Where the universal present meets the personal past: "The Wilderness Downtown"

27 December 2011 – Adina Langer 1

For most of us, music videos don’t immediately bring to mind historical engagement. What’s more reflective of the current epoch than a viral YouTube video featuring feline euphony or Rebecca Black’s ultra-present-focused “Friday”?

But Arcade Fire’s “Wilderness Downtown” collaboration with Chris Milk, featuring their hit 2010 single, “We Used to Wait,” is a remarkable exception to this rule. Read More

Cleopatra's allure

25 August 2010 – Adina Langer 1

“Cleopatra, the Search for the Last Queen of Egypt,” which premiered at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute in June, is probably the most widely hyped exhibition I’ve seen in a long time. Philly has adopted the exhibit as its own, promoting it on the Amtrak line to DC, and on every Philadelphia tourism website I’ve seen, even so far as to create a “Cleopatra VIP Hotel Package” available at 11 area hotels. Read More

Culture 24: Worth emulating?

30 June 2010 – Adina Langer 7

The UK’s portal to museums, archives, heritage sites and art venues is this year’s Museums and the Web recipient of the Archimuse “Longest Lived” award. First launched in 1999, the site is a true grand-dame in internet years, but with a 2009 makeover and an enthusiastic embrace of RSS, Twitter and open-crawling, Culture 24 is certainly “up” with the times. Read More