“People rather like [those] end-of-the-year … columns, it seems. Timothy Egan chipped in “Words for the Dumpster” in the New York Times on December 28th. There are 1,123 comments, nearly all nominating the commenter’s own least-favourite words. At the bottom of this present column are the first few hundred of them. … Now we can turn to a bit of analysis of what annoys people.”
The Sexual Food Chain: Is That Where Homophobia Comes From?
Lisa Wade: “So what’s homophobia? Sometimes I think it’s the moment that men feel what it’s like to be prey. See, women are used to it. … But when it happens to men for the first time … it’s like they’ve been treated like a human being their whole life and then, POW, they’re a piece of ass and nothing more.”
Hugo Chávez – The Musical! (We’re Not Making This Up)
Yes, this is a real project, premiering this summer – and you’d never guess where. (It’s not Kazakhstan, but just about that unlikely.)
How Our “Democratization” Of Creativity Is Endangered
“A reluctance to talk about institutions and political change doomed the Arts and Crafts movement, channelling the spirit of labor reform into consumerism and D.I.Y. tinkering. The same thing is happening to the movement’s successors.”
What If a Visitor From 1914 Encountered Someone With a Smartphone?
Tim Wu lays out a Turing Test-style thought experiment – and what its results suggest about the kinds of intelligence we’ve gained and lost over a century of technological change.
Audience Data Increasingly Determines What/How Movies Are Made
“Worldwide Motion Picture Group analyses data from a decade of audience research to determine if a script is marketable and how much money it is expected to make. Some screenwriters are worried Bruzzese’s method detracts from the creative process, but he told the BBC he is helping producers make films that audiences want to see.”
So Art Is A Great Investment? (Maybe Not So Much)
“When looked at more carefully as an investment category, art falls short relative to many of the other assets to which it is frequently – and favourably – compared. These include both traditional and alternative investments, whether public and private equity, gold, wine, or residential property. Its lack of correlation to such assets is also questionable.”
Want To Be Successfully Creative? Build A Machine
“Lots of people like to talk about “the creative process,” but whiff when it comes to having any insight about adaptive Machine structures. In fact, I think our culture generally has trouble seeing how strategy is directly connected with implementation.”
The Best Music Journalism Of 2013?
Jason Gross’s annual list. “Gathering up this list of my favorite music articles of last year is also a nice way to try to chase away the blues about journalism, another industry in desperate, confusing times.”
Could Traditional College Campuses Be Endangered?
“As the business of education moves online, is the traditional quadrangle-dormitory-lecture hall-library configuration really going to be necessary? Could the college campus go the way of – gulp – the bricks-and-mortar bookstore?”
Why Foundations Are Willing To Bail Out Detroit To Save Its Art
“The more we thought about it, the more we talked about it, the more it made sense that if this is something that is going to help Detroit get out of bankruptcy faster, then it was something for the general good of the city.”
Has The Museum Of Modern Art Lost Its Way?
“Disconnected from its past, impatient with the present and tearing into the future under the vague banner of “The New,” it has ceased to be the sui generis institution it had been throughout much of its history. Instead it is virtually indistinguishable from every other museum of modern and contemporary art around the world.”
The MLA Hookup Ad That Transfixed the Internet
We know (don’t we?) that the Modern Language Association’s annual convention is the scene of many an academic’s assignation. But this particular Craigslist ad caught people’s attention because, as Prof. Rebecca Schulman puts it, “what it sexualizes is nothing less than the single worst moment of your average academic’s entire professional life.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.13.14
Progress (but no closure) in “Grand Bargain” to Protect Detroit Institute’s Art
Source: CultureGrrl | Published on 2014-01-13
Denver Makes Three: Are More Coming?
Source: Real Clear Arts | Published on 2014-01-13
“Does Anyone Remember Conrad Gozzo?”
Source: RiffTides | Published on 2014-01-13
Here’s what Delta Airline did after they smashed my lute
Source: Slipped Disc | Published on 2014-01-13
What’s Vänskä doing, post-Minnesota? New music, that’s what
Source: Slipped Disc | Published on 2014-01-13
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Foundations Agree To Pay $330 Million For Detroit Art
“Presidents of the Ford Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan will serve on a leadership committee that will coordinate the philanthropic effort.”
The Latest Art Market Scam
“Art experts are warning of the rapid spread of a new con-trick infecting the market, which involves cheaply produced works in the style of great artists being sold by dealers who dishonestly suggest they are genuine.”
What Parents Worry About In Our Media-Soaked Culture
“The British Board of Film Classification has found that parents are worried about the normalisation of promiscuous behaviour and strong language in films, TV, pop videos and gaming.”
Is The Web Dying?
“The gist of the argument is this: as app-happy mobile devices become the primary way we compute, the good old browser becomes irrelevant. The hyperlinked, free-flowing, egalitarian, and ubiquitous world wide web will fade away. Instead, digital existence will mostly transpire within the more self-contained domains of individual apps, which offer their creators the flexibility and power of building right into the mobile operating systems. We will still have the internet, but it won’t be the same wherever you use it. And some will have more power over it than others.”
So What Does Music Smell Like?
“We’ve had immersive theatre, now here’s the immersive concert experience, the latest attempt to stir concert-goers out of their stupor and reignite classical music for new audiences.”
Golden Globes Were A Bad Night For Black Artists
“Despite nominations in a number of major categories, black artists were shut out through the awards show. Making it particularly disappointing for many viewers is the fact that thanks to the box office and critical success of films like The Butler and 12 Years a Slave, many were heralding 2013 as a banner year for black cinema.”
Actors Meet To Protest Lower Touring Wages
“At issue is the increasing number of musical tours using Equity contracts with weekly salaries in the range of $700 to $1,100 — far less than the full production contracts that pay actors $1,800 a week, as well as a more generous per diem benefit.”
Report: Foreign Tourists Power Up Broadway Box Office
“International visitors comprised approximately 22.5% of Broadway admissions during the 2012/13 season, the highest percentage in recorded history.”
Reconstructing The Kabul Museum After Taliban Looting
“Three hundred of the most important of the 2,500 objects the Taliban had smashed have been painstakingly reassembled in recent years, and many of the others are arrayed in boxes and trays, awaiting their turn for restoration.”