August 29, 2024: Un-sounds unseen

Today, we’re exploring the subliminal stuff that’s there when you think it’s not. Take John Cage’s 4’33”, which was first performed 72 years ago today. It’s a work that is seemingly nothing, but contains a whole lot more. And now there’s a picture book so you can explore the silence with your little ones. We’ll talk with Northampton author Nicholas Day about his book Nothing, and the neat ways to talk about incredible advances in modern music in the simplest of terms It’s also in the archive of Frida Kahlo’s photographs. Only recently found and containing thousands of photos of the artist herself, her family, loves, and interests, the collection paints a new picture of her work and life. Springfield Museums will have a few hundred of these photos on view through next week, which coincides with their 2nd annual Latino Art Festival, so we head down the street to get a peek into the private collection of one of the 20th century’s most prolific artists with Curatorial Assistant Sophie Combs and chair of Mi Museo Lydia Martinez Alvarez about the intersecting power of those two events.  Plus our weekly chat with Congressman Jim McGovern covers quite a bit of both subtle and obvious ground with his farm tour, political figures switching sides, ongoing Israeli Palestine conflicts, and persisting rise of covid cases as students head back to campuses in Western Mass and beyond.