Ubo Roi on display

Ubu Roi, or Ubo the King, is a play written by 23 year-old Alfred Jarry in 1896, that has strongly influenced art and literature ever since. A grotesque, irreverent, and extremely imaginative story of the obscenity of power, it continues to be regularly performed and has never grown out of date and is perhaps especially relevant in the age of Trump. The Picasso Museum in Barcelona is hosting an exhibition about the play and its cultural influence that we went to see the other day. It’s really eye-opening, to say the least. Here are some of the works on display, by Max Ernst, Enrico Baj, Duboffet, Miro, Picasso, and Hélène Delprat.

and here’s a recent version of the play:

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How about some of you actors out there doing a performance at Andy’s Corner? We’ll be open again on Saturday if you want to come and talk about it.

Rethinking economics

The long march through the institutions continues. For someone who spent his academic career trying to rethink and change science and engineering education, mostly in vain (you can check out my last book for details: https://andrewjamison.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/the-making-of-green-engineers.pdf), this seems like something to encourage. And not just for economics!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/10/rethinking-economics-student-academic-organisation-changing-education

A simple request

I have often wondered how anybody in their right mind could use Amazon since the behavior of Jeff Bezos, both as businessman and private person has always been particularly disgraceful in regard to just about any criterion of human decency. But what he has done to The Washington Post is downright disgusting. So let me make a simple request. Never use Amazon! I would be happy to help you order anything – well, just about anything – that you might want to order from Amazon.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/05/amazon-ai-robotics-bezos-washington-post

A worthy cause

Alison Luthmers has written to say that Friday’s concert with the Bellevue String Quartet and special guests Antoine Torunczyk and Antina Hugosson will be a benefit for Sweden’s oldest environmental organization, The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (Naturskyddsföreningen).

https://min-insamling.naturskyddsforeningen.se/en/fundraisers/mozart-and-more-a-benefit-concert-for-naturskyddsforeningen

So there’s one more reason to join us on Friday. Check out “Bookstore events” for details.

The mobilization of tradition

Hearing Bruce Springsteen’s song brings back memories of a book I once wrote with Ron Eyerman, Music and Social Movements. We argued and tried to show that the interaction of music and social movements in the 20th century, in the 1960s in particular, represented a mobilization of cultural traditions that affected both politics and music and contributed to what we termed cultural transformations. I used to talk about it at academic conferences by asking the audience to stand up and sing “We Shall Overcome” with me to help bring the points all back home, so to speak. Let’s just hope that Springsteen’s song can inspire other music-makers to join him in doing something useful with their talents and mobilize their own musical traditions for a good cause. Who knows: if enough of them start writing and singing meaningful songs at their concerts it might actually help us overcome the horrors that have been brought upon us. Anyway, here’s a link to a preview of our book. And then sing along with Joan.

Click to access preview-9781139382564_A23867428.pdf

Words of wisdom

I posted an interview with Rebecca Solnit some months back and continue to be impressed and inspired by how well she manages to combine emotion and intelligence in her writing, a fine example of what I once termed a “hybrid imagination”. Here’s her latest piece in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/29/what-technology-takes-from-us-and-how-to-take-it-back

The hole is fixed

Yes, indeed. While the bathroom in the apartment upstairs has been identified as the source of the leakage in the store the ceiling in our art-music-nature etc room has been fixed, dear Liza. Oh, and speaking of Liza, or actually Eliza, here’s a little history lesson about artificial intelligence for all you AI boycotters out there.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-the-computer-scientist-behind-the-worlds-first-chatbot-dedicated-his-life-to-publicizing-the-threat-posed-by-ai-180987971/

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Anyway, to celebrate that not just the hole in the ceiling but also the lights have been fixed Andy’s Corner will be open today from 2 to 5. Now that’s what I call loverly.