"Chani Nicholas doesn’t care for the hulking Alex Katz painting, depicting a trio of suited white men, hanging behind the front desk of the Langham hotel in New York. It reminds her of the patriarchy..."

"... she tells me one rainy, starless night in February, as we take the elevator up to her hotel suite and sit on the couch. We’re wrapping up a conversation about privilege, gender equality and the zodiac when Nicholas, who’s become popular on Instagram as a kind of social-justice astrologer, notices a different art piece hovering behind her. This one, she likes. The painting, titled 'Mona,' portrays a woman who shares a striking resemblance to Nicholas – dark hair with tight curls, sharp brown eyes, a strong jawline. She compares it to the painting in the lobby. 'The hotel staff must’ve known not to put me in a room with a bunch of weird guys on the wall,' she says. 'I’m basically an angry feminist who just happens to be into astrology and healing.'"

So begins "Meet the Woman Bringing Social Justice to Astrology/Chani Nicholas is transforming horoscopes from quips about finding true love and stumbling into financial good fortune to pointed calls to action" (Rolling Stone)(via my son John at Facebook).

If you get far enough into that article, you'll see some material about a technology and culture reporter at The New York Times, Jenna Wortham:

“I think the Internet is really good at helping like-minded individuals find each other and affirm each other,” she says. “I know a lot of people in my life who don’t give a shit about astrology and think that my interest in star signs is ludacris [sic] and laughable, but I don’t have to talk to them,” she says....

Wortham thinks that the millennial interest in astrology has to do with the correction of an imbalance, in which people are looking at their relationship to technology and finding it, at least to a degree, unnatural. Because social media and the Internet require people to externalize so much of their lives, people are looking for ways to be more introspective, she says. “In the same way that we’re like, ‘What’s the quality of the food that we’re eating? We’re now like, ‘How are we living? Is there a better way to live?'”

Last year, Wortham went through a difficult breakup and decided to switch neighborhoods in Brooklyn.... “I took Chani’s advice, and I made [something] happen,” says Wortham.... “When I think back on it, I don’t think it would’ve been as easy for me to manage all the influxes of opportunity had my house not been in order.” Nicholas’s guidance, Wortham says, helped her affirm whether she was doing the right thing. “It’s cool feeling like there’s something correlating in the cosmos and on the earth,” she says.

I wonder what the NYT's idea of reporting on "technology and culture" really is. Is it articles on technology designed to draw in people who wouldn't normally read about technology? I went over to the NYT and found this video about astrology:



I had to shut that off because I felt a strong and physical revulsion to the visual style. It didn't remind me of the patriarchy or anything like that. It just made me feel like a very annoying robot had the delusion that he could amuse me and intended to relentlessly act on that delusion. I had my own delusion — that I would have a seizure if I didn't shut it off.

ADDED: Jenna Wortham's new article in the NYT Magazine is "On Instagram, Seeing Between the (Gender) Lines/Social Media Has Turned Out to Be the Perfect Tool For Nonbinary People to Find — and Model — Their Unique Places on the Gender Spectrum." Excerpt:

Personally, Vaid-Menon doesn’t identify as any gender. “Nonbinary is so oxymoronic,” Vaid-Menon told me. “We’re defining ourselves by an absence and not our abundance.” When pressed, they will describe themselves as transfeminine, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary — but only reluctantly. “I really try to escape having to put myself in these categories,” Vaid-Menon said. “I wanted to be free from boxes — not end up in a new one.” Social media is one of the few outlets for that uninhibited expression.

AND here's the Alex Katz painting at the Langham Hotel:



Significantly less evocative of the patriarchy than the Rolling Stone made it sound! The "trio of suited white men" is next to a trio of women. And the men aren't wearing suits. White Man #1 has a turtleneck under his jacket. White Man #2 doesn't seem to have a jacket. And White Man #3 has his shirt collar gaping open in a way that suggests he's not wearing a tie. All 6 adults are staring in the direction of a bright light source and all but the one man in prescription glasses are wearing sunglasses, so they're not in an office environment. Where are they? The background is dark, so it's a confusing setting, but there's no reason to think they're in a position to exercise patriarchal power. They're out for some kind of fun. And the women are in front of the men.