What if someone started shouting “Abundance!” in the overcrowded Scarcity Matrix and everyone suddenly woke up? What if, in waking, we immediately began the job of negotiating that abundance by coordinating the resources under our stewardship? Would we begin to imagine and create solutions to the intractable problems of our field that we simply cannot dream of in a zero-sum world? – See more at:
Can Data Crunching Help Us Learn What Makes Books Good Or Bad?
“As a literary critic who says he aims to study books without actually reading them, Franco Moretti … [treats them] like data: taking massive digital archives of texts and using computers to scan them for patterns no human reader would have the time, attention or patience to sift out.”
How Much Gay Sex Should A ‘Gay’ Novel Have?
On one hand, many Alan Hollinghurst fans complained about how (relatively) demure his 2012 novel The Stranger’s Child was. On another, as Michael Cunningham observed about his The Hours, “I can’t help but notice that when I finally write a book in which there are no men [redacted], I suddenly win the Pulitzer Prize.”
How To Tell When Someone Is Lying
Their lips are moving? No, it’s not that simple, even though most people tell an average of three (usually tiny) lies in a ten-minute conversation. What’s more, studies indicate that most people’s ability to tell if someone is lyng is barely better than chance.
450 Years Of Juliet, And Women On Shakespeare
“When actresses were first allowed to perform publicly in England, they generally did not address the audience directly in a prologue or epilogue. As Sonia Massai notes in this anthology, when they did, their speeches stressed the ‘exceptional quality’ of the occasion.”
NBC Jumps On The Amazon Studios ‘Open Submission’ Bandwagon
“If you can’t get yourself a TV-talent-lit agent because, a lot of times, you have no credits, you’ve got no means of getting through the wall of the networks. It’s nice that a network is giving at least another chance for someone to work around that conundrum.”
Want Some Good, Practical Life Experience? Take An Improv Class
“Time will slow down during conversations and you will be able to hear them more accurately. This absolutely will happen to everyone who takes improv classes.”
Documentary Filmmaker Michael Glawogger Dies Of Malaria On Location
“Glawogger, whose oeuvre includes his documentary trilogy exploring the world of work – Workingman’s Death, Megacities and Whores’ Glory – as well as dramas such as Slumming and Kill Daddy Good Night apparently died in Liberia after contracting Malaria.”
Quentin Tarantino’s Suit Against Gawker For Leaking Script Thrown Out (For Now)
“Los Angeles District Court Judge John F. Walter ruled that the director’s lawyers had failed to demonstrate that anyone had actually seen the script as a result of the link. … But he is giving the team a second chance to prove their case, allowing them to refile with a bit more evidence by the end of this month.”
Here’s The Problem With Local Public Discussion Of The Arts
In truth I could substitute “transportation” or “education” or “economic development” for “the arts” in that sentence and it would still be true, but maybe my standard for “fruitful conversation” is impossibly high.
What Scientists Learned From A 115-Year-Old Woman: The Possible Limits To Human Life?
“In the twilight of her life, about two-thirds of the white blood cells remaining in her body at death originated from just two stem cells, implying that most or all of the blood stem cells she started life with had already burned out and died.”
Series-Production Standoff: “House of Cards” Versus The State Of Maryland
“The California-based production company has postured long enough since the end of the legislative session, with threats to tear down the sets, pack up the soundstages in Joppa and move to Georgia or Pennsylvania.”
How Disney Movies Serve The Gay Agenda (The Real One)
“Through both its corporate practices and the content of its films, Disney for decades has implemented the so-called ‘gay agenda’ – which is to say, helping make the world a more accepting place.”
Why Do Some People Hate Céline Dion So Much?
“‘The most wholly repellent woman ever to sing songs of love,’ spewed Cintra Wilson, ‘I think most people would rather be processed through the digestive tract of an anaconda than be Céline Dion for a day.’ Bitch, excuse me? We’re not talking about Bernie Madoff or the Abu Ghraib torture team.” Novelist Mary Gaitskill has a go at figuring it out.
The Dallas Opera Loses Longtime Artistic Leader
“Jonathan Pell, The Dallas Opera’s artistic director, has been the company’s resident taste-maker for three decades, making important decisions about everything from which operas get staged to who stars in them. This morning, TDO announced that Pell will be leaving the company at the end of this year. Well, sort of leaving.”
Much Ado About Nothingness: Was Shakespeare An Atheist?
“The atheist Shakespeare theories” – which have been around for about a century now – “may be gaining currency, but … he has been called everything from a closet Catholic to an apologist for the Protestant state religion; the truth, one suspects, is murkier.”
What We Forget About Shakespeare: He Was An Actor First
Many of the encomia written for his 450th birthday “will likely omit or only fleetingly mention one fact: Shakespeare’s first acts of creation were not poems or plays, but the characters he gave life to as a struggling actor. This is no small omission.”
Why Choreographer Wayne McGregor Collaborates With Neuroscientists
“When we think about images, we tend to only think about visual images. There are different types of images: acoustic, kinesthetic. … What we concentrate on when we are making choreography is how we can do things differently. That is what the neuroscientists have been helping us with.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.23.14
Harry Potter and the Disregarded Entity
AJBlog: The Artful Manager | Published 2014-04-23
Does Literary Fiction Exist? And, James Franco
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-04-23
Doris Duke Performing Artists of jazz beyond jazz
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz | Published 2014-04-23
Why Salzburg is losing its good Easter egg
AJBlog: Slipped Disc | Published 2014-04-23
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Toronto Symphony Lands A New Star CEO
“Several sources on the front lines of the cultural business say the TSO deal has been made, the contracts have been drawn up and the staff know Jeff Melanson is on board. That’s a huge step forward because he is known as a great fixer — and there’s no organization more in need of a big fix than the TSO.”
FCC Caves On Net Neutrality
“The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals.”
What’s The Point? Speedreading App Makes You Faster But Who Cares If You Don’t Understand What You Read?
“While it’s irresistibly alluring to feel as though you’ve suddenly stumbled on an ultimate life hack that enables you to consume knowledge at the pace of a legendary savant, it also makes you feel a bit like an epileptic robot.”
What Happened To The Theatres Of Shakespeare’s Time?
“William Shakespeare would be amazed at what we can learn about his world all these centuries later, just by walking around London for three or four hours and taking careful note.”
ATT To Jump Into Crowded Netflix Streaming Territory
“The move comes amid rapid growth in online video services. AT&T, a telecoms giant, already offers TV content through its U-Verse service, which competes with more traditional cable TV providers. With online video, though, it could attract customers of Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and other services — including people who’ve stopped paying for traditional broadcast, cable or satellite TV.”
How I Review Music (One Critic’s Roadmap)
“Admittedly, no one actually bestowed upon me the ability to be a new music critic. Such is the greatness of the internet: anyone can hang out a shingle.”