Cleverness

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying. OSCAR WILDE

— The QI Elves (@qikipedia) January 20, 2013

Thinking

Good thinking demands periods when we have no idea what other people are thinking.

— Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton) January 18, 2013

A Year Inside The Australian Ballet: Episode 10 - Finale

It's been a massive year for The Australian Ballet, full of unforgettable moments -- especially for Amy Harris and Jake Mangakahia, the two stars of this mini-documentary series. In the final episode, Jake and Amy relive a year full of new ballets, new roles, a promotion and two awards, and the company starts on Don Quixote rehearsals.

Previously:

A Year Inside The Australian Ballet: Episode 9 - A 50th Birthday
A year inside The Australian Ballet: Episode 8: The corps de ballet

A year inside The Australian Ballet: Episode 7 - The mid-year review
A year inside The Australian Ballet: Episode 6 - Dressing the ballet
A year inside The Australian Ballet: Episode 5 Music of the Classics
A year inside The Australian Ballet: Boys' Day, Episode 4
A Year Inside The Australian Ballet: On The Road, Episode 3
A Year Inside The Australian Ballet, Episode 2
The Secret Life Of Dancers

The Value Of Culture

The Value of Culture is a five part BBC radio series by Melvyn Bragg (which can be downloaded as a podcast) which explores the modern concept of 'culture' from its roots in mid-19th Century Britain, specifically Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy and Edward Burnett Tylor's Primitive Culture (vol. 2), and exploring the discourse and uses of the concept until the present day. There are five episodes, each a little over forty minutes long, focusing in turn on Arnold and the roots of the concept of culture, Tylor and the anthropological conception of culture, C. P. Snow and the 'Two Cultures' debate, mass culture and culture studies, and then ending with a debate on the value of culture today.

Fascinating and essential for anyone who thinks they know what culture is, or what it is for.

Michael Chabon On Entertainment→

When asked if he thought "entertainment" has become a dirty word among purveyors of high culture, this is what Michael Chabon had to say:

Sure, and with good reason, in the sense that most of what gets labeled "entertainment" is really terrible. We get the entertainment we deserve. To me, being entertained is having your mind engaged with the work of art on multiple levels. So I think a lot of what gets passed off as entertainment really does not qualify for that definition. It's merely diverting at most.

To be entertained by something is in turn to entertain it, like you entertain ideas, a kind of mutuality there that I think is part of my definition of "entertainment," that you're giving back to the work at the same time the work is giving to you.