“The EU considered” – and has now rejected – “a restriction on cadmium [paints] following pressure from Sweden, which argued that artists pollute the food chain when they rinse their brushes in the sink. Cadmium ends up in sewage sludge and is then spread on agricultural land … Cadmium in its pure form is highly toxic, but the cadmium compounds used by artists are not classified as hazardous.”
When An Author You Translate Gets Death Threats
“Acclaimed Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk (pictured) has received a steady stream of hate mail and even death threats after questioning her country’s view of itself as ‘an open, tolerant country.’ As one person put it in a post to Tokarczuk’s Facebook page, ‘The only justice for these lies is death. Traitor.'” And when translator Jennifer Croft set up and English-language Facebook page to support Tokarczuk, she found herself in the line of fire.
Shakespeare’s Globe Performs ‘Hamlet’ In Syrian Refugee Camp
“Aiming to visit every country in the world to commemorate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, and the 400th anniversary of his death, it has visited 136 countries out of 196. The only country the company could not get permission and insurance to visit was Syria, so they performed in the Zaatari refugee camp on the Jordanian border to an entirely Syrian audience.” (photo journal)
Important Things We Can Learn From Reality TV
“Can America really be healthy if it wants to watch Survivor, Joe Millionaire, Paula Abdul, the Situation, or the Kardashians? But now that reality TV has been revealed not as some malignant mind fever but another genre of entertainment, as great or foul, good or bad, watchable or unwatchable, as any other, let’s appreciate when it gets this deep.”
Impostors – Can Identity Be Chosen Or Must It Be Inborn?
“Caitlyn Jenner identifies as a woman, Rachel Dolezal as black. Why should one be legitimate and the other condemned?”
This ‘X-Files’ Episode Was Basically Banned From TV For Being Too Terrifying
“It just seemed like such a horrifying situation, and I’d been trying to use it. So we had been working out the story where there was another brother under the bed, and Jim Wong one day goes: ‘It’s the mother! The mother’s under the bed!’ And I felt Freud and Joseph Campbell do back flips, and that was that.”
What The iPod – Now 14 – Did For Us All
“I gave in and bought a 160-gig iPod Classic, which remains the closest thing to an emotional holodeck. … Photos are souvenirs, but songs are a means of reliving.”
When Celebrities Go To Broadway Plays, Who’s Paying Whom For What?
“Even with all the greatest copywriters in the world, it’s hard to improve on ‘Love Love Loved,’ especially when replete with visual aid and the concise hashtag ‘greatforhiphopheads.’ One can only hope the affection was genuine and spontaneous, rather than a matter of shared interests. Not that we would really know, either way. Given the intricate networks of agents, executives and representatives at the upper echelons of the entertainment business, I suspect there were elements of both.”
39 Theatres Have Pledged Their 2020 Seasons To Diversity
“Last week, they unveiled what they call ‘The Jubilee’: an initiative inviting theatres across the nation to pledge to produce only plays written by women, people of color, LGBTQA individuals, and writers with disabilities for a whole season.”
WQXR Music Editor Fired For Plagiarism
“The stories in question were found to contain descriptions, phrases and sentences that duplicate or closely resemble work that was previously published elsewhere. An NPR.org copy editor uncovered the connections last week while working on one of Brian Wise’s stories.”
Research: A Link Between Creativity And Dishonest Behavior?
“We suggest that creative identity derives its value, specifically, from a sense of rarity, specialness, and uniqueness, which causes a sense of entitlement (among creative people),” they write in the Academy of Management Journal. “This sense of entitlement, in turn, can cause individuals to engage in dishonest behaviors.”
How The New York Public Library Is Reinventing Itself
“These days, digitization of the NYPL collections falls under the aegis of NYPL Labs – which began as a catchall name for a range of digital experiments, then became an in-house, prototype-building research and development group, and now is a full-fledged department that’s broadly responsible for both the digital and experimental sides of the library and its branches.”
SXSW Cancels Panel On Harassment In Gaming – Because Of Harassment And Threats
“The decision has been widely panned online, news organizations including Vox Media and BuzzFeed have threatened to not attend, and the situation has been cast as a win for the angry and misogynistic teratoma of trolls that identify themselves as part of the Gamergate movement. Meanwhile, SXSW’s official explanation for the cancellations is a misdirected mess.”
I Was On One Of Those Canceled SXSW Panels – Here Is What Went Down
User-experience designer and researcher Caroline Sinders explains the planned focus of the panel (titled “Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games”), the abuse she and family members had previously suffered from GamerGate types, the strange dynamic that developed around her panel proposal, and the even stranger responses of SXSW staff.
Nobody Does Haunted Houses Better Than The Japanese
“I screamed more in that tiny haunt than I did walking through some of the top haunts in the United States with every high-priced animatronic and 20-foot-tall monster available. I believe the key difference was how immersed I was in the story and the personal connection I felt with the girl and the ghost.”
A ‘Moth’ Champion Shares The Tricks For Telling Riveting Stories
Matthew Dicks, a former teacher who became a professional storyteller after winning The Moth’s StorySLAM 18 times, says that the secret is in the stakes. (podcast)
Now *Here’s* How A Cop Should Deal With A Defiant Teen – Dance With Her
Perhaps the (ex-)policeman in Columbia, SC who threw a high school student across the classroom should have followed the example of this officer in D.C. (video)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.29.15
Maybe they should be interested, but …
I have to admit I’m a little surprised by the comments on my last post, which was about the way we in classical music grasp for relevance by programming concerts built around things in history — Shostakovich and Stalin, for instance — that not many people care much about. And thereby showing how not relevant we are. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-10-29
The chance and cost of being wrong
I’ve been reading a lot lately about data-informed decision making…more than is likely healthy for me. And so much of what I read begins and ends with the assumption that more data is always better. … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2015-10-29
Seeking a Blue Ocean
Once you have freed yourself from being chained to a place, and granted yourself permission to see what you want to do as not only important to you but also important to others as well, … read mor
AJBlog: Creative Insubordination Published 2015-10-29
The Real Vladimir Horowitz
Sony’s new 50-CD compilation, “Vladimir Horowitz: The Unreleased Live Recordings 1966-1983,” is a startling exercise in candor three times over. … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2015-10-29
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