As the saying goes, you might as well be yourself - Jozef; everyone else is taken.
— Robert Bly, born in 1926
Joseph Brodsky wrote an annual Christmas poem. Why did he do it? | The Book Haven
Tim Hardin, Tragic Master of Songwriting
15 Objects That Symbolized 2020
Some of these objects are troubling, a few are ridiculous, many are ambiguous (though some, to be sure, are delightful). These are the objects that caused us to see the world in a new way this year — or the objects that this singular year forced us to consider anew. – Medium
Artists We Lost In 2020
In 2020, a year of crisis upon crisis, some of those losses were especially painful, brought on by a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone. – The New York Times
Sad news … as bloggers log off
Auction Houses Surprised How Well Their Business Went Online
“Despite the technological challenges, Europe’s leading auction houses say they have weathered the crisis well as customers adapted quickly, in some cases making online purchases in the millions for art they had only viewed virtually.” – The Art Newspaper
“The global coronavirus pandemic upended life in the United States and around the world in 2020, disrupting how people work, go to school, attend religious services, socialize with friends and family, and much more. But the pandemic wasn’t the only event that shaped the year. The videotaped killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis sparked an international outcry and focused new attention on the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. And November’s presidential election appears to have shattered turnout records as around 160 million Americans cast ballots and elected Joe Biden the 46th president. As 2020 draws to a close, here are 20 striking findings from Pew Research Center’s studies this year, covering the pandemic, race-related tensions, the presidential election and other notable trends that emerged during the year…”
How will we remember this pivotal year in human history? Many of us won’t want to, but in doing so we risk repeating what got us into this mess in the first place. Photography is always a powerful way to document events and this year was particularly suited to it: these photos vividly tell the story of 2020. You can check out many more of them here:
- In Focus at The Atlantic: 2020 in Photos (part 2, part 3), Top 25 News Photos of 2020, Hopeful Images From 2020.
- CNN: 2020: The Year in Pictures.
- Time: Top 100 Photos of 2020.
- Reuters: Pictures of the Year 2020.
- NY Times: 2020: The Year in Pictures.
- The New Yorker: Photography in a Year of Crisis.
- Associated Press: In 2020, AP Photographers Captured a World in Distress.
