“San Francisco is now bohemian in name only. Anger and the anarchist’s persona have given way, under the weight of postmodernism, to politesse and pragmatism. And now more than ever the artist’s world is less in the hands of artists than arts administrators and boards. The new conviction is in negotiation and community building, and seeing everyone, regardless of occupation, on the same continuum of creativity.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Today’s Pop Music Charts: Completely Transformed (And Largely Without Women Artists)
“The spots on the Hot 100 that aren’t occupied by rappers, DJs, or Imagine Dragons largely belong to interchangeable young men playing R&B for campfires: Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber of course, but also Charlie Puth, Shawn Mendes, and the second wave of One Direction solo efforts—Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson. The pose they strike is of the nice-guy seducer, the suave but puppy-eyed everyboy. It’s true that Cardi B and Taylor Swift have broken through lately with brash, campy cries of war. But it remains to be seen whether their success remains an outlier in an era when pop’s women have often needed to quiet down in order to be heard at all.”
How Jazz And Classical Music Could Reconnect With An Audience
“Never in human history have people had easier access to music. As studies such as the 2016 Music Consumer Insider Report and Nielsen Music 360 Study of 2015 have revealed, a large portion (over 90%) of the U.S. population listens to music beyond 20 hours each week, and young people are especially engaged with music. While there is broad engagement with music, there are two musical genres which have increasingly moved to the periphery of ordinary life; the very two genres that I would argue have become unusually comfortable ignoring emotional connection between music performer and the general-public listener.”
UK National Theatre Introduces Glasses That Caption Performances For Deaf Audiences
The glasses will enable D/deaf and hard of hearing audiences to read live captioning on the lenses during a performance, removing the need for captioning screens in the auditorium. NT director Rufus Norris said the glasses mean that for the first time, D/deaf audiences will be able to attend any performance during a production’s run, rather then rely on the limited number of captioned performances – up to four per show – that are currently scheduled.
Research: Brainstorming Is Better If You Tell An Embarrassing Story
“Candor led to greater creativity. Thus, we propose a new rule for brainstorming sessions: Tell a self-deprecating story before you start. As uncomfortable as this may seem, especially among colleagues you would typically want to impress, the result will be a broader range of creative ideas, which will surely impress them even more.”
Report: Arts Organizations Are Experimenting Less With Digital
More arts organisations are using the internet and digital technology for revenue generation – such as by selling tickets online or accepting donations – and they are increasingly using technology to enhance audience engagement. But overall they are engaging in fewer ‘digital activities’.
What Hollywood Movie-Makers Are Learning From TV (And It’s Changing Movies)
These days, for many screenwriters, the studio system can feel like a small, small, small, small world. And Hollywood film writers — along with everyone else — have noticed a simultaneous boom in Peak TV. Which means that, for Hollywood screenwriters, even as studio slates shrink and become more attuned to event blockbusters, opportunity on the small screen abounds. “Premium cable and the entrance of Netflix and Amazon hastened this movement toward the idea that a TV series can be anything — and that kind of flexibility was unimaginable 15 years ago.”
What Other Species Can Teach Us About How Culture Works
“Cultures are not just the passive accumulation of customs and traditions; they are formed, and then sustained by a fine balance between social forces. And we can learn from other species about the biological origin of those forces – as well as how these forces are now shaping the future of our culture.”
Does The Field Of Literary Studies Have A Future?
“What, exactly, is literary studies? Is it a kind of history, a branch of philosophy, the study of rhetoric? Is it about becoming a better reader, in an ethical or technical sense? It’s not about learning how to write; that’s what MFA programs are for. One might turn to histories of the discipline in an effort to clear things up — but here, too, the same confusions apply. The history of methods of scholarship and criticism is its own subfield, and one can find convincing arguments to suit most any purpose.”
It’s Popular To Bash Nation-States. But Here’s Why They’re Still Important
Among the intelligentsia, the nation-state finds few advocates. Most often, it is regarded as ineffectual – morally irrelevant, or even reactionary – in the face of the challenges posed by globalisation. Economists and centrist politicians tend to view globalism’s recent setbacks as regrettable, fuelled by populist and nativist politicians who managed to capitalise on the grievances of those who feel they have been left behind and deserted by the globalist elites. Last October, the British prime minister Theresa May ignited an outcry when she disparaged the idea of global citizenship. ‘If you believe you’re a citizen of the world,’ she said, ‘you’re a citizen of nowhere.’