Not all charities are created equal—or offer equal benefits to the giver. I suppose it feels a little depressing to read this sort of blunt analysis, but calling it what is is probably a good first step in both considering less-self-interested realms of generosity and service—and in recognizing and celebrating the goodness and possibility, such as they are, of cultural places and spaces like the Frick museum.

charity, cultural worlds, horizons of the possible, museums, philanthropy

Nate

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Nonetheless, a few months ago I became a ”Young Fellow” at the Frick museum ($500 per year; “all but $340 is tax deductible”). I’ll admit I felt slightly ambivalent about it. As much as I enjoy going to museums and sincerely believe they help to make the world a better place, giving to them is not quite on a par with giving to a cancer hospital. Cultural institutions are a luxury in our society. Surely there are more pressing concerns.

My agenda was to join an organisation that promotes community. In my research, I found that cultural institutions have a monopoly on providing frequent, affordable events that also, frankly, seem fun. My hard-earned, limited income could instead go toward feeding starving children in Africa, which is surely a worthier cause than maintaining the art collection of an old mansion on Fifth Avenue. But starving children do not provide fun parties. Point: museum.

Evolution of a cartoon heroine.

animation, children, cultural worlds, disney, movies, women

Nate

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In addition to making Snow White fashionable, Grim also “began to absorb more and more of the actual live model” into his drawings, writes Johnson, who happened to be a 14-year-old girl named Marge Belcher, who was 16 when they finished filming. Take a look at that face—it’s not exactly the childlike countenance Disney princesses have these days, is it?

Look at Snow White on the Disney Princess official website, Sure she’s been hipped up a bit to fit into modern times and, apparently, that included her waistline—it’s smaller than Barbie’s! (Go download Snow White’s wallpaper and then ask yourself, are the dwarfs even feeding her?)

I'd say the idea of repurposing a defunct big-box store as a church is far more appealing to me than purpose-building churches that look like ... big box stores.

architecture, churches, commerce, failure, reuse, technology and change

Nate

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The challenges of repurposing big-box stores are not limited to dealing with their unwieldy size. Often, the real estate can be tied up in complicated arrangements. The potential buyer of a big-box store might encounter any number of stipulations on what the building, parking lot, and land can be used for in the future. These stipulations can make it difficult for other businesses to move into an abandoned big-box—but they also open up such spaces for more creative use. The Calvary Chapel in Pinellas Park, Fla., purchased an abandoned Wal-Mart building across the street from its previous home. The deed specified that the structure could not be used by one of Wal-Mart’s various competitors for several decades. But for the moment, at least, churches aren’t on that list. Many former big-box stores have been reclaimed by civic institutions—a library, a courthouse—and by churches. Before moving into this old Wal-Mart, the Calvary Chapel had made its home in an abandoned Winn-Dixie grocery store across the highway.

What does your neighborhood beauty salon make possible? What new forms of culture are created in response?

community, crime, horizons of the possible, neighborhoods, scope, violence, women

Nate

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The police have tried doing outreach to victims by, among other things, setting up domestic violence education tables at community events, only to find that no one wants to be seen near them. But the atmosphere is different in the safety of a beauty salon.

“The salon may be one of the few places women might be without their abuser around,” said Laurie Magid, a former state prosecutor who is acting United States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “This program really addresses a need. You don’t have a case unless you have a crime reported in the first place and that is the difficult area of domestic violence.”

While Cut it Out trains stylists offsite, the Washington Heights workshops, conducted in Spanish, take place inside beauty parlors during the hours that clients are served, which not only makes it easier for people to participate, but also enhances the comfort factor.

“The salon is a place where everyone already feels at home,” said Sharon Kagawa of the Administration for Children’s Services, the agency that recruits salons for the program. “So they can be more honest.”

It's easy to think of the hermit as someone who chooses to remove themselves from culture. While I suppose by Andy's definition it's difficult to make a culture of one, few hermits are truly that alone—nor should they be. There is culture-among-hermits, as in even the most removed contemplative orders; but the hermit's place in the larger culture has often been one not of culture-rejecter but culture-keeper.

community, cultural worlds, horizons of the possible, monasticism, thomas merton

Nate

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Buddhist-Christian dialogue seems awfully passé to me in an era when positive dialogue seems all too scarce among Muslims, Christians, and Jews, on the one hand, and between crusading atheists and theists of all stripes, on the other. But I do appreciate Thomas Merton’s appreciation of the hermit life—the need to get away from it all—even though he may have been one of the most outspoken Trappists who ever lived (as my father is one of the more talkative Quakers I’ve ever met). The editor of Buddhist-Christian Studies, however, thinks Merton ignored one vital class of hermits (p. viii, n. 5):

“Merton’s model of the hermit life does not exhaust the phenomenon within Western Christianity. Historically speaking, the hermit life was embraced by far more people than the limited number of professed monks whose spiritual growth had taken them beyond the life of the coenobium. For example, hermit shrine keepers were numerous throughout Christian cultures for centuries; most of these were simple laity without whom many pilgrimage sites would simply not have existed, and their identity has not yet found a modern voice. The massively popular pilgrimage churches of traditional Catholicism had at their heart the hermit-sacristan who tended the lamps and swept the floors. The professed hermit monk, the monastic hermit order, and the shrine hermit all found expression in the legal and the architectural boundaries of medieval and early modern societies.”

Perhaps lay bloggers, photographers, and Wikipedists can be considered the hermit-sacristans of this information age, quietly tending our quirky little shrines that attract pilgrims who seek to escape the self-referential obsessions of the cloistered academies and the hourly tolling of alarm bells from the cathedrals of the major media.

Both long-term residents and visitors to Las Vegas are at significantly greater risk of suicide. Why might this be? Perhaps a combination of 'gambler's dispair' and the fact that suicide is, in its way, contagious. But the researchers also suggest that Las Vegas' is—or perhaps was—one of the fastest-growing metropolitain areas in the US. Lots of new residents equals not a lot of strong social networks. The good news: rates have been going down in recent years; and for a quick-fix, well, you can always go somewhere else.

anomie, cultural worlds, gambling, gardens and cities, nevada, suicide

Nate

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Also noteworthy, according to Wray, is the finding that if you live in Las Vegas, but travel away from home, your risk for suicide decreases. “So, one conclusion we might draw from this fact is that something about the place is toxic or ‘suicidogenic,’ and that there is something about reduced exposure to Las Vegas that is beneficial,” said Wray.

Here's a synthesis of an email/chat exchange I had with a friend over the weekend.

darkness, goethe, last words, light

Nate

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E: The beginning of daylight savings and the realization that it won’t be lighter than it is now until sometime in February has me looking for “light in the darkness.” I saw this auto store last night, and liked it.

N: Did you know that Goethe’s last words were “More light!”?

E: Oh, how wonderful! The only Goethe quote I know is “everything is a leaf”

N: The really funny part is, you see it quoted like that, but I looked it up and evidently his final sentence was “Could you open up the shade in the window so as to let in more light?”

E: That’s so much better! Less mystical, and therefore more so.

…

Coda: Of course now I had to look it all up again. Goethe’s last words, like those of many a famous person, are contested. The top alternate contendor is, “Come, my little daughter, and give me your little paw.” The original German version of More Light is, ”Macht doch den zweiten Fensterladen in der Stube auch auf, damit mehr Licht hereinkomme.” Pesky German habit of ending the sentence with a verb! Well, “Come in here!” has its own mystical charm too.