What can the arts really do?
Plus, the 10 best books I read in 2024.
Hello. Since the last time we spoke, I have:
Finished the Lionel Trilling essay collection The Liberal Imagination and started reading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Have also been dipping into Ernst Gombrich’s The Story of Art.
Watched Whit Stillman’s holiday classic Metropolitan (1990), Scorscese’s The Age of Innocence (1993), Halina Reijn’s Babygirl (2024), Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (1988), and the greatest film of all time, Hayao Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). Among other assorted holiday movies.
Finally got good enough at basic chess strategy that I was able to win a game against a bot on the Chess.com app.
Now, the news.
Is the world becoming less literate? Yes, according to a new study released by the economic intergovernmental organization OECD, which measured literacy, problem-solving, and numeracy skills of adults ages 16-65 across 31 OECD member countries. Compared to a decade prior, literacy declined significantly in 11 countries, remained stable in 14, and only increased in two countries—both of which are already known for their remarkable educational systems: Finland and Denmark, the Financial Times reported. The study also found that in the United States, nearly one-third of adults read at the level of a “10-year-old child,” Andreas Schleicher, director for education and skills at the OECD, told the FT.
So, what’s causing this? Not to be all, “it’s the phones,” but it kind of is the phones. Schleicher says that technology has changed the way we consume information, with more people opting to read short-form content and get information through other modes of communication such as video. But most critical isn’t the way we get information, but what information we decide to take in. He says that social media also makes it more likely that you “read stuff that confirms your views, rather than engages with diverse perspectives, and that’s what you need to get to [the top levels] on the [OECD literacy] assessment, where you need to distinguish fact from opinion, navigate ambiguity, manage complexity.” I don’t think we need to go into why, exactly, it is important that we develop such skills across society.
Instead, let’s consider what we are doing about it. The FT notes that Britain’s investment in improving its educational system improved the literary scores of the country’s adolescent population. The U.S., of course, has great variance across its states—but some are actively working to improve literacy, at least among children. Recently, first graders in Iowa were sent home with “decodable” books that are designed to help early readers improve their classroom skills, as a part of a $3.5 million state initiative. After launching a “science of reading” initiative last year, Ohio received a $60 million federal Comprehensive Literacy State Development grant to develop literacy programs that target children up to grade 12 and prioritize underserved groups. In Minnesota, the nonprofit Reach Out and Read ensures that children who receive well visits at 300 medical clinics across the state leave their appointment with a book. And in Georgia, a newly passed bill intends for students who fall behind in literacy skills to be given a personalized learning plan and intensive training to get back on track.
Improving adult literacy—for individuals who are no longer a part of a formalized educational system—appears to be a bigger challenge. But some are facing it with new solutions, like in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the public library launched The Discovery Collection, a cross-genre assortment of books in varying levels, which can be paired with corresponding workbooks or other educational tools, all of which intend to destigmatize the process of improving literacy skills. In September the American Library Association also received a $400,000 National Leadership Grants Award to design “adult and family literacy support centers for libraries nationwide.” The literacy crisis, after all, cannot be tackled with one simple solution; it’s an educational challenge, but even more than that, a cultural one, too.
How are we feeling about AI and art these days? I am still not entirely sure of it. But in any case, a new publication called The AI Art Magazine has launched to chronicle and investigate artificial intelligence’s infiltration into and engagement with the art world. Publisher Mike Brauner seems intent that it will do so thoughtfully—ArtNews reported that the first edition includes an essay by graphic designer David Carson titled “If someone gives a command to a machine, is that person then an artist?” which is paired with a work of art. Whether it does so successfully or not remains to be seen; the name of the publication does not exactly inspire confidence in its originality…though I could be proven wrong.
Meanwhile in Kansas, writer Andrew Johnson has resurrected the local art magazine Forum, which has been out of print for more than two decades, to create a space to more deeply engage with and showcase the regional arts community. Nice!
Last week, we discussed how Russia’s war on Ukraine was leading some ballet companies to abandon Russian classics like The Nutcracker, to varied critical response. This year, the National Ballet of Ukraine has brought its wartime creation, The Snow Queen—based on a Hans Christian Anderson tale—on tour to Paris. It sounds interesting; a rare contemporary creation that follows entirely the rulebook of 19th-century ballets, and in doing so, allows Ukrainian artists to establish their right to an artform that’s just as much theirs as anyone else’s.
In Ukraine, Unesco has also recently increased the number of cultural sites it has granted “provisional enhanced protection” to since the war began, from 25 to 27. New to the list are the National Historical Memorial Reserve Babyn Yar, the site of a Holocaust massacre in Kyiv, and the Odessa Literary Museum, The Art Newspaper reported.
What can art do for individuals experiencing—or those who have experienced incarceration? Two programs insist on its powers of rehabilitation. The visual and musical artist Stan Chisholm, who performs as 18andCounting, has been named the artist-in-residence of the St. Louis University Prison Education Program; through his program, detainees will develop their artistic skills and learn more about what it takes to make a career in the arts. They will also complete a mural within the detention center. “Everyone deserves to have some way to express themselves, everyone needs a way to express themselves, and these are some of the folks who have the smallest of opportunities to do so,” Chisholm told St. Louis Public Radio.
In Newark, New Jersey, the nonprofit Ritual4Return takes previously incarcerated individuals through a 12-week storytelling and performing arts program to build community, empathy, and forgiveness. Its next cohort begins in the spring and will have its largest class size of 20 students, NJ.com reported.
Music and dance can also have a powerful impact on one’s health. A new study shows that in Parkinsons patients, dance can decrease levels of depression, with a cumulative effect as patients build consistency with their dancing, The Telegraph reported. Researchers at Lurie Children’s Hospital and Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music also recently put together a choir of children who have a heart condition called Fontan circulation to see if vocal training could help ease symptoms of the condition, as singing has been shown to help individuals with asthma, kids with cystic fibrosis, and other conditions, The Chicago Tribune reported. It’s too early to determine the results of this experiment, but researchers and parents are aligned on one clearly visible result: The confidence of all children involved surged.
Petty king and global chess champion Magnus Carlsen quit the World Rapid Chess Championship after being threatened with disqualification via dress code violation because he didn’t want to change out of his jeans. Not without his denim!
Maestro and conductor Long Yu, who is credited with further developing China’s classical music scene—inspiring the launch of dozens of orchestras nationwide—and increasing global awareness of China’s contributions to classical music, has been bestowed an honor: A complete collection of his recordings, put out by Deutsche Grammophon, the oldest surviving record company, established in 1898. You might recognize the label from the Tár soundtrack. Yu, who is the principal conductor and artistic director of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, previously worked with Deutsche Grammophon in 2000, the year the CPO launched—and marked the first time the label ever worked with a Chinese orchestra.
A judge in Arkansas ruled that it is “unconstitutional” for librarians and booksellers to be criminally charged for providing “harmful” material…otherwise known as books…to minors, the AP reported.
A teachable moment. Tulsa Opera is putting on a production of Bizet’s Carmen in February, but before that, it is starting a conversation about a large theme of the show. With Domestic Violence Intervention Services and the Family Safety Center, it is holding an event called The Tragedy of Carmen: Domestic Violence and the Operatic Stage, which will feature show excerpts, as well as a resource fair for survivors of domestic violence and a panel discussion. “The Tragedy of Carmen is based on one of opera’s most popular stories and beloved scores, but it also exposes the devastating consequences of control, obsession, and violence—realities that affect countless lives in our community. Through our premiere Opera Echoes event, we aim to spark meaningful conversations about the epidemic of domestic violence in Oklahoma and the urgent need for awareness and action,” said artistic director Aaron Beck in a press release.
Scientists may have figured out what Stonehenge was for. Because all of its stones come from different far-off regions of the U.K. and therefore would have required intense collaboration and thorough communication among various populations, researchers believe that it “may have had a political as well as a religious purpose—as a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos,” Mike Parker Pearson, lead researcher and professor of British later prehistory at the University College London’s Institute of Archaeology told CNN.
I read 42 books this year. In a general, but imprecise order, here are my 10 favorites. Perhaps next year I’ll do reviews:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Happening by Annie Ernaux
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott
All Things Are Too Small by Becca Rothfeld
The Fear of Losing Eurydice by Julieta Campos
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
There were other good ones. And at least three truly terrible books that I will not do the dishonor of mentioning here. ▲