The Jazz Journalists Association has announced its 2019 award winners. Among them are Ahmad Jamal, Wayne Shorter, Linda May Han Oh, and Bobby Sanabria’s Multiverse Big Band. – Doug Ramsey
Blog
The Value Of A Compelling Story
We can learn much from the entrepreneurial community about the art of a good story. Great storytellers simplify. Richard Branson once said, “If your pitch can’t fit on the back of an envelope, it’s rubbish.” He is also the master at telling the warts and all story, compelling people to understand both his successes and failures, but most importantly to get his listeners invested in helping him solve his challenges. – Arts Professional
The Comma Queen And The Internet’s Copy Chief Talk Grammar And Style
“We asked Mary Norris, The New Yorker‘s ‘comma queen,’ and … Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief of Random House, … about their love of editing, the mistakes people make, and whether or not this intro has too many commas. (It probably does, doesn’t it?)” – Literary Hub
A Scientific Attempt To Study And Explain How Style Works
We believe that the social sciences would benefit from taking a more systematic look at the structure of culture, that is to say how the elements of culture are interrelated, and what really sets some apart when it comes to human attention and selection. In as much as this is relevant in fashion or music, it might be even more useful in the study of ideologies and political movements, topics that have taken a much more serious tone in recent years. – Aeon
Phil Solomon, Experimental Maker Of ‘Visionary Cinema’, Dead At 65
“His films, usually relatively short, did not have stars or plots in any conventional sense; he was after something more cerebral.” Said one colleague, “Phil considered the film frame as a painting — a rectangle full of tensions, textures and pulls — rather than as a window through which to daydream.” – The New York Times
Too Damn Cheerful! Our Obsession With It Is Nuts
The Ancient Greeks named four virtues: temperance, wisdom, courage and justice. Aristotle added more, but cheerfulness wasn’t one of them. The Greek philosophers didn’t seem to care about how we felt compared with how we acted. – Aeon
A Choir For Dementia Patients Shows Real Therapeutic Benefits
Actress Vicky McClure got the idea to form the choir after seeing how much her ailing grandmother was helped by singing together. A BBC crew watches the choir rehearse, perform, and take part in a research study, with a focus on Daniel, a 30-year-old former engineer diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. (text and video) – BBC
Now Up: “Bootleg” Copies Of Famous Art
And they’re going to be auctioned at Christie’s. “They’ll fool you from a distance. They won’t fool you close up.” – The New York Times
Pam Tanowitz, Perhaps ‘The Busiest Woman In Dance’
Just this year so far, she’s made high-profile work for the Martha Graham and Paul Taylor companies, New York City Ballet, and Ballet Across America at the Kennedy Center — and her own company is about to make a major appearance in London. “I’m nervous, and I’m worried, and I stay up at night,” she tells Gia Kourlas, I have so many steps in my head. … Sometimes I think, am I making the same dance over and over again?” – The New York Times
The Widow Of China’s Most Famous Dissident, Now In Exile, Rebuilds Her Art And Career
Liu Xiaobo was in prison when he won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, and ever since then, his wife, Liu Xia, had been under house arrest. After he died, still in custody, in 2017, she was suicidal. A friend in Berlin publicized her plight, and last year, she was released (not to say expelled) and sent to the German capital, where she’s now back at work in both literature and visual art. Nick Frisch went to meet her. – The New Yorker