“While Hollywood was the biggest player, there were independent film companies throughout the country. Chicago was the Hollywood of ‘race films’ – movies produced for an all-black audience – and black filmmakers owned production companies throughout the city.” The most prolific of them all was one Oscar Micheaux.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Lots Of Folks Talk About Diversifying Museum Staffs; This Group Is Doing Something About It
Meet the founders of the organization Museum Hue.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.22.16
Pat Martino And Kenny Barron At The Portland Festival
Pat Martino and Kenny Barron, two of the many Philadelphians appearing at the 2016 Portland Jazz Festival, led their groups in a concert at the Winningstad Theatre. First up, guitarist Martino’s trio with organist … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-02-23
Misprision
In performing Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life,” some singers deliver the subtle, and possibly difficult to pronounce word combination “distingué traces” as “distant gay traces.” A British lawyer or Harold Bloom might call this a “misprision.” … read more
AJBlog: PianoMorphosis Published 2016-02-22
Charles Lloyd & Gary Peacock In Portland
Rather than the electrified two-guitar quintet he calls the Marvels, the saxophonist CharlesLloyd brought his traditional quartet to the Portland Jazz Festival. They played a memorable concert. Supported by players decades younger, the … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-02-22
Swingin’ with Mezz and Menck
Mezz Mezzrow is one of those fascinating, exceedingly odd figures in jazz history about whom I could write instructively and at length if I felt so moved. Alas, I don’t, at least not today, so … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-02-22
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Umberto Eco, 84
“As a semiotician, Mr. Eco sought to interpret cultures through their signs and symbols … and published more than 20 nonfiction books on these subjects while teaching at the University of Bologna … But rather than segregate his academic life from his popular fiction, Mr. Eco infused his seven novels with many of his scholarly preoccupations.”
Eurovision Song Contest Revamps Scoring System
They feel the telecast needs more suspense.
Turkey’s Answer To Burning Man
The festival, called Cappadox, now in its second year, has an even better setting than the Black Rock Desert, amid what may be Earth’s most psychedelic landscape.
A Tactile Tour Of Noguchi’s Sets For Martha Graham
“From a distance, the glyph-like pedestals of Night Journey appear like granite, but up close you can feel their hollow wooden bodies. The bony edges of the bed are sinewy and rugged.”
Harper Lee Dead At 89
“With her near-total retreat into private life in the mid-1960s, Ms. Lee had become, along with J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon, one of the great literary enigmas of the 20th century. Often she was called a recluse, a description that was intriguing but inaccurate. Ms. Lee – Nelle Harper or just Nelle to friends – simply rejected celebrity.”
That Cairo Arts Space Egyptian Censors Shut Down In December? Reports Say It’s Reopened. Don’t Believe Them.
The staff at the Townhouse may be back at work after six weeks, but that doesn’t mean the authorities have given them permission to show anything to the public.
How ‘Average’ Came To Mean ‘Typical’ (And Social Science Was Born)
The original concept of average is, after all, mathematical: the mean of a set of numbers. That measurement came to signify “normal” and even “exemplary” thanks to a frustrated Belgian astronomer who got caught on the wrong side of a revolution.