“Over the past 100 years, tens of thousands of academic books have been published in the humanities, including many remarkable works on history, literature, philosophy, art, music, law, and the history and philosophy of science. But the majority of these books are currently out of print and largely out of reach for teachers, students, and the public. The Humanities Open Book pilot grant program aims to “unlock” these books by republishing them as high-quality electronic books that anyone in the world can download and read on computers, tablets, or mobile phones at no charge.”
6.5 Million Sounds Are In Danger, Says British Library In Crowdfunding Pitch
“Collecting sounds is important. The experience of listening to them is as close to time travel as we’ve ever come. From the rare or iconic to the ephemeral and everyday, recordings give a living picture of the world changing around us. … This is urgent: these recordings go back to the late-19th century, and many of the formats on which the sounds were originally captured … are disappearing.”
Dear Leon Wieseltier, Technology Is *Not* Ruining Culture
“When Wieseltier references his paranoia of numerics and metrics, he ignores the fact that numbers and humanity are not incompatible — in fact, they’re inseparable.”
Is The Oscar-Nominated Film ‘Whiplash’ Good Or Bad For Musician Mentorship?
“The reactions to the movie seem to occupy the extremes, and it sparks healthy debate among my peers. Where is the fine line between motivating someone and abusing them? Will this movie make young jazz musicians think that all you need to do to become the next Bird is work really hard, get yelled at, and practice till you bleed? Is this portrayal of the teacher-student dynamic helpful or harmful?”
The Theatre World Gets A Massive New Database Of New Plays
“Debates had been raged over submission policies—closed, open, credentialed, non-existent, misleading—in private and in public, by playwrights, by academics, and by artistic staffs of organizations large and small. Everyone agreed on only one thing: there had to be a better way.”
Understanding Creativity: Why John Updike Loved Comics
“Literary biography—an enterprise Updike regarded with some skepticism—is largely a hunt for such deeply buried evidence. As an aid to future biographers and anyone else interested in pursuing the mystery of Updike’s prodigious talent, I’d suggest paying attention to his lifelong love affair with cartooning, a passion that burned hottest when he was young but remained warm until his dying days, when he ceased to draw but still repeatedly referred to the comics he had loved in childhood.”
2014 – Video Games Sales Slumped
“Players still aren’t buying enough games. The holiday season, an opportunity for game makers to rebound, proved that not even the biggest companies with the most highly anticipated franchises could entice consumers to spend their money on new titles.”
A Debate Over The “Rightness” Of A Dance Performance
“There’s been heated disagreement over the past week about what’s right and wrong. Is the rocket-propelled ex-Bolshoi enfant terrible Ivan Vasiliev ‘right’ for Swan Lake? Is English National Ballet right to accept such huge thighs in this of all classics, when the sizeist cohorts of the Russian establishment always said nyet to the sturdy, forceful Belarussian?”
2014 – When The Oscars Killed Any Attempts At Diversity
“We expect the Academy Awards to ignore all kinds of great genre material; the 2015 list feels all the more galling because David Oyelowo’s performance and Ava DuVernay’s direction were not just extraordinarily good, but also very Oscar-friendly.”
Hollywood’s Missing Women Directors (By The Numbers)
“There have only been four women nominated for best director — ever. And there’s been just one female winner in the 87-year history of the Academy Awards.”
So How Are The Acoustics At Paris’s New Concert Hall?
Tom Service: “If the other 2,399 seats are as good as the one I was sitting in, I think that the Philharmonie could be one of the most dynamic and exciting places to hear orchestral music in the world – as well as the most fun simply to sit in, thanks to the combination of intimacy and imagination of the interior.”
Olafur Eliasson Tries To Capture In Pigments Every Point On The Light Spectrum
And he’s named the project after J.M.W. Turner, whom he sees as a forerunner in the endeavor.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.15.15
Passion and Permission
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2015-01-15
The Heard Museum Loses Its Director To …
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-01-15
The Artist in the 21st Century
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2015-01-15
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Eight Films Nominated For Oscars
“Usually, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences heaps the honors on the more serious side of filmmaking. But on Thursday, the Oscars showed a sense of humor.”
Actors In Failed Musical Tour Sue Producers
“Actors from last year’s failed tour of the musical Copacabana are mounting legal action against the show’s producers for more than £30,000 in unpaid wages. The news comes as it has emerged that planned dates for 2015 have hit further problems.”
How Do You Make A Stage Comedy About A Kidney Transplant?
Michael Hollinger’s Under the Skin “started with a smirk – at a 2008 New York Times ‘Ethicist’ column, about a pair of siblings vying to supply their aging father with a kidney.” Hollinger ended up exploring a whole new concept: kidney-worthiness.
Lincoln Center and New York Philharmonic Move Into Opera (Look Out, Met!)
“For years, the Metropolitan Opera has gently encroached on the symphonic terrain of its Lincoln Center neighbors with orchestral concerts at Carnegie Hall. Now the shoe is on the other foot: Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic said on Wednesday that they would join forces to mount several fully staged opera productions” of acclaimed new works from Europe that the Met seems too risk-averse to touch.
How Ironic Is It That Our Most Celebrated “Un-Blockbuster” Theatre Composer Has A Hit Movie?
“Stephen Sondheim is the antibody of the blockbuster, the antithesis of mass taste. He writes for questing minds, disdaining sunshine, inhabiting the deep, dark woods of moral ambiguity. At his most challenging, in Sweeney Todd, he elicits our sympathies for cannibalism. At his gloomiest, in Company, he seems to conclude that man’s fate is always to be alone. Sondheim is not an easy date, never a sell-out.”