“Raymond Williams is one of those thinkers who helped change his field so profoundly that today it can be difficult to appreciate how original he was. Members of Williams’s generation believed that analyzing culture would bring about revolution. Much of their prose now sounds turgid, and many of their political hopes were either beaten into submission or inflated into a hyperbole that remains purely hypothetical.”
Australian Gov’t Moves $100M From Independent Arts Funding Body To Its Own Arts Ministry
The conservative-leaning governing coalition is reallocating half of the Australia Council for the Arts’ budget to a new “national program for excellence in the arts” directly controlled by the arts minister, George Brandis (who is also the attorney general).
In Rehearsal With ABT Boss Kevin McKenzie
Watch as the American Ballet Theatre artistic director directs Julie Kent and Ethan Stiefel in a duet and leads dancers in a group rehearsal. (video)
Rachel Rosenthal, 88, Doyenne Of L.A. Performance Artists
“She had hot wax poured over her shaved head, buried herself in artificial snow, read alternately from the ancient Kabbalah and car magazines, and shared the stage with more than 40 animals, including her beloved pet rat, who could often be found perched on her shoulder when she was off-stage.”
Ira Glass Says ‘Public Radio Is Ready For Capitalism’ – On Podcasts, Advertisers, And Content
“A couple of weeks ago, NPR and two of its most influential member stations, WNYC and WBEZ, invited a large group of media and marketing people to Le Poisson Rouge, a nightclub in Greenwich Village, for an event called ‘Hearing is Believing.’ … Ira Glass, the host of This American Life and producer of Serial, told a reporter for AdAge, ‘My hope is that we can move away from a model of asking listeners for money and join the free market.'”
Can The Guggenheim Win Over Reluctant Finns? (And Why The Answer Matters)
“In the art and design world, the fate of the prospective museum has become a matter of global import: with everyone from the Louvre to the Hermitage looking to set up outposts abroad, Helsinki has become the latest battleground in an ongoing conflict over how – and whether – small cities and emerging countries should accommodate expansionist mega-museums.”
Crowdfunded Novel Wins The Bookseller’s First Book Of The Year Award
“The prize is intended to recognise the publisher as well as the book, and goes to both [Paul] Kingsnorth and Unbound, the crowdfunding publisher which released The Wake last year … The novel is set in 1066, and tells the story of guerrilla fighters who take up arms against the Norman invaders in the Lincolnshire fens. It is written in a reimagined version of Old English after Kingsnorth found that modern English ‘didn’t fit’ the world he was creating.”
‘I Was Born Homosexual; I Chose To Be Gay’: On Sensibility And (Or Versus) Same-Sex Attraction
“Implicit in the notion that an apartment like mine can ‘be gay’ – and that you, despite any politically correct training against saying so, could easily recognize it as such – is an understanding of gayness as something more than a basic sexual orientation. … Gayness may be found not just in whom you sleep with, but also in the sort of sheets you insist on sleeping between.” A longread by J. Bryan Lowder.
Do Gay Men And Lesbians Share A Sensibility? And How Do Their Sensibilities Differ?
A dialogue between the two editors of Slate‘s LGBT blog, Outward: June Thomas and J. Bryan Lowder.
How Procrastination Works
“Procrastination is, in essence, stealing from yourself. The reason goals are so hard to reach, many psychologists think, is because each person believes they are really two people: Present Me and Future Me. And to most people, Future Me is much less important than Present Me. Present Me is the CEO of Me Corp, while Future Me is a lowly clerk.”
Why You And I Should Care About Game Theory (It’s Actually Useful)
“Despite a heady term that calls to mind algebraic equations requiring chalkboard walls that lift up to reveal entire second sets of chalkboard walls, game theory’s a relatively easy concept: It’s using math, rather than your intuition, to make decisions. It’s Moneyball, not just peering from a distance and saying, ‘Looks like an athlete to me.'”
Suck It Up: Nicholson Baker Writes About His Lifetime Of Vacuum Cleaners
“There are many pleasures to vacuum cleaning, and then sometimes there’s rug rage.”
Catherine Deneuve: Social Media Is Destroying Hollywood’s Ability To Make Stars
The invasive and non-stop nature of online social networks puts too much exposure on stars, while at the same time turning regular people into instant celebrities, Deneuve said. “To be a star, that requires glamour and secrecy,” she said, speaking in French.
How A Producer Made Canadian History Videos Cool Again
“Nearly 25 years since they were first broadcast across Canada, Heritage Minutes have got their swagger back. Their original target audience – young, impressionable Canadians – is now a huge, digitally savvy slice of the country’s makeup, and there’s little they crave more than nostalgia and parody.”
Smart Machines Are Now Teaching Us How To Look At Art In Deeper Ways
“One application of the new algorithms is to pick out paintings with similar characteristics (see images). That provides a new and powerful tool for historians to look for influences between artists that may never have been aware of. It also allows a new form of art exploration, jumping from one image to another similar one, in a process that is visually equivalent to finding synonyms.”
Three Women And A Housing Project Are Finalists For 2015 Turner Prize
The housing project, a Liverpool complex revamped by the young architecture collective called Assemble, is joined on the shortlist by a study room, a chamber opera, and fur coats sewn onto Marcel Breuer chairs.
Picasso’s Stepdaughter Has Paris Dealer Arrested For Trying To Steal Her Picassos
“Catherine Hutin-Blay, the only daughter of Picasso’s second wife Jacqueline, … believes that some of the works the art dealer was hired to transport have gone missing. Prosecutors would not say which works were involved nor give their estimated value.”
Soprano Montserrat Caballé Fails To Attend Court For Tax Evasion Sentence
Always notorious for cancelling, the diva missed a hearing to ratify the plea deal that would allow her to avoid jail time for defrauding the Spanish government of €500,000 in taxes owed. Her attorney, fed up, dropped her as a client over the weekend. (in English)
Defendant Loses First Round Of Lawsuits Over Collapse Of Broadway ‘Rebecca’
“That publicist, Marc Thibodeau, who had been hired to help bring to Broadway the gothic musical based on the Daphne du Maurier novel, had sent foreboding emails under phony names to a potential investor and his lawyers, warning that the show’s producers had been tricked by a fraud scheme.”
A Brief History Of AOL (Now That Verizon’s About To Swallow It Whole)
A suggested reading list of journalism, ranging from the early days (1996), through the late ’90s “chat wars,” the failed experiment with Patch, and the disastrous merger with Time-Warner.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.12.15
Parsing “Engage”
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-05-12
Strong Start, Weak Finish at Sotheby’s $379.68-Million Contemporary Sale
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-05-12
A New Heldentenor
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-05-12
Mike Leigh’s Piratical Sense of Duty
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2015-05-12
Coming Down for Air
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2015-05-12
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Scandal Rocks New Orleans Shiney New Jazz Market
“With its inaugural public concert in late April, during Jazz Fest’s opening weekend, Mayfield’s Jazz Market joined Manhattan’s Jazz at Lincoln Center and San Francisco’s SFJazz in the ranks of urban arts center buildings dedicated to jazz. The architecture is similar to SFJazz in appearance, right down to the lettering on its nameplate.”
Supporters Of Theatre Building Object When Theater Uses Some of The Money To Pay Staff
“I know from experience that the public are extremely generous in their financial support for what they think is to benefit the fabric of the building. With this £10,000 flying out of the door I’m sure our generous public will think again about donating.”
Professor: American Higher Ed Is Failing
“Academia is the Titanic. I have suggested that schools stop spending so much money and labor on useless research in the humanities, and instead shift that labor and money to teaching.”
ACLU Asks For Investigation Into Hollywood Hiring Practices Of Women
“Gender discrimination is illegal. And really Hollywood doesn’t get this free pass when it comes to civil rights and gender discrimination.”