Hide and Seek

"This is the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture. “Hide/Seek” considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art—especially abstraction—were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society’s evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment."
at the National Portrait Gallery

The Skaters of Kabul

Quite a beautiful little piece about a group of skateboarding teens in Kabul.

SKATEISTAN: TO LIVE AND SKATE KABUL from Diesel New Voices on Vimeo.

Generation Me

I couldn't understand what was wrong with my students when I started teaching. They seemed to have this sense of self-entitlement, that they all deserved to get A's. Even if they didn't show up to class or if their work was half done.
I thought it was them. Well it is them, not this particular group but their generation!
The concept of the Generation Me isn't super new, it may have gained momentum from 2006+ but it is quite interesting and quite concerning at the same time.

An article in the Gazette hit home for me; "What happens when Generation X is teaching Generation Me"

"Beginning, for instance, with the email excuses Lafrance received from former students, who traded the old "dog ate my homework" for "hey, dude, I couldn't come to class because I was hungover," or "I didn't do my assignment because I was having sex." As a sociologist who studies generational shifts, Lafrance is fascinated with Generation Me, a group loosely defined by author Jean Twenge, who coined the phrase, as anyone born since 1970, but which really bloomed after 1980.
He's not alone among 30-something faculty members struck by emerging characteristics common among many of their "Generation Me" students. Traits include a strong sense of entitlement, a need for instant gratification, and an apparent lack of any kind of filter. "Everything is shared at all times, without a sense of place or status." Terry Byrnes is an English professor who joined Concordia the year Lafrance was born. He, too has seen big changes in everything from basic behavior, such as students routinely leaving class to go to the washroom or send text messages, to the fragile cultural literacy of incoming students."

more here "What happens when Generation X is teaching Generation Me"

Also a more scathing report of the generation,
An article from newsweek, aug 2009:
"Growing up, my literary heroines were those who, like me, struggled to be good: Jo from "Little Women," Harriet the spy, Laura Ingalls and Pippi Longstocking. A strong-willed (and loud) child, I craved examples of unruly knuckleheads tethered to a loving family that encouraged us to be our best selves despite our natural inclinations. Precocious but naive, I thought of myself as an ugly duckling—misunderstood in my youth but destined for a beauty and stature completely impossible for my loved ones to comprehend. I shudder to think what a monster I would have become in the modern child-rearing era. Gorged on a diet of grade inflation, constant praise and materialistic entitlement, I probably would have succumbed to a life of heedless self- indulgence."
more here

yes ma'am, that is backwash on the menu

"One rainy afternoon this past December, while visiting my cousin Martin in Ecuador, I found myself surrounded by eight grinning, scantily clad members of the Shuar, an Amazonian tribe with the distinction of having shrunk its last human head during the Reagan administration. I wasn’t in any kind of danger — just the opposite, in fact — but I’d have given almost anything to escape.
My cousin and I were being welcomed as honored guests, which among the Shuar involves the consumption of chicha, a mildly alcoholic drink that they make from boiled yucca root and human saliva. The situation came as no surprise to me, because I visited the year before, was received with due pomp and politely took a sip from the ceremonial gourd. What was surprising, however, was that I let it happen a second time."
continued at NYT here