Halcyon

Holly Warburton

The Letters of Emily Dickinson

seven // Taylor Swift

— Invisible String ( Taylor Swift, Folklore )

untitled by anneparker on Flickr.

That’s all I needed to know

These little kids at MoMA were trying to recreate this piece of art and it made my life.

someone asks how to define art, you show them these

this week in I Am Very Smart: having enough money to go to the opera, museums and concerts correlates with having enough money for food, shelter and basic health needs

They controlled for socioeconomic factors though! The people who conducted this study knew that people with lots of money to attend the opera were also more likely to be able to afford basic necessities, so they controlled for it in their analysis. The fun thing about statistics is that you can control for different confounding factors so you can look at the effects of one independent variable (opera or whatever) on the dependent variable (mortality). Part of being critical of potential biases is actually reading the article and knowing what to look for.

In addition to that very good point about controlling for socioeconomic factors, the article says a single museum or concert per year makes a difference. Most cities have free community concerts (some even have free opera performances!) and museums that are either free, pay-what-you-want, or at least have specific days/times during which they are free or at a significantly reduced cost. Many libraries (which are free) provide free museum passes to card holders. In fact, the article quotes a museum worker who works at a free art museum in Baltimore.

If you actually read the article you would also read that educators are excited about this study because it provides evidence that the arts should be made more accessible financially - by restoring arts programs in the public schools, for example.

It’s very nice to see new affirmation that humanity does not thrive on work alone.

Leah Umansky, from “Woman Carrying Everything”

You know, I’m real sick of people thinking art history is boring. Like, Caravaggio straight up killed a man by chopping his dick off and then was on the run for the rest of his own life. 

Benji helping Taylor play the piano in Miss Americana

the clouds moved faster than I did today ☁️

wildest dreams (2014)