We missed the chance last week to re-welcome the THE Magazine folks back to the fold. Their new venture, Arts + Culture DFW, began popping up at galleries last week. Those boys don’t miss a beat. Between the folding of THE and the launch of A + C there seemed to have only been a single month without the a comprehensive print periodical steered by Scot Hart. Jerome Weeks offers word on how the mag will try to heal the, ahem, frictions between THE and their writers. As for me, their name can now be blamed for my having Arling and Cameron’s brilliant title track off their 2001 album We are A&C stuck in my head. It’s hard to find that song online, so we’ll post the next best thing – the next track on said album: the Euro- Shibuya-kei classic “Dirty Robot.” Oh and we can’t forget A & C’s fantastic collaboration with Pizzicato Five on that monster of an album: Happy End of the World. Enjoy.

Arling and Cameron - “Dirty Robot”

Pizzicato Five w/ Arling and Cameron - “Arigato We Love You”

A few days ago Zac Crain casually aside-d in the comments on a Frontburner post that Austin’s music scene has been coasting on reputation. Is there a connection there to this: Arturo Palacios is moving Art Palace from Austin to Houston. Glasstire has an interview with Palacios. Palacios on the move:
“In the last couple of years, the work has shifted to getting the art out of Austin via art fairs, collaborating with spaces outside of Austin, getting national attention and placing works in important collections. By moving to Houston, I see a continuation of these efforts, and I will be aided by being in a city that can act as more of a “portal” to the outside world.”

My four-year-old’s evaluation of Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are was fairly concise: “They messed up the book.” A.O. Scott returned to the film a second time with his kids to see how they responded to adaptation of the classic children’s tale that has received mixed reviews. He found that at its heart, Jonze’s film focuses on a theme too often absent even from adult films:
“No place is free of conflict and bad feeling, and no person has the power to make problems disappear. Where there is happiness — friendship, adventure, affection, security — there is also, inevitably, disappointment. That’s life.”
As a result, Jonze’s film is relentlessly melancholic, and surprisingly memorable. Three weeks later, my daughter is still asking why Max’s sister’s friends crushed his igloo. I suppose to a four-year-old “that’s life” doesn’t cut it as an explanation.

To celebrate twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall (“Bliss was it that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very Heaven.”), the Op-Ed editors of the New York Times asked nine poets to compose new works about the event. The Telegraph looks back on the last twenty years of German culture. It also seems worthwhile to take another look at the beautiful graffiti that transformed that monument of dread. And while it is tempting to take the opportunity to post that David Hasselhoff gem that supposedly inspired it all (or not), we’ll instead post the other anthem of Berlin 1989: Nena’s Wunder Gescheh’n.

“What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax alternative succeeds not only on its own terms but also according to the criteria used by defenders of high benefits and high taxes.” That’s the takeaway from this piece in City Journal, but the article is worth reading all the way through, especially to learn this surprising statistic:
According to a report issued earlier this year by McKinsey & Company, Texas students “are, on average, one to two years of learning ahead of California students of the same age,” though expenditures per public school student are 12 percent higher in California.

Loyal readers of this corner of the site may have noticed that it has been quiet this week. I won’t bore you with the details of the home move, the ruined furniture in storage and subsequent search for replacements, and the long hours at the day job that have contributed to the silence. But I did want to find the posting-time to apologize to anyone caught in the traffic on westbound I-30 near the Sylvan exit last night in the 7 o’clock hour. That was my fault. You see, a canister of acetylene gas fell off a truck and wedged itself underneath my car where it popped open and caught on fire. We really had to stop right there in the right lane and pull the kids out of their car seats and get them across the Sylvan exit ramp and off the road. I would have liked to have pulled all the way off the road so that traffic could continue to flow smoothly, but there was, you know, the fire to worry about. Oh, and thanks to the two guys who came up from the trucking company on the service road and had the foresight of bringing a fire extinguisher. We didn’t realize the car was on fire until you told us it was - so really thank you for that. And since you were able to put out the fire before it spread to the engine, the car didn’t blow up after all. You know what? I actually just drove it home after the firemen and police went on their merry way. So thanks again.

The Arts District is urban revitalization writ large, but more immediate, tangible success with neighborhood transformation may come through the “Loving My Community” grants, a City of Dallas program that offers neighborhoods $10,000 grants to target needs in their community. As this DMN piece reports, Bryan Place residents will use their $10K to create better connections between the neighborhood adjacent to downtown and the new Arts District, which means cleaning up and beautifying the wasteland under I-45/Central Expressway underpass. My own [new] neighborhood, L.O. Daniel is getting a new park at the end of my street (score!). The $100,000 available for this year has already been allocated, but another $100,000 will be funded for next year’s grants. Let’s hope the city can figure out how to make that $200,000 . . . or $1 million.

At some point this weekend while hauling the bazillion pounds of books that were in storage into our new place I couldn’t help but wonder: How much does a Kindle cost? But the Kindle may not be the future of publishing after all, reports this Reuters article. Critics point to the mono-functionality of the machine and the age-old pleasures still reserved to the printed page (like handing a copy of a book to a friend). It sounds a lot like the nay saying that went on about the downfall of the newspaper. Speaking of the death of the newspaper, online news giant, the Daily Beast, believes wholeheartedly in digital books, the Reuters piece reports, and has even launched its own digital publishing brand Beast Books.

“The most deadening influence on art in our time is the belief that content matters more than style,” writes Jonathan Jones on a Guardian blog. Just look at the godfather of meaningful pop: Bob Dylan, continues Jones. The sometimes cantankerous folk-rock-pop star has spent his career evading categorization and characterization, and trying to emphasize that “Beauty is better than a big idea.”

Well, at least that’s what the goal should be, writes Jason Roberts on the Bike Friendly Oak Cliff blog. The takeaway from the piece: Dallas won’t achieve anything unless she sets her sights higher then we may think possible. To which we say, “hear, hear.”
From the piece: “In all of my own advocacy within city meetings, townhalls, chambers, and more, I’ve been struck at how many people who have been placed in positions of authority, had the “Dallas just doesn’t do that” mentality.”