Posts Tagged ‘Oscar Wilde’
“Two countries separated by the same language”*…
The contentious times in which we live are perhaps nowhere more obvious than in the language we use… or perhaps better said, in the way we use language. MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication is here to help…
In our highly polarized society, it’s not surprising that we see significant differences in how words are used by those with opposing political and cultural viewpoints. The Bridging Dictionary, an interactive web-based prototype developed by MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication, identifies the different way words and phrases are used by different constituencies and–similar to a traditional dictionary or thesaurus–gives meanings and also attempts to suggest less polarized (bridging) alternatives.
Utilizing natural language processing, the Bridging Dictionary compares how two media outlets on the opposite sides of the US political spectrum–foxnews.com on the right, and msnbc.com on the left–differ in the meanings assigned to the same words or phrases. This involved gathering approximately 18,000 articles from foxnews.com and 13,000 from msnbc.com published since 2021. The content was then split into millions of sentences for analysis. The first analysis measured the differences in usage frequency and sentiment. For those terms that show significant differences, a further qualitative comparison was done using a large language model (LLM) to describe the way the usage varies between the two outlets. The LLM was then prompted to provide evidence for its conclusions by citing specific references, as well as alternative “bridging” terms…
How words common in American political discourse are used differently across the political divide: “Bridging Dictionary.”
Learn more about its current challenges, and possible future potential at (CCC advisor and former CBS News head) Andrew Heyward’s post— then explore it.
* Bertrand Russell, speaking of the difference between England and America, though the observation is only too apt here. (Russell may well have been paraphrasing Oscar Wilde…)
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As we watch our tongues, we might recall that it was on this date in 2012 that The Disney Channel premiered Frenemies, an anthology TV film that follows three pairs of teenage friends who go from friends to enemies and back again. The ensemble cast featured Zendaya (who went on to win two Emmys for her leading role in the HBO series Euphoria, and then to success in features like Dune, Spiderman, and Challengers) and Bella Thorne (who has continued to work successfully in television and film, and has authored successful novels, but is perhaps best known these days as the first person to earn $1 million in the first 24 hours of joining the platform OnlyFans in 2020).
“We live in an age when the traditional great subjects – the human form, the landscape, even newer traditions such as abstract expressionism – are daily devalued by commercial art”*…
… But it wasn’t always so. A current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York is devoted to the work of (often anonymous) artists who illustrated commercial catalogs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries…
Art of Commerce: Trade Catalogs in Watson Library features a selection of the library’s extensive holdings of sale catalogs. Watson Library has almost two thousand trade catalogs published in many countries from the eighteenth century to the present. Objects featured include furniture, jewelry, tiles, ironwork, glasswork, lighting, stoves, tableware, textiles, decorative paper, artist’s materials, fashion, typography, automobiles, and musical instruments. Numerous catalogs illustrate works of art or related objects now in The Met collection.
The library has strong holdings of Art Deco trade catalogs including Modern furniture design = Le dessin moderne des meubles—a colorful furniture portfolio by Czech architect Karel Vepřek—and Van Clef Arpels présentent, an elegantly illustrated accessories publication designed by Draeger Frères, the most innovative graphic designers and printers of the period. Both catalogs are on display in the exhibition.
Trade or sale catalogs — also called commercial or manufacturer’s catalogs —are printed publications advertising products of a particular trade or industry. Sale catalogs were often used in shops or showrooms to promote a company’s products. Examples include the massive Reed and Barton catalog Artistic workers in silver & gold plate from 1885 that illustrates the entire inventory of the company…
Among the more unusual and appealing trade catalogs in the exhibition is a German Art Nouveau-inspired cake decorating book from 1910 and a baby carriage catalog from 1934 offering Art Deco styled tubular steel baby prams. These trade catalogs demonstrate the distillation of major art movements applied to quotidian objects.
The earliest trade catalog in the exhibition is Muster zu Zimmer-Verzierungen und Ameublements, a neo-classical interior design catalog by luxury German manufacturer Voss und Compagnie, offering entire rooms that can be bought en masse or as separate pieces. It is illustrated with richly toned hand-colored engravings that detail the design and color of the objects.
One of the library’s most fragile and weighty catalogs is Album des principaux modeles de verres: produits spéciaux en verre coulé. It is a magical trade catalog with sixty-five intact glass samples manufactured by French glassmaker Saint-Gobain. Founded during the time of Louis XIV, the company remains a manufacturer of glass for construction.
The majestic ironwork catalogue of Maison Garnier has pink-tinted papers and was bound in Morocco leather as a special copy for Rémy Garnier, the son of the firm’s founder. The firm’s initials are boldly blind stamped on the cover.
The most unusual and perhaps unexpected catalog, Urinoirs, illustrates the decorative ironwork structures of urinals (or pissoirs) that adorned the streets of Paris from the 1840s to the mid-twentieth century. The ornamentation of these structures demonstrates an impulse to beautify the animated street life of Paris and other cities…
See the items mentioned at the links above, and other articles in the exhibit here.
Beauty in the service of business: “Art of Commerce: Trade Catalogs in Watson Library,” from @metmuseum (where one can see the works on exhibit through March 4, 2025).
* Andy Warhol
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As we browse, we might spare a thought for Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde; the novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and master of the bon mot died on this date in 1900.
As he said: “There are moments when art attains almost to the dignity of manual labor.”
“If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out”*…
That most quotable (well, after Shakespeare) of wits…
More enduring epigrams in the entertaining infographic “And the Oscar goes to…” (full and larger) from @guardian.
See also “Oscar Wilde Will Not Be Automated, ” from @benjaminerrett.
* Oscar Wilde
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As we chortle, we might recall that it was on this date (which is, by the way, Fibonacci Day) in 1644 that John Milton published Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England. A prose polemic opposing licensing and censorship, it is among history’s most influential and impassioned philosophical defenses of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression. The full text is here.
“Beauty is no quality in things themselves”*…
“The Triumph of Venus,” by Francis Boucher (1740).
We’re all human—so despite the vagaries of cultural context, might there exist a universal beauty that overrides the where and when? Might there be unchanging features of human nature that condition our creative choices, a timeless melody that guides the improvisations of the everyday? There has been a perpetual quest for such universals, because of their value as a North Star that could guide our creative choices…
Scientists have struggled to find universals that permanently link our species. Although we come to the table with biological predispositions, a million years of bending, breaking and blending have diversified our species’ preferences. We are the products not only of biological evolution but also of cultural evolution. Although the idea of universal beauty is appealing, it doesn’t capture the multiplicity of creation across place and time. Beauty is not genetically preordained. As we explore creatively, we expand aesthetically: everything new that we view as beautiful adds to the word’s definition. That is why we sometimes look at great works of the past and find them unappealing, while we find splendor in objects that previous generations wouldn’t have accepted. What characterizes us as a species is not a particular aesthetic preference, but the multiple, meandering paths of creativity itself…
Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman offer an explanation as to “Why Beauty Is Not Universal.”
* “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” – David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays
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As we examine aesthetics, we might spare a thought for aesthete-in-chief Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde; the novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and master of the bon mot died on this date in 1900.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
(…more of Wilde’s wisdom at Wikiquote)
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”*…
The Chapman University Survey of American Fears Wave 3 (2016) offers a look into the fears of average Americans. In April of 2016, a random sample of 1,511 adults from across the United States were asked their level of fear about 79 different potential sources across a huge variety of topics– crime, the government, disasters, personal anxieties, technology, and others.
As readers can see in the highlights chart above, the top anxiety suffered by Americans is “corrupt government officials”; fully 63% of respondents ranked it “Afraid” or “Very Afraid.” That said, as readers will also see when they click through the link that follows, 10.2% percent of Americans are “Afraid” or “Very Afraid” of “zombies.”
Peruse the results at “America’s Top Fears 2016.”
* Plato
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As we overcome our wistfulness on remembering that this is Oscar Wilde’s birthday, we might recall that it was on this date in 1793, nine months after her husband, the former King Louis XVI of France, was beheaded, that Marie Antoinette followed him to the guillotine. (Readers who are parents– or collectors– can find commemorative dolls here.)
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