Women Directors Made Almost Half The Films At This Year’s Venice Festival

MEDIA Posted: September 4, 2020 2:27 pm

“This is an unprecedented percentile which we hope augurs well for a future cinema that is free of any sort of prejudice and discrimination.” – Toronto Star

The Complete Poems: 1965-2020 Michael Butterworth’s Radical Legacy in Verse

For more than half a century the dissident British author, editor, and underground publisher Michael Butterworth has been "a quiet unobtrusive voice in poetry, with roots both in the small press poetry... Read more

AJBlog: Straight|Up Published on: 2023-01-28
“Fashion Victim” (Part II): “Lagerfeld” Subverts the Met

My May 2005 NY Times Op-Ed page commentary—Fashion Victim—now has a CultureGrrl sequel, thanks to the Met’s announcement of its upcoming Costume Institute show—“Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty” (May 5–July 16).... Read more

AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published on: 2023-01-28
Christopher Sierra talks about culturally-responsive teaching

Christopher Sierra , Voice & Master of Music in Music Education Faculty at Longy School of Music, talks about culturally responsive teaching in the arts.... Read more

AJBlog: Aaron Dworkin Published on: 2023-01-28
A Copy Editor Disavows Copyediting

It’s clear that copyediting as it’s typically practiced is a white supremacist project, that is, not only for the particular linguistic forms it favors and upholds, which belong to the cultures of... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
Black Dancers In Pacific Northwest Ballet Reflect On Their Careers

When you see more people who look like you onstage, it makes you want to go and it makes you want to bring people with you. If there are people who look... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
Naps Are A Creative Canvas

The relationship between sleep, dreaming, and creativity has been the subject of conjecture for hundreds of years. Reports of creative inspiration and discoveries made by artists, inventors, and scientists while dreaming suggest... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
Tales From The Road: The Book-signings/readings No One Comes To

In-person author appearances are back in local bookstores, after a long pandemic absence. And for every standing-room-only reading featuring a massively well-known name, there might be a quiet event, with empty chairs... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
No, We Don’t Have Different Learning Styles

Despite its appeal, there is simply no credible evidence to support the idea that attending to learning styles actually supports learning, regardless of how well-intentioned the teacher might be. To paraphrase the... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
It Isn’t Just Humanities: Science Education Is Seriously Broken

Leaders see science as essential to national prosperity, well-being and, of course, competitiveness. So, is research fit for the challenge of advancing, refining or critiquing these goals? Not exactly. And it won’t... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
Popular Music Has Become An Asset Class

Justin Bieber selling his catalogue for $200 million is just the latest example. Investment funds have been paying big money for rights to pop songs and jazz, especially older music, and collecting... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
The Dancers Who Escaped Russia

If the war has made refugees out of some Ukrainian dancers, it’s made soldiers out of others. – 60 Minutes... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
“Opera Can Be Hip-Hop, and Hip-Hop Can Be Opera”: Figaro In A South Side Chicago Barbershop

Baritone Will Livermore and DJ King Rico have adapted Rossini’s Barber of Seville into a work called The Factotum, “blending operatic writing with a kaleidoscope of styles like R&B, funk, hip-hop, gospel,... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
On a Strategy of Indeterminacy: Or, the Value of Creating Pathways to the Unforeseen

Given widespread recognition of the need to find radically new and beautiful alternatives to many of the ways of being, doing, and knowing that we embraced throughout the 20th century—new ways of... Read more

AJBlog: Jumper Published on: 2023-01-27
Intriguing Questions About How AI Trains On Large Language Models

Do they merely memorize training data and reread it out loud, or are they picking up the rules of English grammar and the syntax of C language? Are they building something like... Read more

AJBlog: Seeing Things Published on: 2023-01-27
‘Shall we be lighthearted . . .’

'Or shall we / bite our elbows / to the bone?'... Read more

AJBlog: Straight|Up Published on: 2023-01-26
Novelist Kevin Wilson tackles serious issues through an outrageous premise

Kevin Wilson, the author of the NEA Big Read title Nothing to See Here, explains his long-time obsession with spontaneous human combustion—a condition that figures prominently in the novel. In a nutshell, 28-year-old Lillian is... Read more

AJBlog: Measure for Measure Published on: 2023-01-26
“Supermusician” Roscoe Mitchell’s paintings

Roscoe Mitchell — internationally renown composer, improviser, ensemble leader, winds and reeds virtuoso who has pioneered the use of “little instruments” and dramatic shifts of sonic scale in the course of becoming... Read more

AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published on: 2023-01-25
A Great One Died 11 Years Ago Today

And there he was in a dream. We are in some restaurant, a San Francisco dream. He gives me a manuscript to read on elegant Mary Beach / Claude Pélieu stationery with raised... Read more

AJBlog: Straight|Up Published on: 2023-01-24
Are We Past Those Pandemic Ghosts?

A pub directly across the street from the main branch of the New York Public Library has replaced the pub that was shuttered there during the pandemic. Doorway artwork now invites the... Read more

AJBlog: Straight|Up Published on: 2023-01-22
Miriam Goldberg Owens talks about the practice of “radical excellence”

Miriam Goldberg Owens, President and CEO of The People’s Music School, talks about the practice of “radical excellence” and illustrates the impact of music education.... Read more

AJBlog: Aaron Dworkin Published on: 2023-01-21