhood and solidarity. The Prime Minister wants to ‘create an environment in which women can play their rightful role.’ Lively discussions were held on university campuses and in exclusive clubs. Television channels and talk shows competed to give more upbeat views of the whole  ‘woman question’ that included duties of women, responsibilities of women, rights of women, clothes of women as well as the pro-women actions undertaken and being planned. A female student of an elite university dared to attempt to wear shorts. Thankfully that is where it remained, a dare. We spoke of the hijab, the veil, its ‘badness’ and ‘goodness,’ and so on. All discussions ended with exhortations for ‘women’s empowerment.’

Ah, that word. What does it even mean? Read more »

by Shawn Crawford

In 1987, Anderson University, an Evangelical school in Indiana, acquired 140 works by the artist Warner Sallman, including Head of Christ. You may have never heard of Sallman, but in terms of sheer sales and presence, his Head of Christ makes him the most popular 20th Century artist in America. Exponentially more popular than Warhol or Wyeth. If you are a Boomer or Gen X Evangelical, Head of Christ provided the definitive image of Jesus, in a way that you can never shake.

At my house, this was the only “art” hanging on the wall. Many of my friends could say the same. One of the wealthier families in our church also had a copy of Sallman’s Christ at Heart’s Door, with a heavy gilt frame and one of those fancy lights attached at the top to better illuminate Jesus trying to get in. The painting has obvious echoes to William Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World without thePre-Raphaelite theatrics. Our Jesus did not wear a cape. And that beard needs a trim. As a freshman in college I learned Hunt had also painted The Awakening Conscience, a painting so erotic to my sheltered sensibilities I could not reconcile the two. I also stared at the reproduction in my British literature anthology for hours on end.

If you are wondering just how ubiquitous Sallman’s picture is, over 500 million copies have been sold since he painted it in 1940. That’s enough for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. with plenty left for Justin Trudeau to pass out to his disillusioned base. Oh pretty, pretty Justin. Read more »

Saw this hunting blind while walking in the woods near Raas last week.