Carlos Slim: “People are going to have to work for more years, until they are 70 or 75, and just work three days a week – perhaps 11 hours a day.” Other business icons, among them Google co-founder Larry Page, think similarly. Is this a practical idea? Possibly …
Star Wars Wars, Or, The Problem With Film Preservation
“To preserve film as a work of art, one has to preserve ‘not just (but also) the strip, not just (but also) the apparatus, not just (but also) the screening space; what needs to be transmitted into the future is the set of relations between them while they are in performance—the working system.'”
How On Earth Does One Illustrate “Finnegans Wake”?
“The book is sui generis, a circle in a spiral, a linguistic Escher drawing … So when John Vernon Lord was asked to illustrated the book for the Folio Society it is no surprise that he found the experience ‘bewildering’.” But he seems to have pulled it off.
The World Around Us Shapes the Delusions Inside Us
“The current view of delusions is that they are the result of biology gone awry, of neurons in the brain misfiring, but [Joel and Ian Gold] argue that delusions are in fact the result of the interaction between the brain and the social world.” (audio)
Hollywood’s Favorite Non-Dance-Movie Choreographer
“If you’ve seen a movie in the last 20 years, chances are you know the choreographer Marguerite Derricks’s work, if not her name. Austin Powers’s epic go-go dance through the streets? Ms. Derricks’s idea. Abigail Breslin’s climactic strip routine in Little Miss Sunshine? Ms. Derricks was just off camera, encouraging Ms. Breslin to claw like a tiger. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s tango in Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Well, Ms. Derricks was Ms. Jolie’s first partner.”
Do Creative Geniuses *Have* To Be Nuts?
“Neuroscientist and literary scholar Nancy C. Andreasen tries to answer the question: If high IQ does not indicate creative genius, then where does the trait come from, and why is it so often accompanied by mental illness?” (audio)
Ian McKellen Calls For Living Wage For Actors
“Most actors are not rich – they are very poor indeed. … The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference.”
Japanese “Vagina Artist” Released From Jail Following Arrest On Obscenity Charges
Megumi Igarishi, a 42-year-old sculptor and illustrator who uses the professional name Rokudenashiko (roughly “little good-for-nothing”), spent a week in custody after being arrested for distributing obscene materials. She had sent contributors to a crowdfunding campaign a file for 3D printer that would produce a replica of her vagina.
Stop Trying To Get Our Kids Into The Ivy League: The Stress Is Wrecking Them, And The Schools Are Overrated
“Our system of elite education manufactures young people who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it.”
Fending Off Murdoch, Time Warner Strips Shareholders Of Right To Call Meetings
“The move gives shareholders – and 21st Century Fox – fewer avenues to press the company into a potential deal with Fox, which recently made an unsolicited $80 billion offer to combine the companies.”
At A Woody Allen Press Conference, Avoiding The Only Questions People Really Want To Ask
“The problem is, the only thing newsworthy about Magic in the Moonlight – an unexceptional, oddly slack late-period Allen picture – is that it’s his first release after decades-old allegations of sexual abuse resurfaced last winter … And now we were all being told to pretend like this ubiquitous scandal never happened.” Jason Bailey eased up to the issue, sort of, and Allen answered like a practiced politician.
My Buddy Picasso
“Lucien Clergue befriended Pablo Picasso in 1953. Over the next 20 years, he took intimate portraits of the artist in his studio, at bullfights and on the beach.”
The Great English Novel Is Being Reinvented
“Fiction isn’t dying – but it is changing. The delivery mechanisms might change but we cannot get on without stories, especially not in an age and time when all the old certainties of God and State and Family and Capital are collapsing around us.”
Have Computer Special Effects Stolen The Magic From Movies?
“Special effects, key components of what historically made movies magical, have lost most of their magic because they have become so realistic and commonplace.”
Queen Elizabeth Appoints First Woman Master Of The Queen’s Music (It Only Took 388 Years)
Judith Weir says there is still a sneaking suspicion that the world of classical music is carved up by a few big institutions and a handful of powerful cultural leaders. That really is an establishment; but Weir does not need the role of the master for access to classical music’s top table. The opportunity of the role, she says, “is to avoid all that – and go and meet the other people”.
Why Crowdfunding Doesn’t Necessarily Create A Successful Movie
“If everyone who wants to see your movie is part of the pool of people who gave you money online and you were able to raise $1 million or $2 million, that’s a fantastic story. But if those are the only people who are interested in your movie, that’s a big disaster.”
New $30,000 Choreography Competition In Australia Has Its First Winner
“Melbourne-based artist Atlanta Eke has taken out the inaugural Keir Choreographic award , the first major national prize of its kind in Australia.” (includes video of all four finalists)
BBC Cut Spending On Talent By £6 Million
“The BBC spent £6 million less on talent in 2013/14, the Corporation’s latest annual report claims, with a £194 million bill for its star presenters and performers representing a 15% fall in wages over the past five years.”
Save The Corcoran Group Granted Standing To Oppose Merger In Court
“Judge Robert Okun ruled that nine members of the advocacy group Save the Corcoran must be admitted as intervening parties in a proceeding launched by the Corcoran last month to revise its 1869 charter” to allow a merger with the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University.
When Brigham Young Got A Mormon Alphabet
“In 1853, after [George D.] Watt taught shorthand to Brigham Young, the Mormon leader commissioned the British clerk to create a 38-character ‘Deseret alphabet.’ The phonetic alphabet was meant to simplify the spelling of English words. Watt said … ‘An alphabet should contain just as many letters as there are simple-pure atoms of sound.'”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.21.14
Timken Mess, Part 3: Hugh Davies Adds Perspective
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-07-22
Placemaking: It’s About Addressing the Disconnect
AJBlog: Field Notes | Published 2014-07-22
Tan Dun’s “Nu Shu: Secret Songs of Women”
AJBlog: The Great Flourishing | Published 2014-07-21
Save The Corcoran Plaintiffs Receive Standing
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-07-21
[ssba_hide]