On a typical day, a narrator might spend between four and six hours in the booth. One finished hour of tape will take two to two and a half hours to record. (According to Business Insider, non-celebrity narrators can command $100 to $500 per finished hour.)
The Problem With ‘The Canon’ And The Wars Over It
Wesley Morris: “This questioning of the canon comes from places of lived experience. It’s attuned to how great cultural work can leave you feeling irked and demeaned. For some readers, loving Herman Melville or Joseph Conrad requires some peacemaking with the not-quite-human representations of black people in those texts. Loving Edith Wharton requires the same reckoning with the insulting way she could describe Jews. Bigotry recurs in canonical art. And committed engagement leaves us dutybound to identify it. … Your great works should be strong enough to withstand some feminist forensics. … Insisting that a canon is settled gives those concerns the ‘fake news’ treatment, denying a legitimate grievance by saying there’s no grounds for one. It’s shutting down a conversation, when the longer we go without one, the harder it becomes to speak.”
A ‘Roseanne’ Writer’s Assistant Explains What It Was Like To Work On The Reboot
OK, sure, here was the plan, according to one writer: “These are the conversations we’re having at home with our families, and we wanted to bring that tolerance, because you can’t have tolerance without understanding. That’s what we wanted to provide. I loved that. America needs help right now, and that’s all we were trying to do.”
Depressing Pride Month Update: Movies Had Less LGBTQ Rep In 2017 Than The Five Years Before That
What the heck, 2017? “In 2017, out of 109 major motion pictures, only 14 films included characters who identified as LGBTQ. In total, the year’s major studio films had 28 LGBTQ characters. This finding represents a 5.6 percent drop in representation from the films of 2016. Gay men, the report finds, are consistently the most-portrayed demographic. None of the movies released this year featured a transgender character.”
A Conservative War On Hip Hop?
The criticism levied at hip-hop from the right is a pointed indictment of black culture: Black people lost their way and this crude music was the culprit. It’s understandably popular because it feeds into the “pick yourselves up” rhetoric that downplays the oppression of black people while justifying it.
Those Famous Cultural Monuments That Fire Our Imaginations? They’re Often Much Different In Person
The great pyramids are surrounded by city. The Mona Lisa is thronged with crowds. The Leaning Tower and Stone Henge are underwhelming in person…
The Con Artist Who Used The Arts As A Glamorous Scam
Anna Delvey’s story is a kind of apotheosis of the “Instagram Effect,” where everyone projects a more perfect, happier life than they actually have via social media, and the envy generated becomes a kind of currency. Her Instagram life is stuffed full of deluxe signifiers and only rare flickers of actual sociality. The sense they cultivate is of a private and exclusive world. They are, in their arid glamor, both self-aggrandizing and kind of haughty, which is the air she projected according to copious testimony from her victims.
The Man Who Invented “Culture”
Burckhardt invented culture as we know it – not just the official “arts”, but any human activity that has symbolic meaning. Newspapers and their websites are still behind Burckhardt on this. Looking for articles about fashion and food? You’ll find them in “lifestyle”. Burckhardt saw these too as culture. Of course, so do we – it would just get hard to organise stuff if it was all classed in one big mix. But everyone knows today that clothes are significant cultural creations and that cooking is about meaning as much as flavour. The amazing thing is how clearly Burckhardt saw it 1860.
NEA Gets A New Head Of Its Dance Program
Prior to working at NEFA, Sara Nash managed the USArtists International grant program at Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She also worked as senior producer at Dance Theater Workshop (New York Live Arts) for more than six years, where she oversaw the international program, the Suitcase Fund, and developed residency programs for commissioned artists. Nash’s international experience includes working at Tanec Praha, a contemporary dance festival in Prague, and at the British Council in London.
The New Arts Journalism – A New Era Dawns?
While arts writing is going through one of its richest periods of innovation, with an explosion of forms in recent years, much of the experimentation is happening well outside of traditional media. The internet seems to have reminded at least some writers of the kind of artistry that’s possible in art criticism, says Charlotte Frost, author of a forthcoming book, “Art Criticism Online: A History.” This represents a return to the roots of the field, she adds. The 800-word art review is actually a fairly recent invention. But if you turn the clock back a bit, to the 18th-century Paris salons, for instance, there were all kinds of critical responses to art, Frost says.
A Fascinating Trove Of Studs Terkel Interviews Is Being Restored
Everybody talked to Studs. Tennessee Williams, Luciano Pavarotti, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Paul Robeson, Lotte Lehmann, Georg Solti, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Jon Vickers, and Buckminster Fuller come to mind among those gone now but were in their prime when they sat with him at WFMT. By the time Studs left the station in 1997, he had amassed more than 5,600 reel-to-reel interviews and mixdowns filled with insights he teased out of his guests from 45 years behind the mic.
Are Viral Memes Losing Their Impact?
“People today are consuming more memes than ever. The expiration date for them has shortened more since even last year. Memes used to last for two to three weeks, but recently we’ve noticed they die after just a few days.”
Why The Language Invented For ‘Game Of Thrones’ Is Credible And The One Invented For ‘Star Wars’ Is Bogus
“Huttese, Klingon, Dothraki — it’s all Greek to me. Just a bunch of sounds. Right? Not if you listen closely. Some of these constructed languages, or ‘conlangs,’ pass as real languages much better than others. What separates a convincing conlang from a bad one? In this episode of Watch Smarter, we examine how movies and TV shows create custom languages, and how the best — or at least the most realistic — evolve like real human speech.” (video)
Audible Moves Into Off-Broadway Theater
“In March, Audible Inc. moved from the aural space into the physical New York theater world when it sponsored a run of Harry Clarke at the Minetta Lane Theater. Now, the audiobook company is formalizing its relationship with the theater: It struck a deal to produce plays, comedic shows, panel discussions and more there, starting with a solo show from Carey Mulligan in June.”
In Defense Of Deaccessioning Art: The Rules For Museums Need To Change
Michael DeMarsche and Bob Ekelund: “We believe that the position against deaccessioning has become increasingly untenable, given increasing storage costs and the decreasing likelihood that a large portion of great art will rarely, if ever, be shown.” (Most art museums have only a small minority of their holdings on display.) “This regulation also restricts necessary mission changes and financial preparation for an uncertain future. We propose an update to the [American Alliance of Museums’] current position, one that would give museums the flexibility and autonomy to refine and hone their collections, while ensuring they have the resources needed to best serve their communities.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.30.18
The pyramid and the wheel
There are countless ways to categorize collective human action (by legal entity, by sector, by formal/informal structure, by tax status, by geography, and on and on). But sociologist/political-scientist/historian Johan Galtung suggests there are essentially two … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2018-05-30
Recent Listening, In Brief
Keeping up with the ceaseless flow of jazz albums is impossible, but it’s a pleasure to try. Here are short reviews of a few relatively recent releases. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-05-30
Emperor Constantine’s Giant Finger Found In The Louvre
“A bronze index finger in the Louvre, which was initially believed to be a toe, has been revealed to be the index finger of a colossal bronze statue of Emperor Constantine in the Musei Capitolini in Rome. Fragments of the 12m-high, early fourth-century bronze statue of Emperor Constantine are among the most valuable bronzes in the Capitolini’s collection.”
Broadway Finishes Another Record-Breaking Season
“A rapping Hamilton and a (quietly) rocking Boss propelled Broadway’s box office to new heights over the past year, as rising demand and even faster-rising ticket prices shattered industry records. Over all, the 67 shows that ran over the last season brought in $1.7 billion from 13.8 million patrons, according to figures released Tuesday by the Broadway League.”