Compulsory reading

• After the emblem of the Rijksmuseum Vermeer Retrospective opened last month, writer Lawrence Weschler traveled to Amsterdam for the Atlantic to investigate art historian Benjamin Binstock’s largely ignored theory that six of Vermeer’s paintings were in fact created by his daughter, Maria:

If Vermeer did not paint all of the works attributed to him, then why is there no record of Vermeer ever having had any assistants, despite the strict rule of the local painters’ guild (of which Vermeer was for a time the leader) that the assistants are registered? How could a girl as young as Maria—a teenager, if Binstock’s timeline is correct—create such an extraordinary painting as Girl in the red hat? Also: Why would Maria suddenly stop painting – and isn’t it too much of a coincidence that she stopped painting when her father died? And is Binstock’s timeline correct? The dates he assigns to the paintings are crucial to his narrative, but some differ considerably from the dates offered by others, providing ample room for debate. Critics could have raised these and other questions, but again, no one did.

• A team of scientists have created what they call the “world’s lightest paint”, with the ability to keep surfaces cool and change color. Max G. Levy writes for Wired on this “structural painting” and its potential field of application, from aeronautical design to urban planning:

Structural paint can also last longer. (Some airlines repaint planes every four years.) Pigment molecules break down in sunlight, but structural color does not, so it won’t fade. “We have all these ways of trying to set the pigment, trying to keep it from oxidizing and losing its color. Or it fades and we throw it in the landfill,” says Baumeister, who is also co-founder of consultancy Biomimicry 3.8 “But when you need color to last forever – for the life of the organism – structural color is preferred.”

Chanda’s team also realized that unlike conventional paint, structural paint does not absorb infrared radiation and therefore does not retain heat. (“It’s the reason your car gets hot in the scorching sun,” he says.) The new paint is inherently cooling By comparison: Based on preliminary lab experiments, it can keep surfaces 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than conventional paint.

• For BerkeleysideIris Kwok taps into the legacy of decades of education and activism at Eastwind Books, which was one of the first Asian-American bookstores in the country and will close its doors at the end of next month:

When Harvey and Beatrice took over the Eastwind Books site in Berkeley, it had been in operation for 14 years, was owned by a Hong Kong company, and focused on books written in Chinese, not English. (The Hong Kong company had two other Eastwind locations in Los Angeles and San Francisco; the Dongs were never involved.)

They slowly began to fill the shelves with the kind of books they wanted to read – Asian American and Ethnic Studies books and literature with a focus on social justice. There were fewer titles to choose from back then, when the field of Asian American studies was still new and most publishers were hesitant to bet on books they thought wouldn’t sell. At first, the offerings tended to be non-fiction books written by local historians and professors.

“At one point I could count on a desk the number of books written by Asian Americans about Asian American things,” said Asian American activist Steve Louie, who sometimes helped out at the store. In 2000, Louie said, “you could have a dozen shelves…and that’s just a conservative view because Harvey and Bea couldn’t carry it all.”

• Ingrid Rojas Contreras, a Colombian novelist who recently published her second book, dreams of traversing the maze of Europe and getting lost in a new room for the New York Times:

Another type of labyrinth exists under the city of Paris. Most of it is closed to the public, but that doesn’t stop maze lovers from sneaking in.

I meet Léo Kavernicol there, 20 meters underground in the Parisian catacombs. She’s a cataphile, an urban explorer fascinated by secret catacombs – a network of ancient underground stone quarries, tunnels and galleries that stretch for more than 170 miles in a kind of negative of the city above . No noble noble inspired this place. The catacombs originated in the 18th century, when some of the abandoned limestone quarries began to weaken and parts of the city collapsed. The overflowing cemeteries forced to move the bones of Parisians, some of which were 1,200 years old. As officials dug tunnels to connect the quarries and reinforce them, and to provide a resting place for the dead, they inadvertently created a maze.

• Actress Mira Sethi writes an essay for the New Yorker on sexism, patriarchal violence and the annual Aurat March for Gender Justice in Pakistan:

In 2018, Aurat March, a local version of the Women’s March, tried to broaden the contours of the discourse on women’s freedoms – social, economic, political. Every year since then, major Pakistani cities have held Aurat March in the face of much criticism. In fact, the march has become so controversial that even participating in it makes it provocative.

Aurat March is sowing moral panic in Pakistan, “a primordial and pervasive fear that the very fabric of society will be destroyed by the spread of some perceived immorality,” Arsalan Khan, assistant professor of anthropology at the Institute, told me. Union College of New York. “Women’s assertiveness is framed within the idiom of sexual shamelessness and therefore poses a threat to family and society.”

• On NPRIt is Code switchhear 15 stories of the Montgomery Bus Boycott from some of the women who led it, including Claudette Colvin and Gwendolyn Patton:

Colvin told her story to Radio Diaries, explaining that when the bus driver ordered her to stand, she refused, saying she had paid for her ticket and it was her constitutional right. Two policemen put handcuffs on her and arrested her. Her textbooks flew into her lap.

“So the bus driver shouted from the back, ‘Give me seats.’ But I remained seated. Since I had studied in history injustices, segregation and talked about our heroes, I felt like Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth’s hand on me was pushing me on another one. The story glued me to the seat.

• Nadra Nittle explains why classified workers and teachers in Los Angeles schools are on strike for better wages and health care in The 19:

Alicia Montes also wants to be paid more as a classified worker. She is a campus assistant at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, which houses four different high schools in the Westlake district of Los Angeles. His role requires him to ensure that intruders do not enter the school grounds and that students get to class safely, among other duties. Montes has worked for the district continuously since 2006, and before that as a teacher’s aide from approximately 1984 to 1995. Despite her years of service, the 63-year-old earns less than $30,000 a year, a- she declared. Montes survives by splitting the cost of rent with his nephew and living frugally.

“They need to understand that – the campus assistants, the [teaching assistants], cafeteria people, construction and grounds workers – we are the ones taking care of the school,” she said of LAUSD officials. “Teachers teach the children, but it’s the support staff who make sure the school runs.”

• With access to Plan B increasingly at risk (thanks, Walgreens), Rebecca Barker reports for Rewire Press Group on students demanding emergency contraceptive vending machines:

Paige Shayne, a Tufts junior and president of Tufts NARAL, said it was encouraging to see how the vending machine has expanded access to sexual health and wellness for all students. She hopes it has raised awareness that reproductive health concerns everyone, regardless of gender.

“We love seeing students shop at the machine without embarrassment, and we hope the information in the machine for Plan B clears up a lot of misconceptions about birth control and abortion,” Shayne said. “So many students were really excited when the machine was first installed, which shows how the campus is generally supportive and open to reproductive health, so it’s exciting for us to see students using the machine. machine every day.”

• The next generation of filmmakers postpone a… secular tradition 👀: