Derek Walcott, whose intricately metaphorical poetry captured the physical beauty of the Caribbean, the harsh legacy of colonialism and the complexities of living and writing in two cultural worlds, bringing him a Nobel Prize in Literature, died early Friday morning at his home near Gros Islet in St. Lucia.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Why Is The Classical Music World Obsessed With Lower Case Titles And Names?
“These small grammatical rebellions strike some as poetic and others as pretentious — at least when the titles are given as their composers intended. (They are rendered inconsistently in many publications, including the one you are reading, that strive to follow standard grammar rules.)”
Jack Gray, 89, Fought For The Rights Of Writers Of Screenplays
Jack Gray devoted most of his life to protecting the rights of freelance scriptwriters for film, radio and television in this country –a group he believed were the most vulnerable to exploitation in the creative industries. A talented playwright himself in his younger years, he gradually gave up imaginative writing in favour of reports, speeches and policy papers for the cause he passionately believed in.
Are You More Creative When You’re Alone Or When You’re With Others?
“Human beings are most creative when we get time by ourselves and then time with one another. The way to maximize creative potential is to flow between being alone and being in a group, and back again. When you’re alone, you’re essentially building a woodpile in your brain. Then, when you join a group, you’re igniting a shower of sparks that might light it up. Of course, you sometimes need to go be alone again in order to let the sparks you’ve started generating get close enough to the wood.”
Netflix Is Changing Its Rating System (It Won’t Help)
“On paper, news that Netflix is phasing out the stars in favour of a thumbs up/thumbs down system should be heartening. From later this year, we’re told, Netflix subscribers will be asked one simple question: essentially, did you like this or not? Click the thumbs-up button and Netflix will suggest similar titles for you to watch; click the thumbs-down and it’ll make that sort of thing harder to find during future visits. Percentages will also be introduced, to show you how suited you are to any given content. It’s viewing as online dating basically.”
Why Cutting The NEH, NIH, Research, Is Stupid
“Half a century ago the National Endowment for the Humanities was established on the assumption that world leadership could not solely be based on superior power, wealth, and technology, but must also be premised upon worldwide respect for our country’s qualities as a leader in the realm of ideas and of the spirit. Like its scientific counterparts (the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health), the NEH was established as a depoliticized research institution. Decisions on research grants were designed to be made by bringing together academic experts in various disciplines to “peer review” applications for federal research assistance in fields ranging from history, literature, and philosophy to related disciplines like comparative religion and foreign languages.”
Netflix Suggests Interactive Storylines – But Do Audiences Really Want This?
“It seems to me to misunderstand the fundamental appeal of television; that it is bedtime stories for grownups. You plonk yourself in front of the screen to be entertained. That doesn’t mean being fed pap; contemporary television is increasingly a feast for the upper reaches of the mind as well as the primitive bits that would be just as happy banging a stick on a stone. But it does mean being presented with a finished product: a complete, satisfying entity with a beginning, a middle and an end (however many seasons it takes to get there). We want to cede control to someone else.”
Cut Big Bird? Political Forces Align To Fight It
“The telephone survey of 1,001 registered voters, conducted jointly by Republican and Democratic polling firms and released Thursday as Trump’s budget landed, showed 73 percent opposing federal cuts for public television; meanwhile, 83 percent, including 70 percent of those who voted for Trump, wanted Congress to find budget savings elsewhere. NPR, meanwhile, has also found a powerful Republican ally in Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that grants federal funding for the CPB.”
George Will: Hell, Ya, Let’s End The NEA (What Is “Art” Anyway?)
Let’s pretend, counterfactually, that the NEA no longer funds the sort of rubbish that once immersed it in the culture wars, e.g., “Piss Christ” (a photograph depicting a crucifix immersed in a jar of the artist’s urine) and “Genital Wallpaper” (don’t ask). What, however, is art? We subsidize soybean production, but at least we can say what soybeans are. Are NEA enthusiasts serene about government stipulating, as it must, art’s public purposes that justify public funding? Or do they insist that public funds should be expended for no defined public purpose?
Not Funding The Arts Puts A Drag On The Economy
“The NEA estimates that, on average, its grantees raise $9 for every $1 of federal funding they are awarded. The power of that money, cumulatively, is extraordinary; arts organizations revive the fortunes of inner cities and small rural towns; arts programming improves academic outcomes for children; art therapy treats veterans suffering from PTSD. And those programs are the kinds that NEA grants fund, in addition to the things you might think of when you hear of the arts.”