Faith Hahn

The dream of a Liberal (arts) education—which is the scaled, democratic form of the Keatsian ideal of negative capability—cannot hold up when liberalism itself is held to be suspect.

That Enthusiasm and Life may not cease: arise Spectre arise!

But like Bernstein, Viardot — born exactly 200 years ago, on July 18, 1821 — was far more than a Zelig. One of the supreme singers of her time, she was also a prolific composer, whose music is slowly being salvaged from obscurity; a savvy entrepreneur; a gifted visual artist; and a highly respected voice teacher.

And well contrived words, firm fixing, never forgotten,

What isn’t discussed as much — but is happening in parallel with equal if not greater force, is the shift in corporate music-industry power dynamics away from the Western hemisphere, and towards Asia and the Middle East.

More specifically, music-industry capital flows are now inseparable from both Chinese and Saudi money . While these markets may... See more

Luxury surveillance is a phenomenon where "some people pay to subject themselves to surveillance that others are forced to endure and would, if anything, pay to be free of." You might buy a GPS bracelet to track your biometric data (which will be used by other firms), while others might be forced to wear one (and still pay for it) as part of their... See more

Major music rights holders and tech companies are now expected to generate profits for a dizzying array of stakeholders sitting outside of industry borders, including banks, private equity firms, big-tech conglomerates, and sovereign wealth funds — not to mention public retail investors.

There has been no central resource tracking these macro shifts... See more

Our tendency to try to escape from the universe to find a nirvana that’s sort of quiet and peaceful and apart from all this hullabaloo is undermined completely by the realization of the nature of reality. You realize that the wisdom of the nature of reality leads you into compassion for the beings who are here, and the little bit of bliss that you... See more

Karikó spends her time with tremendous care now. Too much of it is taken up with emailing; Susan keeps telling her mother that she doesn’t need to respond to all of the people who write to express their individual vaccine hesitancies. But Karikó feels responsible. “The distance between what the average person is knowing about the vaccine and what... See more