Meet Noluvuyiso Mpofu. (includes audio)
Remember Bookmobiles? Here’s A Book Boat
“The Perahu Pustaka (Book Boat) is sorely needed. … More than 10% of the [province of] West Sulawesi’s adult population cannot read, while in many villages, the only book available is a solitary copy of the Quran. So in 2015, local news journalist Muhammad Ridwan Alimuddin decided to combine his twin passions for books and boats by setting up a mobile library on a baqgo, a small traditional sailboat.”
Claim: Superhero Stories Work Great For Comic Books But Are Terrible For Movies
Jonathan Lethem, who initially set out to become a visual artist, says that comic books are a unique storytelling medium with pleasures that don’t necessarily translate well to live action. “It seems to me there’s a disconnect at a fundamental formal level between what a comic book does when you encounter it and what a CGI superhero movie does when you encounter it,” he says.
How A Young Hollywood Actor Stays Motivated Through Countless Unsuccessful Auditions
“Annie Truex, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles, notes how much she’s learned much about the business of entertainment since moving to the city. For The Atlantic‘s ongoing series of interviews with American workers, I spoke with Truex about why she pursued acting, how she stays motivated throughout the audition process, and how beauty standards for women in entertainment affect her at work.”
Is There A White Writer Who Can Tell Stories About People Of Color Without Appropriating? This One
“What of the white writer who wishes to be artistically engaged but who simultaneously does not want to re-create cultural dominance in her work? Are there complex, nuanced representations by other white people which we might turn toward? I suggest that one answer may lie in the unlikely legacy of a pale, sickly writer from the mid-twentieth century, who smoked and drank herself to death by the age of fifty, and whose own personal turmoil and self-destruction may be at the root of the enormous insights about difference found throughout her work.”
Presidential Elections And The Laws Of Comedy
Ian Frazier: “Certain timeless laws apply to comedy – ‘Put the funniest word in the sentence at the end,’ for example. But in the modern era, in the world of political comedy, strange laws never seen before seem to be kicking in. The law that the efficiency of microchips increases exponentially every few years may now apply to political comedy, which gets exponentially funnier with every election cycle.”
Meet The Woman Who Got Naked, Covered Herself In Paint, And Rolled Around On Paper For Yves Klein
“As some of Klein’s Anthropometry paintings go on show at Tate Liverpool, [Elena] Palumbo-Mosca, now 81, rejects the notion that she was exploited and says she was more than just a ‘living brush’ or a traditional passive model.”
Does Wayne McGregor’s Extreme Choreography Hurt His Dancers? (He Says No)
“His movement style, born of his fascination with extreme physicality and hyperarticulation, has redefined the look of today’s dancers and virtually turned their bodies inside out. … Sometimes it looks as if he’s putting his dancers through a very painful wringer. No way, he counters. ‘These dancers are not stupid – they won’t do whatever I say. They are phenomenally bright individuals who are interested in changing the nature of technique, and with our joint intelligence we want to test the limit of what’s possible.'”
‘Don Giovanni,’ Don Trump, And Rape Culture
“In the end the [opera’s] message is that even a rich charismatic guy can not get away with predatory behavior, groping, serial rape, and, I’m sure, the occasional pussy-grab. The Don ends up dragged to hell.”
Is Casting Screen Stars In Broadway Plays Good For Theater?
Alexis Soloski: “Well, that depends on your criteria. Certainly, it brings people in who otherwise might not attend and gives Broadway a welcome shot of the glamour it can sometimes lack, making the lights of the Great White Way glow more brightly. But too often celebrity casting seems a cheap ploy to increase box office totals and keep the publicity machine churning. These actors drum up excitement for new plays and goose otherwise bland-seeming revivals.”
The Man Who Spent 30 Years Trying To Preserve Palmyra’s History
“When Russian and Syrian troops reclaimed the site, it became clear that practically everything in the museum had been broken. They destroyed everything systematically, room by room, sculpture by sculpture, using hammers and other heavy tools.”
In What (Polite Yet Enjoyable) Way Will Canada Celebrate Culture For Its 150th?
“What effect will all this well-meaning cultural, environmental and athletic activity produce? As the optimistic descriptions washed over me, I had to remind myself that public celebrations of a national birthday can indeed be transformative.”
How ‘The Internet Of Things’ (That Is, Refrigerators And DVRs) Got Hacked And Took Down Spotify, Twitter, And The New York Times
“Security researchers have been warning about these internet-of-things botnets since at least the summer. In September, a botnet composed of DVRs and CCTVs took down the blog of Brian Krebs, a prominent cybersecurity journalist. And on October 1, an anonymous developer posted source code online that allowed anyone to string a similar kind of botnet together.”
‘Moonlight’ In America
“This movie has a lot to say about that because it takes those people who have been marginalized — poor people, black people, gay people — and it puts them front and center. And I think we need more of that, frankly. We need more understanding of each other. We don’t need to build any more walls. We need to invite some more people to the table.”
The Return (To TV) Of Carol Burnett, With An Assist From Amy Poehler
“The ABC project, which does not yet have a title, will be a multicamera comedy about a family that is on the brink of buying a dream house though it comes with a catch: They have to live with the current tenant, an older actress played by Ms. Burnett.”
Pippilotti Rist Is Trying To Reach More Than Just The Art-World Converted
“A video environment called ‘4th Floor To Mildness’ will invite visitors to take off their shoes and stretch out on secondhand beds that the New Museum has collected (and cleaned). The viewers will gaze toward the ceiling at two amoeba-shaped screens, on which will be projected watery footage that Ms. Rist, who lives and works in Zurich, filmed over the summer in a part of the Rhine that she knows by heart.”
Perhaps Novels Should Appeal To The Brain, Not The Heart
“Aside from its astute selection of moving detail, art is constantly in the business of manipulating our emotions, as if this were an end in itself. This, after all, was Plato’s objection to the arts and every kind of artistic effect — that it was manipulative and potentially mendacious.”
This Director Brought Millions Of Dollars – And Fans – To A Studio, So Why Isn’t She Honored, And Employed?
“‘I went into the studio the Monday after Twilight opened to $69 million. I’d heard they give directors a car,’ she paused with a rueful laugh as the audience called out ‘what did you get?’ She said: ‘I got a mini cupcake.'”
In Kansas City, The Ailey Group’s Second Home Has A Mission Beyond Dance
“For the third year in a row, the organization will convene a day-long symposium and town-hall meeting on Race, Place and Diversity. Over the last two years, a few hundred people have gathered for lunch, followed by break-out sessions and panels and an evening town hall to try to tackle these tension-filled topics.”
The Dreaded ‘Screen Time Wars’ May Be Coming To An End (As We All Give In)
“Over the past decade, an increasing number of researchers, many educators, and not surprisingly, children’s media developers have pointed to a growing pile of studies that show how children, even at very young ages, can benefit from using media when it catalyzes conversation and is designed for learning.”
Surprise: The Pope Turned His Summer Palace Into A Museum
“Without ever having spent a night there, the pope ordered the apostolic palace and gardens at Castel Gandolfo, about 15 miles from Rome, be turned into a museum.”
Tom Stoppard’s First New Play In a Decade
The profound question being debated here — is consciousness no more than brain tissue and, if so, is altruism merely the product of evolutionary biology? — has brought Stoppard into public colloquies with scientists and philosophers investigating this quintessential 21st century conundrum.
Cincinnati May Festival Gets A New Conductor
Currently the chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, United Kingdom, Juanjo Mena has made several recordings with that orchestra, including a Falla album named Recording of the Month by BBC Music magazine His previous posts are artistic director and principal conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra (1999-2008) and principal guest conductor of both the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway and Teatro Carlo Felice, in Genoa, Italy.
Orchestra Pay, Orchestra Prestige, And Just Making A Living
Norman Lebrecht: “Isaac Stern told me that when he was growing up in 1920s San Francisco ‘a musician in the orchestra was a person‘ – even if he earned a pittance. He had social status. As that status declined it had to be replaced with other compensations or orchestral life would have ceased to exist. So wages rose.”
Do Orchestra Musicians Deserve To Be Paid More? Of Course. Should They Be? That’s A Different Question!
“In 1967, classical music still occupied a central position in our high culture. Now it doesn’t. Most Americans don’t care about classical music and don’t go to orchestral concerts. I think they should, but it doesn’t matter what I think. They’ll do what they want to do—and one thing they don’t want to do is go out of their way to hike the salary of a violinist in Philadelphia who already makes over $2,400 a week, especially when the median weekly household income in the U.S. is $1,073 (which is roughly what the average London orchestra player earns per week).” [click on “The Money Pit” after clicking this link]