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Good morning, D.C.! Via Kanye West‘s prolific tweeting, the world learned that his album cover had been banned—er, well, according to the Huffington Post, he may have decided not to use it in order to avoid offending corporate monolith Wal-Mart. “In all honesty … I really don’t be thinking about Wal-Mart when I make my music or album covers #Kanyeshrug! I wanna sell albums but not at the expense of my true creativity,” he tweeted this weekend. The Huffington Post has more (more, including a picture).
Looking for something more austere? The National Building Museum has an exhibit all about Andrea Palladio, the guy behind Palladian columns. Heard of those? I spent a year in architecture school, so I’m intimately familiar. Says the Post, “The exhibition takes it for granted that these things are beautiful and that their connection to Palladio gives them not just Old World legitimacy but classical, ancient-world gravitas. Perhaps the curators are right, but it’s enough to bring out the contrarian in a viewer. It’s a bit like being told that the Bible is the single greatest influence on literature. Of course it is, but suddenly the mind craves liberation from this dull platitude in a host of iconoclastic questions: Was it a benign or malignant influence? Are there lesser influences that might have had a more positive impact? Would the history of literature be more interesting if it weren’t so biblically saturated?” Those gloriously existential questions are courtesy of architecture critic Philip Kennicott.
Inspired by that whole T.I.-talked-a-guy-out-of-killing-himself business (cue “Live Your Life”), Click Track chronicles five musicians turned rescuers.
Worn Magazine, which I have seen at almost every coffee shop that stocks Intelligentsia beans but have never actually read it, is back. If it’s your kind of thing, We Love DC is giving away passes to the Issue 2 launch party, at U Street Music Hall (which appears to be the venue of choice for all kinds of vaguely hip and kind of trendy things that need launching). Also on We Love DC: a review of last week’s Agnostic Front show, which was obscured by the not-yet-resolved beating incident afterward.
Here on Arts Desk, we interview Chicago jazz drummer Mike Reed and catch up with No Kill No Beep Beep, Q and Not U‘s seminal album (so seminal, in fact, that my screen name used to be noalexnobeepbeep. Really).
Enjoy your Tuesday!