“There is a reason that we keep buying into hoaxes such as the ‘Shroud of Turin’ or the ‘Wife of Jesus’ fragment.” (Note: This article begins with an actual three-archaeologists-walk-into-a-bar joke – it’s a recently excavated prehistoric bar, of course.)
Why Are So Many Companies Giving Away Their Intellectual Property? (Hint: It’s Not Charity)
“It’s not happening for altruistic reasons. In his keynote at the O’Reilly Open Source Conference in Portland, Oregon last week, Cloud Foundry Foundation CEO Sam Ramji argued that the shift is being driven by economics.”
Disabled Characters And The Theatre – Some Considerations
“Why is one considered a beacon of acting talent for playing a disabled character convincingly? Why is it a common expectation that these actors will transform into characters whose experiences they can never truly understand? And, perhaps the most important question: if able-bodied actors continue to be cast in these roles, what opportunities are left for disabled actors?”
The 100 Best Movies Of All Time, As Chosen By Actors
The number-one film may come as something of a surprise …
Harper Lee’s Attorney Takes Over Another Piece Of The ‘Mockingbird’ Brand: The Annual Play In Monroeville
Tonja Carter, who rediscovered the manuscript of Go Set a Watchman and sued the local museum over its gift shop’s Mockingbird-themed merchandise, has formed a company to produce the stage adaptation of the novel in the town’s historic courthouse – taking the rights away from the museum, which had presented the play for years.
Shigeko Kubota, Pioneering Video Artist And Fluxus Member, Dead At 77
“Today, Kubota … [is] better remembered for her 1965 performance Vagina Painting, in which Kubota attached a paintbrush to her skirt, squatted, and moved around over a canvas.” More notable was her work, by herself and with husband Nam June Paik, developing the genre of video art in general and combining video and sculpture in particular.
Philadelphia’s Other Opera Company Reinvents Itself (Again)
After a two-year hiatus, the erstwhile Center City Opera has re-emerged with a new name (that doesn’t include the word opera) and mission, a four-shows-in-18-days summer festival format, a new home (the Prince Music Theater, itself recently brought back from the dead), a world premiere, two local premieres, and the musical version of Heathers.
‘The Book Of Mormon’ Is Finally Playing Utah – Where They Seem To Love It
“The biting satirical musical that mocks Mormons has finally come to the heart of Mormonlandia, starting a sold-out, two-week run Tuesday at a Salt Lake City theater two blocks from the church’s flagship temple and headquarters.”
Dr. Seuss’s New Book As Important Cultural Criticism
“Even the most skeptical reader will surely admire What Pet Should I Get?, in its initial printing of one million copies, as a text on the front lines of the revolution – and as a satire of old forms, perhaps, and at the very least an attempt at parody.”
How The Smithsonian Used Kickstarter To Save Neil Armstrong’s Spacesuit
“The platform allows government institutions,museums and other philanthropic projects to reach a global audience of donors who can give a small amount to support big, historic projects that otherwise might not get the money needed to go forward.”
Netflix Will Soon Be The Largest “Network” Producer Of Original Programming
“Netflix next year is poised to expand its lineup to more than two dozen series, blowing past both HBO and TV’s most prolific basic-cable programmer, FX/FXX. A service until recently known mostly for repurposing other people’s movies and TV shows will thus achieve a major milestone: It will boast the biggest collection of first-run scripted content of any other subscription-based network in America, cable or streaming.”
The Profound Effect Funding Cuts Will Have On Regional UK Theatre
“The subsidised sector is without doubt the research and development arm of the commercial sector, where new productions, new work and new talent are developed. Ultimately, cuts of this magnitude would see the demise of the West End and regional touring as we know it, with far-reaching social, reputational, tourism and economic consequences.”
Oakland’s Cultural Renaissance Has Been Epic. But Development Threatens To Crush It
“The cumulative impact of all these developments could strike a crushing blow to Oakland’s cultural arts community, confirming its worst fears about gentrification and displacement and creating a leadership void at the already short-staffed Cultural Arts Department.”
A New (Important) Role For Libraries?
“Public libraries are becoming a one-stop shop for manufacturing in the digital age. Because libraries are investing in machines like 3-D printers, someday soon everyone with access to a public library could become an inventor or create something.”
What Should Music “Look” Like? (Linking Music With Its Album Art)
“I had been working on this graphic idea of a wind-flow diagram. I started to change the volume of the lines — in a kind of random but controlled way — and I thought that this would be a suitable minimalist motif to use on the CD.”
National Gallery In London Faces All-Out Strike
“[The museum] has already been disrupted by more than 50 days of walkouts by staff since plans to [privatise] visitor services and security were first revealed. The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said it had served notice of four more separate days of industrial action, with a continuous, all-out strike starting on Aug. 17.”
The Tragedy Of iTunes And Classical Music
“When the developer Erik Kemp designed the first metadata system for MP3s in 1996, he provided only three options for attaching text to the music. Every audio file could be labeled with only an artist, song name, and album title. Kemp’s system has since been augmented and improved upon, but never replaced.” Robinson Meyer explains why Apple’s music software is such a disaster at handling classical (and other kinds of) music.
Here Are Five Classical Music Gems From The AP’s Massive New YouTube Archive
From the Philadelphia Orchestra arriving for its first tour of Britain to the inimitable Thomas Beecham introducing a concert to Maria Callas’s notorious walkout from the Rome Opera’s Norma. (video)
‘Brokeback Mountain’ Ten Years On: An Oral History
Ang Lee, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, and Larry McMurtry share their memories – and tributes to the late Heath Ledger.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.28.15
Et Tu, Arnold? Lehman, Brooklyn Museum’s Director, Joins Museum-to-Market Defectors
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-07-28
Name that Pianist
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-07-28
Homes away from home
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-07-28
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Report: Canadians Are Abandoning Traditional Cable TV
“The IDC report projects that the number of Canadians opting for traditional television services like cable and satellite will drop by about half a million to 11.3 million subscribers by 2019. The marketing research company also estimates revenue from those same services will decline by 7.8 per cent over the next five years to $8.3 billion.”
True Crime Writer Ann Rule, 83
The woman credited by her publisher with reinventing the previously male-dominated true crime genre by focusing on the victims has died at age 83. Rule wrote more than 30 books, including “The Stranger Beside Me,” which profiled Bundy. Rule and Bundy met in 1971 and their relationship was mostly a grim coincidence, except that he later confessed to eight murders in the state of Washington.
What Robin Phillips Did For Canadian Theatre
“Many of this country’s finest directors (like Antoni Cimolino and Albert Schultz) learned their craft as young actors in Phillips’ finest days. Hundreds of performers credit him as a watershed in their creative existences. Offstage, he was a complex man who inspired intense emotions from friends and enemies alike, but no one who truly cared for the theatre could ignore the great good he did for all of us at a crucial point in the development of theatre in this country.”
Metropolitan Museum Breaks Attendance Record
“Buoyed by strong international tourism, a spate of well-attended shows and a seven-day-a-week schedule, the Metropolitan Museum of Art drew 6.3 million visitors in the last year, the most since it began tracking these statistics more than 40 years ago.”
NEH Announces First ‘Public Scholar’ Grants
“The Public Scholar program, a major new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is designed to promote the publication of scholarly nonfiction books for a general audience, and the first round of grants has just been announced: a total of $1.7 million to 36 writers across a broad collection of disciplines. The grants range from $25,200 to $50,400. (Full list at bottom.)”