Author Archives: editor, facilitator, decider

About editor, facilitator, decider

Doesn't know much about culture, but knows when it's going to hell in a handbasket.

The way of no attachments

It’s been a quiet few weeks here at Deconstruction Central; perhaps you’ve noticed. There may or may not be a reasonable explanation for this…I guess it all depends on your definition of reasonable. I might partially blame it on a … Continue reading

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RIP Anthony Bourdain (June 25, 1956 – June 8, 2018)

This one stings. Today and in coming days we’ll be hearing a lot of descriptions for Anthony Bourdain: celebrity chef, TV host, travel guide…but to me he’ll always be remembered as an extraordinarily gifted writer. Not sure how Bourdain preferred to … Continue reading

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Weekend craftiness

So here is a purposeless little project I wrapped up this weekend—because sometimes I feel the call to make something, even if that something has no practical value whatsoever. Sometimes the making is simply for the making’s sake. It started … Continue reading

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Remembering Belleau Wood – a century of sacrifice

On Memorial Day we honor those service members who made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation. It’s fitting and fortuitous then that Memorial Day 2018 falls so closely to the centenary of the pivotal First World War Battle of Belleau … Continue reading

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Innovation to the rescue

Here are a couple inconvenient truths for you: anthropogenic (i.e., human-caused) climate change is a fact, and we’re now way past the tipping point where behavior changes can avert disaster. So what is left to us? Glad you asked. Though the … Continue reading

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Donald Glover’s American philosophy

Definitions fail us when we attempt to classify Donald Glover’s four-minute manifesto, This Is America. It’s a music video only in the most limiting sense. More accurately, it’s an experience, and not necessarily a pleasant one. DBA “Childish Gambino” (legend … Continue reading

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Txt like an Egyptian

. . In a move sure to be cheered by classicists everywhere, the Unicode Consortium group, they who  guard the emoji gates, have proposed adding more than 2,000 Egyptian hieroglyphs to the approved character sets encoded on new smart phones, … Continue reading

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Another “new” Da Vinci

Every few years, it seems, the world is treated to a new Da Vinci attribution—that is, some Renaissance painting that held low-key status in a minor collection suddenly goes stratospheric as it is newly credited to the maestro himself, Leonardo … Continue reading

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Earth Day 2018

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A museum’s merry mea culpa

Owning up to one’s mistakes is considered one of the hallmarks of maturity. But the inclination to cover up or gloss over the most egregious boners? That’s how most of us roll. Still, due respect is owed to the insufferably … Continue reading

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A death in Trump Tower

Todd Brassner died on Saturday, a victim of the 50th-floor fire at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. Brassner, 67, was an art dealer and collector, with a particular interest in Pop art, and a long association with Andy Warhol (Warhol … Continue reading

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Got her covered

. A vicarious thrill and no small amount of pride to see that the real talent in the family, the mother of my spoiled-rotten child, maestra of the molten glass Jennifer L. Worden lands the cover spot and featured artist … Continue reading

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Lend me your art

The lending library is probably one of humanity’s greatest cultural institutions (stands to reason, then, that the first lending library in the Americas was founded by a veritable cultural institute in the flesh: Benjamin Franklin). It’s an ideal that’s kept pace … Continue reading

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Down this rabbit hole you must go…

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Sasha Matthews for the copyright win

In theory, American copyright laws are among the most creator-friendly in the world: in a nutshell, if you conceive it, and if you preserve it in a durable format, it belongs to you, under aegis of  U.S. jurisprudence, for as long as … Continue reading

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