"We have language that helps do the sorting. A person who insults, harasses or much, much worse is “problematic,” and certain “problematic” people, and their work, gets “canceled.” Recent cancellations include Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Roseanne Barr, Kanye West, Ian Buruma’s stewardship of The New York Review of Books, Matt Lauer, Woody Allen, Netflix’s flagrant high school satire “Insatiable” (but only figuratively since it has been renewed for a second season), the YouTube star Logan Paul, the Nation’s poetry section. People you love but who’ve misstepped are “problematic faves” — Scarlett Johansson, Dave Chappelle, Cardi B, Justin Timberlake, M.I.A. — and you don’t outright cancel so much as temporarily block them until they get their acts together. The people who know who’s who, what’s what and when’s when are “woke.” They tend not to be black, because black people are born woke; the trick for them is to stay that way.
The nomenclature is supposed to make the moral sorting expedient. The “hot or not” lists of yore have, more direly, become “O.K./Not O.K.” Individuals are not necessarily permitted a say in the cancellation — or, for that matter, in the coronation — of artists or their work. A temperature is taken and you’re advised to dress accordingly. What’s bad for some people is deemed bad for everybody, and some compliance is in order, lest you wind up problematic, too.
That leads to something farcical like the Grammys’ rumored prophylactic shunning of the popular white musician Ed Sheeran from the three biggest award categories, lest he triumph over Kendrick Lamar or Childish Gambino and cause a firestorm of upset. It leads to the Oscars now being more a moral purity contest in addition to an artistic sporting event. At awards shows, the nominated works have become referendums on the moral state of the business; their quality has become secondary. Maybe the ratings are down because no one’s seen the movies and the broadcasts are too political. But maybe it’s because no one wants to watch an industry prosecute itself."
LIFE at Lascaux: First Color Photos From Another World, 1947
"The story is so improbable, so marvelous, that it feels more like the remnant of a dream, or a half-remembered myth, rather than something that unfolded within living memory. . . .
September 12, 1940. A warm afternoon in Dordogne, in southwestern France. Four boys and their dog, Robot, walk along a ridge covered with pine, oak and blackberry brambles. When Robot begins digging near a hole beside a downed tree, the boys tell each other that this might be the entrance to a legendary tunnel running beneath the Vézère River, leading to a lost treasure in the woods of Montignac. The youngsters begin to dig, widening the hole, removing rocks—until they've made an opening large enough for each to slip through, one by one. They slide down into the earth—and emerge into a dark chamber beneath the ground.
They have discovered not merely another place, but another time"
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