“In other words, the use of English could be just as important to indigenous identity as mother-tongue languages.” Tristan Ahtone looks into the origins of the accent and what it signifies – to Indians themselves and to other Americans.
Let’s Stop Pretending We’re Not Addicted To Our Screens
We are. We just are. “We’ll get a flood of dopamine that makes us feel wonderful in the short term, though in the long term you build a tolerance and want more.” The answer? Look to the 1950s.
Hallelujah! IKEA Introduces Furniture You Can Snap Together
“The fiddly ritual of assembling IKEA furniture is set to become a thing of the past as the furniture giant introduces products that snap together ‘like a jigsaw puzzle.'” No tools necessary! (includes video)
Our Addictions Are Multiplying In The Age Of Smartphones
In the past, we thought of addiction as mostly related to chemical substances: heroin, cocaine, nicotine. Today, we have this phenomenon of behavioral addictions where, one tech industry leader told me, people are spending nearly three hours a day tethered to their cellphones. Where teenage boys sometimes spend weeks alone in their rooms playing video games. Where Snapchat will boast that its youthful users open their app more than 18 times a day.
Imelda Staunton And Critic Agree: Eating In Your Seat Is A Crime Against Theatre
Michael Billington: “I’ve only lately become aware of how popular this is. … Some theatres, I’ve discovered, even encourage the practice by supplying a meal-and-drink package, as if their patrons might die of hunger or thirst during the arduous business of watching a play. Does it matter? I think it does.”
Where Saturday Night Live’s Trump Administration Satire Goes Flat
While the bits with Alec Baldwin (as Trump) and Melissa McCarthy (as press secretary Sean Spicer) tend to be solid, argues David Sims, “the rest of SNL‘s political satire, such as Saturday’s cold open that framed Attorney General Jeff Sessions as Forrest Gump, often leans on presenting the Trump administration as cheerfully unaware or low on brainpower. It’s a more toothless approach that’s far easier for viewers of all political viewpoints to dismiss.”
‘The 50 Greatest Conductors Of All Time’, Per Gramophone Magazine
Let the arguments begin!
Denmark May Upend Its Orchestra Ecosystem
Danish culture minister Mette Bock is planning to spin off the national broadcaster’s orchestra, choir and concert hall (possibly to the national opera house) and eliminate the Copenhagen Philharmonic (not the capital’s only orchestra), distributing its musicians and budget among four regional orchestras.
How Disabilities Are Portrayed On TV
On TV, disability is played for laughs, for horror (such as with the “evil cripple” trope), or ignored even by shows otherwise committed to diversity. While critics have coined the phrase “crip up” to refer to the many able-bodied actors who have played disabled characters, often to widespread acclaim, a study by the Ruderman Family Foundation found that 95 percent of all disabled characters are played by abled actors (full disclosure, I have worked for the Ruderman Family Foundation on other projects).
Frank McCourt Talks About The Perils Of Popular Success For Your Work
“The sheer volume of sales substantiates that readers respond powerfully to memoirs. McCourt’s work has been dismissed all too glibly as misery memoir, and deemed to be commercially driven or aesthetically and politically naïve by his detractors. Meanwhile, his supporters have responded to the emotional impact of the texts rather than discussing the complex set of diverse materials upon which McCourt has formed his narrative: namely Ireland itself, the status of the memoir genre, and Irish-American identity.”
UC Berkeley Will Remove Access To 20,000 Educational Videos From YouTube
The University of California, Berkeley, will cut off public access to tens of thousands of video lectures and podcasts in response to a U.S. Justice Department order that it make the educational content accessible to people with disabilities.
Study: Older Adults Process Music Differently Than Younger Adults
Many of our brain’s executive functions become impaired as we get older, but this didn’t turn out to be the case for sensing a lack of harmony. Both groups detected the unexpected endings equally well. The older people employed a wider region of the brain, though. “Recruiting a broader region perhaps compensates for the expected impairment that often takes place with age.”
Study: Why Males Are Less Interested In The Arts
“Society-wide cultural norms … define highbrow culture as belonging to the feminine sphere,” notes a research team led by Ghent University sociologist Susan Lagaert. In a newly published study, she and her colleagues present intriguing evidence of how that assumption affects the behavior of adolescents.
Movie Boring? Okay – How About Playing On This Jungle Jim?
“Mexico-based movie theater chain Cinepolis is betting it can lure more families back to the multiplex with its new in-theater playground concept, Cinepolis Junior, which makes its U.S. debut at two Southern California locations next week. The remodeled auditoriums at Cinepolis USA’s Pico Rivera and Vista theaters each feature a colorful play area near the screen in front of the seats, a jungle gym, and cushy beanbag chairs.”
Study: Lying Gets Easier The More You Do It
“If we engage in behaviour we feel bad about over and over again, does our emotional response to this behaviour adapt? If so, then we’ve got a prediction: since we know that emotional responses can constrain our willingness to be dishonest, if these responses decrease through adaptation, dishonesty ought to increase as a result.”
Weird Al Yankovic Walks Us Through His Process Of Creating A Song Parody
For Vulture‘s podcast about jokes, Good One, Yankovic details how – in a thorough, methodical way – he turned the Pharrell/Robin Thicke hit “Blurred Lines” into “Word Crimes,” about a grammar nerd fighting the good fight for linguistic justice. (audio plus written Q&A)
A Lost Opera By Franz Liszt Has Turned Up, And You Can Hear Part Of It
“An excerpt from a largely forgotten Italian opera that Liszt began in 1849 will, belatedly, get its premiere this summer. You can listen to part of the work, based on Lord Byron’s Assyrian tragedy Sardanapalus, here.”
Russia Gives Disney’s Live-Action ‘Beauty And The Beast’ Adults-Only Rating
And yes, it’s because Gaston’s sidekick, LeFou, is depicted as gay. (At least the movie wasn’t banned for violating the law against aiming “gay propaganda” at minors, as the author of the law had demanded.)
Afghanistan’s Answer To ‘American Idol’ – It Could Make You Famous, But It Could Also Get You Killed
“The show’s judges drive around in armored vehicles. The contestants are provided with safe housing inside a compound for the duration of the show. Audience members go through multiple security checks.” Reporter Mujib Mashal visits the set and meets this season’s two favorites, a rapping barber from Mazar-i-Sharif and a 16-year-old girl whose widowed mother defied the rest of the family to get her daughter entered.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.06.17
A Small Company with Big Ideas
The New York Theatre Ballet performs in Saint Mark’s Church, March 1 through 4. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-03-06
Monday Recommendation: Joachim Kühn Trio
Joachim Kühn New Trio, Beauty & Truth, ACT … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-03-06
Pauses that refreshed
TV commercials rank high among the clearest and most vivid memories of my boyhood. … On occasion, the music for a commercial was so well-written and well-executed that it lodged forever after in my consciousness. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-03-06<
Claim: Livestreaming Arts Performances Is Diversifying Audiences
As a result, audiences have engaged with art forms often considered ‘elitist’ by some individuals, such as opera or ballet. “It’s vital that people feel that the arts are for them – given all the benefits they can bring to our emotional and social wellbeing – and if we can help break down some of those barriers by the range of films we show in cinemas, then we’re delighted.”
Is A Slump In Chinese Movie Box Office Because Audiences Are Getting More Selective?
“China used to be a market where the screen count was growing so much, people would kind of go see anything, or see a lot of things. But it’s become a much more mature market, like the rest of the world. It’s more sensitive to content.”
The 40 Years When New York Built Its Biggest, Enduring Cultural Icons
“Everything from the formation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park, to the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and opening of Ellis Island, happened over the course of these four decades.”
IMdB Adds An “F” Rating For Movies
Curator Gali Gold said the rating was “a simple and effective way to signpost films where the stories are told by and about women and to highlight the issue of gender imbalance within the film industry”.
Report: Here’s What The Current $45 Billion Art Market Looks Like
The report paints a picture of “a stable and resilient market, experiencing positive growth.” However, sales are moving away from the auction houses to the private sector, both to private sales by auction houses and to dealers. In 2016, public auction sales of works of art, high-end jewelry, and decorative arts, reached $16.9 billion globally, a drop from $20.8 billion in 2015.