Fresh Loaf

Did you miss best-selling author Michael Pollan’s keynote speech at Georgia Organics‘ annual conference last month? No worries! The kind folks at the sustainable agriculture nonprofit have uploaded a video of the talk.

In the hourlong video recorded at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, the former Harper’s editor and author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” describes the various challenges posed by “industrial agriculture” and talks about what can be done to encourage fresher and more environmentally friendly farming. Pollan also gives his take on President Barack Obama’s agriculture initiatives. (He thinks the organic farming and sustainable agriculture movements now have a friend in the White House.) The author is introduced by Georgia Organics Board President Will Harris.

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HEART OF GOLD: A still from Julie Puttgen's 'Voidvideo: Voidthrobber, 2007'

Honey, I shrunk the art.

When it came to art in the 20th century, bigger was better. All Small Redux at Agnes Scott College’s Dalton Gallery, however, reconsiders the conundrum of scale by looking through the other end of the telescope. Nothing in All Small exceeds 6 inches in any dimension, or about a minute in length for video works. The hundreds of works by 47 artists range from itty bitty paintings to teeny tiny sculptures, from quickie videos to mini installations. All in all, the collected works demonstrate that big ideas can be packed into small spaces.

In Tom Zarrilli’s “Spectacles for Tourists,” the artist covers the lenses of four pairs of glasses with idealized images of exotic locations. The critique may be simple — that tourists see mostly what their brochures tell them to see, not what’s actually there — but the small scale and elegant execution fit the bill precisely.

Small works require a different way of looking. They invite close approaches, leaning in, squinting — exactly how such works are often made. The transfer of intimacy from the art maker to the art viewer is direct and powerful.

(more…)

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Miriam Grossman, the author of Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student, will speak at Agnes Scott College tonight at 7:30 p.m. It’s causing a bit of an uproar on campus.

The event, advertised with such slogans as “No condom for a broken heart! No cure for a broken hymen!” is hosted by the Agnes Scott College Republicans and the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, the conservative nonprofit that, in 2003, gave Ann Coulter its “Women of the Year” award.

Grossman, a campus psychiatrist at UCLA and a graduate of women’s college Bryn Mawr, is best known for her controversial statements about the “hookup culture” on college campuses and the detrimental effects of delaying childbirth.

If you can’t make it out tonight, you can check out all Grossman has to say in this interview with the National Review Online.

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