Liu Jiakun (born 1956) is a Chinese architect known for his focus on minimalism, humanism, and locally contextual design.  Liu's work emphasizes the integration of local context, traditional craftsmanship, and sustainable design, while avoiding flashy flourishes.  His projects often make use of local materials and the aesthetic of imperfection.  After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, he repurposed earthquake rubble into new building materials.  The material and its essence are revitalized and enhanced with local straw fibers and cement, resulting in bricks that are physically superior and more cost-effective than the original material, demonstrating community resilience.  Liu's designs have been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale and a solo exhibition at Berlin's AEDES Gallery.  In 2018, he was commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion in Beijing, which draw international attention.  In 2025 Liu was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize; he was the third Chinese architect to receive the award, after Wang Shu in 2012 and I.M. Pei in 1983.  The Pritzker jury praised Liu's "reverence for culture, history and nature, chronicling time and comforting users with familiarity through modern interpretations of classic Chinese architecture."  The award citation read "Through an outstanding body of work of deep coherence and constant quality, Liu Jiakun imagines and constructs new worlds, free from any aesthetic or stylistic constraint."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Jiakun    

A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation.  It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true or apparently true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion.  A paradox usually involves contradictory-yet-interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time.  They result in "persistent contradiction between interdependent elements" leading to a lasting "unity of opposites".   In logic, many paradoxes exist that are known to be invalid arguments, yet are nevertheless valuable in promoting critical thinking, while other paradoxes have revealed errors in definitions that were assumed to be rigorous, and have caused axioms of mathematics and logic to be re-examined.  One example is Russell's paradox, which questions whether a "list of all lists that do not contain themselves" would include itself and showed that attempts to found set theory on the identification of sets with properties or predicates were flawed.  Others, such as Curry's paradox, cannot be easily resolved by making foundational changes in a logical system.   Examples outside logic include the ship of Theseus from philosophy, a paradox that questions whether a ship repaired over time by replacing each and all of its wooden parts one at a time would remain the same ship.  Paradoxes can also take the form of images or other media.  For example, M.C. Escher featured perspective-based paradoxes in many of his drawings, with walls that are regarded as floors from other points of view, and staircases that appear to climb endlessly.  Informally, the term paradox is often used to describe a counterintuitive result.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox  

In journalism and blogging, a listicle is an article that is structured as a list, which is often fleshed out with additional text relating to each item.  A typical listicle will have a title describing a specific number of items contained within, along with subsequent subheadings within the text for each entry.  The word is a portmanteau of list and article.  A ranked listicle (such as Rolling Stone's "The 100 Best Albums of the Last 20 Years") implies a qualitative judgement, conveyed by the order of the topics within the text.  These are often presented as a countdown, with the "number one" item as the last in the sequence.  Other listicles impart no overt rank, instead presenting the topics in an ad hoc, associative, or thematic order.  Alex Johnson, writing for The Independent, suggested that an 1886 speech by Sir John Lubbock which gave a list of around 100 books "which on the whole are perhaps best worth reading" was an early form of listicle, and that Lubbock should be considered the 'godfather' of the format.  Steven Poole suggested that listicles have literary precursors like Jorge Luis Borges's "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins".  He also compares it to more high-art versions like Umberto Eco's The Infinity of Lists, a book composed entirely of lists.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listicle    

Cabaret is an American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Joe Masteroff.  It is based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten, which in turn was based on the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.  Set in 1929–1930 Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age as the Nazis rise to power, the musical focuses on the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around American writer Clifford Bradshaw's relations with English cabaret performer Sally Bowles.  A subplot involves the doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider and her elderly suitor Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor.  Overseeing the action is the Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub, and the club itself serves as a metaphor for ominous political developments in late Weimar Germany.  The original Broadway production opened on November 20, 1966, at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City and became a box office hit that ran for 1,166 performances.  The production won eight Tony Awards and inspired numerous subsequent productions around the world as well as the 1972 film of the same name.  Cabaret (musical) - Wikipedia  Thank you, Muse reader!   

March 1, 2025  MARIETTA, Ohio—A southeast Ohio city was named one of HGTV's most charming small towns in America.  Sitting along the convergence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, HGTV says Marietta has become a thriving town.  Marietta is a two-hour drive away from Columbus and has a population of about 13,000.  HGTV says the town revitalized its historical downtown area to boast its art galleries, music hall, museums and unique shops.  Marietta, established in 1788, is the oldest city in Ohio and the first permanent settlement in the Northwest Territory.  https://www.wtol.com/article/news/local/ohio/marietta-ohio-hgtv-charming-town-list/530-b50cc93d-f63c-49d9-a6ed-00a98524d27f    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  March 10, 2025