Neurons Obsolesced
How ChatGPT Will Destabilize White-Collar Work
No technology in modern memory has caused mass job loss among highly educated workers. Will generative AI be an exception?
By Annie Lowrey
In the next five years, it is likely that AI will begin to reduce employment for college-educated workers. As the technology continues to advance, it will be able to perform tasks that were previously thought to require a high level of education and skill. This could lead to a displacement of workers in certain industries, as companies look to cut costs by automating processes. While it is difficult to predict the exact extent of this trend, it is clear that AI will have a significant impact on the job market for college-educated workers. It will be important for individuals to stay up to date on the latest developments in AI and to consider how their skills and expertise can be leveraged in a world where machines are increasingly able to perform many tasks.
There you have it, I guess: ChatGPT is coming for my job and yours, according to ChatGPT itself. The artificially intelligent content creator, whose name is short for “Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” was released two months ago by OpenAI, one of the country’s most influential artificial-intelligence research laboratories. The technology is, put simply, amazing. It generated that first paragraph instantly, working with this prompt: “Write a five-sentence paragraph in the style of The Atlantic about whether AI will begin to reduce employment for college-educated workers in the next five years.”
Shaving Is For Girls
Hazed By Waze
Waze leads to brain haze? Here’s why using real maps instead of GPS could prevent dementia
HAMILTON, Ontario — Turning off Waze or your favorite GPS app and using an old-fashioned map may be the best way to fight Alzheimer’s disease, a new study reveals. Researchers at McMaster University say orienteering, an outdoor sport that exercises the mind and body through navigation puzzles, can train the brain and stave off cognitive decline. The aim of orienteering is to navigate between checkpoints or controls marked on a special map. In competitive orienteering, the challenge is to complete the course in the quickest time.
For older adults, scientists say the sport — which sharpens navigational skills and memory — could become a useful intervention measure to fight off the slow decline related to dementia onset. They believe the physical and cognitive demands of orienteering can stimulate parts of the brain our ancient ancestors used for hunting and gathering.
Hottygenarians
They’re Cover Girls. They’re in Their 70s.
Sky-high demand for older models—women in their 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s—is creating a silver wave in the modeling industry. They even get stopped at the supermarket.
By Rory Satran
Ninety-year-old Frances Dunscombe only began modeling at age 82 after the death of her husband. When her daughter, a model in her 60s, suggested Ms. Dunscombe join her to visit her agency, she scoffed, “You must be joking.” Now, she realizes, “Actually, I think it was quite a good time to start modeling, because it wasn’t going to go to my head.”
A childhood war evacuee in Britain, Ms. Dunscombe left school at 15 and didn’t have a major career until modeling. Now, several years into her modeling career, she’s done lingerie pictures, worn Prada in Hunger magazine and been on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar UK. Ms. Dunscombe, who lives in Surrey, United Kingdom, sees her mission as inspiring and advocating for older women. “I get extremely irritated when fashion editors promote the most frumpy of clothes for the older age groups,” she said. “Aren’t they aware of what is going on at the moment? That we are coming to the fore.”
Ms. Dunscombe is part of the fashion and beauty industry’s new silver wave. In recent years, luxury fashion brands, direct-to-consumer beauty brands and mass clothing lines have begun casting older models—much older models. Some are celebrities, but increasingly, they are unknowns.
MonsteraX
Inside the Digital Marketplace Where Rare Plants Sell For $9,000
Welcome to MonsteraX, the eBay of rare and variegated plants 🌱
By Rae Witte
Since the early days of isolation, the rare plants market has surged, following in the footsteps of the sneaker market with resellers reporting prices jumping from under $100 to hundreds and thousands of dollars, unregulated marketplace scammers, and requiring lots and lots of research. The simple days of bringing a local nursery staple snake plant or ubiquitous fiddle leaf home seem to be over as more people obsess over collecting these scarce breeds.
After losing his mother, Manny Lorras took over the care of her cat and her collection of rare plants. Once a child who begrudgingly tagged along with both parents to flower shows and was given gardening-related chores, Manny found comfort in tending to his newly acquired plant family. “I learned how to rehab these orchids that she had, some snake plants, and more of the traditional houseplants, and I got really into it,” Manny says.
It was a trip to a local plant store near his home in Brooklyn that really threw his interest into overdrive though. “There was this massive plant that was almost five feet tall, had these really bright pink leaves, and I thought it was super cool. I was like, ‘What is this? This is so strange,’” he recalls. “There wasn’t a lot going on, given it was the early days of COVID. I bought it and spent what I thought was a lot of money for a plant at the time: $500.” This turned out to be a variegated plant, which presents multicolored (thus, pink) due to a mutation that results in the absence of chlorophyll.
From Kites to Flying Clubs
Return to the Early Days of Aviation in This Excerpt From John Lancaster’s “The Great Air Race”
In 1919, the nation’s best aviators embarked on a daring competition
Liveright/Getty Images
Consider the speed at which airplanes advanced in the early years of the 20th century. The Wright brothers first took flight in 1903, and by the First World War planes had become an essential part of the conflict. Once the war had ended, a different aspect of this technology came to the foreground: the ability of planes to travel long distances — and, in the process, captivate audiences on the ground. not for In his new book The Great Air Race: Glory, Tragedy, and the Dawn of American Aviation, journalist John Lancaster chronicles a race across the continent that took place in 1919. And if you think that some of the planes that existed at the time weren’t necessarily up for the task — well, you’re not wrong. Lancaster’s book chronicles the bravado, triumphs and tragedies of the aviators who took part in the competition, and we’re pleased to present an excerpt from it.
Toy Story plays at a disturbingly high frame rate on a screen above one of the booths…
from RealClear Books & Culture
Meerkats and Warthogs
At Austin’s Best Dive Bar
A text: “I’m here.”
A volley of additional texts. Finally, my friend and I figured out why we couldn’t find one another. He was idling in the parking lot of my apartment complex, having misinterpreted my original injunction to “meet at back lot,” while I had gone on directly to the aforenamed dive bar.
It’s true. The decidedly unglamorous drinking hole, plopped next to an auto body shop and a feminist witch-themed pole dance studio, is exactly the type of establishment one might mix up with a parking area. Cornered by an expanse of gravel, its faded yellow paint recalls the “millennial mustard” of Buttigieg’s campaign website—and is just as likely overlooked.
But woe to anyone who overlooks it. Back Lot is the best dive bar in Austin, and it’s not even close.
Art on Saturn
Sun Ra’s Legendary Album Art—Sometimes Handcrafted, Always Otherworldly—Has Been Compiled Into a Book for the First Time
“Sun Ra: Art on Saturn” features a vast quantity of album covers that were handcrafted by Ra and his bandmates.
by Min Chen
As an artist, Sun Ra was prone to restlessness. Never content with simply being a jazzman, Ra would, from the late 1950s, unleash a stream of records with his group Arkestra that edged the genre into the realm of the avant-garde.
And he didn’t stop there: Ra’s groundbreaking music came packaged in similarly alluring album covers, which psychedelically melded his multitude of preoccupations from ancient Egyptian iconography to emerging sci-fi tropes. They were otherworldly designs, forging a visually distinctive path where there was none before. “These covers,” in the estimation of Irwin Chusid, “belonged between covers.”
It’s why Chusid, the exclusive administrator of Ra’s catalog, has edited and released Sun Ra: Art on Saturn, the first publication to focus on the artist’s cover art. Chiefly, it features the sleeves of the 70 albums that Ra released on his independent record label, Saturn, from 1957 to 1988. They were designed by artists such as Chris Hall and Claude Dangerfield, whose creative processes are documented in the book.
Happy Sad Day
What is Blue Monday and why is it ‘the most depressing day’ of the year?
by Sam Webb / Amelia Beltrao
AS the new year begins, the holiday excitement dies down and we return to normality, many experience the winter blues.
However, one particular day in January is dubbed ”the most depressing day of the year” – and here’s why.
What is Blue Monday?
Blue Monday is calculated using a series of factors in a formula, although it is not particularly scientific.
The factors used to base the date of Blue Monday include weather conditions and debt level. Other factors include the amount of time since Christmas, and the time it typically takes for people to begin failing their New Year resolutions, and generally lose motivation.
The first date declared was January 24, 2005, after Dr. Cliff Arnall, a tutor at Cardiff University’s Centre for Lifelong Learning, was asked to work out the most depressing day of the year.
Aquicharge
The deceptively simple plan to replenish California’s groundwater
The state pumps too much groundwater, especially during droughts. Now, it’s learning to refill the overdrawn bucket. “It’s the simplest math in the world,” says one scientist.
BY ALEJANDRA BORUNDA
PARLIER, CALIFORNIAFrom afar, the rows of knobby grapevines blend into the landscape of pink-blossomed almond trees and fragrant citrus. But get up close and you’ll see something strange: The trunks of the vines are standing in several inches of glistening, precious water.
These grapes, at the Kearney Agricultural Research Center in California’s San Joaquin Valley, are part of a grand experiment that many hope will help solve the state’s deepening water crisis. Here, in the state that provides some 40 percent of all the fresh produce grown in the United States, a 20-year-long drought has left growers and communities desperately short of water. To make up the persistent shortfall from rain and snow, they are pumping groundwater—and doing so far faster than water can trickle down from the surface to replenish underground aquifers.
The drought has only amplified an old problem: Californians have been overusing groundwater for a century, in part because it was unregulated. That changed in 2014 with the passage of a landmark state law requiring local water agencies to control the overdraft by 2040. They’re now scrounging for solutions.
Just Be Nice
Best medicine for curing depression and anxiety? Kindness, study suggests
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A little bit of kindness shown toward others can help beat feelings of depression and anxiety, according to a new study from The Ohio State University. Scientists report that performing good deeds leads to notable mental health improvements not seen in two other therapeutic techniques commonly used to treat the conditions.
Perhaps just as importantly, study co-author David Cregg, who led the work as part of his PhD dissertation in psychology at OSU, adds that acts of kindness toward others was the only studied mental health intervention that resulted in subjects feeling more connected with other people.
We’ve Been There Before
from The Washington Post via MSN
The moon beckons once again, and this time NASA wants to stay
by Christian Davenport
In 2010, during a speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, President Barack Obama directed NASA away from its primary target, the moon, to focus its human exploration missions beyond the lunar surface to an asteroid and Mars.
“I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before,” he said. “There’s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do.”
The United States has since reversed course, with the moon once again the centerpiece of NASA’s exploration goals. Under its Artemis program — born during President Donald Trump’s tenure and embraced by the Biden administration — NASA has real momentum and bipartisan political support for one of the most ambitious human space flight efforts in decades. It began with the launch of its massive SLS moon rocket and Orion spacecraft on Nov. 16, a mission without any people on board. The Artemis I mission will be followed by subsequent flights with astronauts — first orbiting the moon and then eventually landing on the surface.
But despite the progress, the concern raised by Obama still hovers over the space program: We’ve been there, done that. Why return to the moon?
The answer, said Thomas Zurbuchen, the recently retired head of NASA’s science mission directorate, begins with the presence of water.
Jeff Beck Gone
Jeff Beck dead at 78
Legendary guitarist Jeff Beck has died aged 78, it has been confirmed. According to a statement shared across Beck’s social media channels by representatives of his family, his death comes after a short battle with bacterial meningitis.
Beck was widely recognised as one of the single most important guitarists of his generation. He first became known as the lead guitar player for highly influential English blues rockers The Yardbirds, replacing Eric Clapton in the band in 1965 before leaving a year later. He has since fronted The Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice, but became most prolific as a solo artist, going onto release albums under his own name across the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s.
Frank Fulfilled
9 Unbuilt Frank Lloyd Wright Project Are Finally Brought to Life
Spanish architect David Romero uses computer-generated models to show how Frank Lloyd Wright’s structures would’ve appeared
By Laura Ratliff and Katherine McLaughlin Photography by David Romero
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Of the more than 1,100 structures that Frank Lloyd Wright designed throughout his lifetime, more than half—a whopping 660 buildings—remained unbuilt and mostly unknown. And this figure doesn’t even consider some of the architect’s work that was tragically demolished. However, thanks to a collaboration between Spanish architect David Romero and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, fans of the prolific architect can now see what Wright’s unbuilt or demolished projects look like in 3D renderings, as if they had been built or rebuilt. Romero and the foundation first partnered in 2018 to bring six of the visionary’s unbuilt work to life and recently came together again to produce three more renderings for the most recent issue of The Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly, a print magazine from The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
“While we will never know the true experience of visiting an unbuilt Wright design, these renderings can convey a bit more sense of space and light than the drawings alone,” Stuart Graff, president and CEO of the foundation, told AD in 2018. In the latest iterations of renderings, Romero focused specifically on Wright’s unbuilt skyscrapers, including his vision for a mile-high tower in Chicago. Here, AD looks at these nine structures designed by the genius architect, offering a glimpse into a world of architecture never materialized.
Self-healing Cracks
How has ancient Roman cement stood test of time so well? Scientists finally have an answer after 2,000 years!
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The secret to the durability of Roman concrete — which has stood the test of time for over 2,000 years — has finally been unearthed.
Scientists from MIT have isolated the ingredient that allows Roman concrete to “self-heal,” making it stronger than its modern equivalent. Their “back to the future” findings could help reduce the environmental impact of cement production in today’s society.
The ancient Romans were masters of engineering, building a huge network of roads, aqueducts, ports, and temples — many of which still stand to this very day! Many of these structures were built with concrete, including Rome’s Pantheon, which has the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome and is still intact despite being dedicated in the year 128 AD. Some ancient Roman aqueducts still deliver water to the Eternal City today, while many modern concrete structures crumble after just a few decades.
Scientists have spent decades trying to figure out the secret of the “ultra-durable” construction material, particularly in structures that endured especially harsh conditions — such as docks, sewers, and seawalls.
Now, an international team has discovered ancient concrete-manufacturing techniques that incorporated several key “self-healing” properties. For years, researchers believed the key to the ancient concrete’s durability was one ingredient: pozzolanic material, such as volcanic ash from the area of Pozzuoli, on the Bay of Naples.
Comet Coming
Once in 50,000-year comet may be visible to the naked eye
Paris (AFP) – A newly discovered comet could be visible to the naked eye as it shoots past Earth and the Sun in the coming weeks for the first time in 50,000 years, astronomers have said.
The comet is called C/2022 E3 (ZTF) after the Zwicky Transient Facility, which first spotted it passing Jupiter in March last year.
After travelling from the icy reaches of our Solar System it will come closest to the Sun on January 12 and pass nearest to Earth on February 1.
It will be easy to spot with a good pair of binoculars and likely even with the naked eye, provided the sky is not too illuminated by city lights or the Moon.
The comet “will be brightest when it is closest to the Earth”, Thomas Prince, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology who works at the Zwicky Transient Facility, told AFP.
Made of ice and dust and emitting a greenish aura, the comet is estimated to have a diameter of around a kilometre, said Nicolas Biver, an astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory.
Helium Mining
Mysterious Antennas Are Appearing in Utah’s Hills and Officials Are Stumped
City officials have found around a dozen of the antennas and no one is sure what they’re for.
by Matthew Gault
Strange antennas have appeared in the foothills around Salt Lake City and authorities have no idea what they are or who put them up.
As first reported by KSLTV 5 in Utah, people first began noticing the antennas a year ago. They’re simple machines made up of a LoRa fiberglass antenna, a locked battery pack, and a solar panel to power it. The Salt Lake City public lands department has been pulling them down as they find them, and told KSLTV that there have been as many as a dozen.
It’s illegal to place structures on public lands without permission and some of the antennas have appeared on steep peaks. In one instance, the removal of an antenna required a team of five people. Other antennas were found on land managed by the University of Utah and the Forest Service.
Tyler Fonarow, Salt Lake City’s recreational trails manager, told Motherboard that when the antennas were first noticed a year ago, “We didn’t really have the bandwidth to look into it or remove them,” he said.
Fonarow said that there were no identifying marks on the antennas and that they’d been bolted into the stone and required special tools to remove. “We honestly didn’t even open the box,” he said. “We just wanted it off the hill.”
“Our Trails team and Foothills rangers have found some unauthorized solar panel towers in the Foothills,” Salt Lake City Public Lands said in a post on Facebook. “If you have information about these towers or who they belong to, please call our office at (801) 972-7800 so we can return them back to their owner.”
Gymkhana Forever
How Ken Block’s Gymkhana Series Changed Car Videos Forever
Step into the world of mid-2000s car culture and you’ll understand exactly why Ken Block’s driving videos blew our minds like they were Subaru head gaskets.
As Ken Block’s fans, followers, and family mourn his tragic passing, many have remarked on how innovative he was as both a racing driver and an entertainer. Without a doubt, his body of work is its own evidence of its epicness. To help us and future readers appreciate exactly what made his stunts and style so special when they first came out, let’s take a look at the debut of Block’s Gymhakana video series in the context of its time.
Block’s life and professional origins have been beautifully articulated by so many major industry names and our own Jonathon Klein. Check out those tributes to learn why Block was such a special person. Here, we’re going to focus on the early days of Gymkhana as car nerds know it, and how the timing of Block’s emergence in the car scene lined up perfectly with the culture and technology of the mid-2000s.
As the inventor of Jalopnik, a major player in the /Drive YouTube and TV efforts, and a big part of the evolution of this site you’re reading, Mike Spinelli is a certified OG of online car culture. His insights on the impact of Ken Block’s first videos are particularly interesting because he’s been both a participant in and observer of car media, professionally, as it evolved from magazines to forums to videos to the rich multimedia melting pot it is in 2023.
Mad Dog Marcio Gone
Veteran surfer Marcio Freire, featured in ‘Mad Dog’ documentary, dies riding waves in Portugal
by Natalie Neysa Alund
Brazilian big-wave surfer Marcio Freire died while surfing the central coast of Portugal Thursday, local officials confirmed.
Prior to his death, the 47-year-old man was practicing tow-in surfing on giant waves in Nazaré, the country’s National Maritime Authority told USA TODAY Friday morning.”The surfer had an accident while surfing, which left him lifeless,” the city wrote in an email to USA TODAY Friday.
According to the captain of the Port of Nazaré Mário Lopes Figueiredo, support staff on jet skis managed to get Freire to the beach in Nazaré, but attempts to revive him failed.
Lifeguards verified the victim was in cardiorespiratory arrest and immediately began CPR until first-responders arrived, according to a news release.
When they were unable to revive him, city officials said, a doctor pronounced him dead at the scene.
Sky Trains
from The Washington Post via Yahoo! News
Starlink satellite trains – is this the future of the night sky?
by Daniel Wolfe
Almost 15 years later, seeing the aurora borealis is a bit like a drug, says photographer Ronn Murray.
“Once you get a taste for it . . . you’re always trying to see it again because you get this kind of spiritual high from it.”
The lakes by Delta Junction in Alaska weren’t frozen over yet when it was just dark enough to see the magical halation over the night’s sky and another phenomenon Murray instantly knew – a moving train of lights.
Guide and part-owner of the Aurora Chasers, an Alaska based tour group, Murray had seen the lineup of satellites a few days prior. He recognized it from other people’s accounts but had never seen it himself. Literally the stars aligned, and the night sky opened up on a drive 150 miles outside of Fairbanks. The footage shows what looks like stars trailing one another amid the emerald glow of the northern lights.
“We were a bit baffled at first then realized, ‘Wait, that must be Starlink,'” he said. “Then my wife got her star tracker app out, and it showed that’s what we had seen.”
The view, as mesmerizing as it is surprising, has astronomers wondering, is there any way to dim the lights on these satellites, or are we doomed to a mega-constellation future?
Imaginary Weirdness
Profound Boredom
from The Telegraph via National Post
Social media kills boredom that may lead to creativity
Scrolling mindlessly through attention-grabbing posts, videos and threads prevents the build-up of ‘profound boredom’ needed to spur people on to new passions or skills, experts warn
PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Walter Benjamin, a German philosopher, noted that boredom was the “dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.”
But the creative flights of fancy that often arise from having little to do, are being killed off by social media, researchers believe.
Scrolling mindlessly through attention-grabbing posts, videos and threads prevents the build-up of ‘profound boredom’ needed to spur people on to new passions or skills, experts warn.
Instead, people find themselves in a state of ‘superficial boredom’, which does not spark creative thought.
Ken Block Gone
Pro rally driver, YouTube star Ken Block dies in snowmobile accident
Authorities said the 55-year-old, famous for his Gymkhana series of extreme auto sports videos, was riding on a steep slope in Utah.
By Darryl Coote, UPI
Jan. 2 (UPI) — Pro rally driver Ken Block has died following a snowmobile accident in Utah, authorities said late Monday.
The 55-year-old Park City, Utah, resident was riding a snowmobile on a steep slope in the Mill Hollow area, located east of Salt Lake City, when at about 2 p.m. his vehicle upended and landed on top of him, the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Block was pronounced dead at the scene from injuries sustained in the incident, it said, adding that the state medical examiner’s office will determine the official cause of death.
Jenson Button, a former Formula One and Super GT Series champion, said via Twitter that he was shocked by news of Block’s death.
“Such a talent that did so much for our sport,” Button said. “He was a true visionary with his own unique style & infectious smile.
“Our sport lost one of the best today but more importantly a great man.”
Dr. Ketamine
from The Washington Post via MSN
This doctor prescribes ketamine to thousands online. It’s all legal.
Story by Daniel Gilbert
In the past two years, Scott Smith has become licensed to practice medicine in almost every U.S. state for a singular purpose: treating depressed patients online and prescribing them ketamine.
The sedative, which is sometimes abused as a street drug, has shown promise in treating depression and anxiety. But instead of dispensing it in a clinic or under the strict protocols endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration, the South Carolina physician orders generic lozenges online for patients to take at home. He says this practice, though controversial, has benefited more than half of his 3,000 patients. “People are beating a path to my door,” he said in an interview.
Smith is part of a wave of doctors and telehealth start-ups capitalizing on the pandemic-inspired federal public health emergency declaration, which waived a requirement for health-care providers to see patients in person to prescribe controlled substances. The waiver has enabled Smith to build a national ketamine practice from his home outside Charleston — and fueled a boom among telehealth companies that have raised millions from investors.
As the urgency around covid-19 subsides, many expect the waiver to expire this spring. Companies are lobbying to extend it, and patients are bracing for a disruption to purely virtual care.
Barbara Walters Gone
Barbara Walters, trailblazing TV icon, dies at 93
The pioneering TV news broadcaster was the first female anchor in evening news.
ByLuchina Fisher and Bill Hutchinson
Barbara Walters, the trailblazing television news broadcaster and longtime ABC News anchor and correspondent who shattered the glass ceiling and became a dominant force in an industry once dominated by men, died Friday. She was 93.
Walters joined ABC News in 1976, becoming the first female anchor on an evening news program. Three years later, she became a co-host of “20/20,” and in 1997, she launched “The View.”
Bob Iger, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company which is the parent company of ABC News, praised Walters as someone who broke down barriers.
“Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself. She was a one-of-a-kind reporter who landed many of the most important interviews of our time, from heads of state to the biggest celebrities and sports icons. I had the pleasure of calling Barbara a colleague for more than three decades, but more importantly, I was able to call her a dear friend. She will be missed by all of us at The Walt Disney Company, and we send our deepest condolences to her daughter, Jacqueline,” Iger said in a statement Friday.
In a career that spanned five decades, Walters won 12 Emmy awards, 11 of those while at ABC News.
Pelé Gone
Pelé, Brazil’s mighty king of ‘beautiful game,’ has died
By TALES AZZONI and MAURICIO SAVARESE
SAO PAULO (AP) — Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died Thursday. He was 82.
The standard-bearer of “the beautiful game” had undergone treatment for colon cancer since 2021. The medical center where he had been hospitalized for the last month said he died of multiple organ failure as a result of the cancer.
“Pelé changed everything. He transformed football into art, entertainment,” Neymar, a fellow Brazilian soccer star, said on Instagram. “Football and Brazil elevated their standing thanks to the King! He is gone, but his magic will endure. Pelé is eternal!”
Widely regarded as one of soccer’s greatest players, Pelé spent nearly two decades enchanting fans and dazzling opponents as the game’s most prolific scorer with Brazilian club Santos and the Brazil national team.
His grace, athleticism and mesmerizing moves transfixed players and fans. He orchestrated a fast, fluid style that revolutionized the sport — a samba-like flair that personified his country’s elegance on the field.
Vivienne Westwood Gone
Fashion designer and punk icon Vivienne Westwood dies at 81
BY JONAH VALDEZ
Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, known for popularizing British punk and new wave fashion, died Thursday at age 81.
A major icon in the early British punk scene of the 1970s, Westwood went on to enjoy a long career highlighted by a string of triumphant runway shows in London, Paris, Milan and New York. Westwood’s work, which was often marked by her antiestablishment values, adorned the bodies of numerous celebrities, those on the red carpets of Hollywood as well as those in the British royal family.
In a 2018 review of a Westwood documentary, The Times’ Kenneth Turan described her as “a woman of formidable energy and drive whether she is tearing apart one of her own fashion collections the night before her show or passionately advocating for environmental issues.”
Merry Christmas
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Hidden Cézanne
A Potential Cézanne Self-Portrait Was Found by a Cincinnati Art Museum Conservator Underneath a Meh Still Life of Bread and Eggs
A curator at the museum got a “hunch” something was hiding after seeing underlying paint through cracks on the canvas.
Museums are always looking to expand their collections, but occasionally a new masterpiece is hiding in plain sight.
After examining Cezanne’s Still Life with Bread and Eggs (1865) more closely, Serena Urry, chief conservator of the Cincinnati Museum of Art (CMA), noticed a strange concentration of cracks in two areas of the canvas. Underneath, she thought she could make out some underlying white paint.
It turns out that what she has described as a “hunch” was correct. Further x-ray analysis revealed a hidden painting that they believe might be a self-portrait of the French Post-Impressionist, painted while he was in his mid-20s.
“We went from having two Cezannes to three with this discovery,” Urry said.