“Gomer was a recognizable kind of American hero: a good-hearted, gentle, unsophisticated sort (not unlike Forrest Gump of a later era) who encounters a harder, more cynical modern world – in this case embodied by Southern California – and helps redeem it. … To fans who knew him only as Gomer, his full-throated, almost operatic baritone was surprisingly striking, if strangely incongruous.”
Blog
Description Of Male Organs As ‘Billiard Rack’ Wins Bad Sex In Fiction Award
Says the citation for Christopher Bollen’s The Destroyers, “The judges felt that there are parts in the book where Bollen goes overboard in his attempts to describe the familiar in new terms, leading occasionally to confusion. In the line quoted … they were left unsure as to how many testicles the character in question has.”
Sydney Morning Herald Theatre Critic Fired After Launching New Arts Website
Jason Blake, chief theatre critic for the Herald since 2010, and his wife Elissa, a freelance arts journalist for that paper and its Sunday tabloid, The Sun-Herald, opened the Sydney-focused website Audrey Journal in November to help make up for reduced arts coverage in the print newspapers. Now the SMH has told the Blakes that their new venture, which is supported financially by several Sydney arts institutions, is a conflict of interest.
Brazil’s Famous Hotbed Of Countercultural Theatre Now Under Threat By Real Estate Development
Teatro Oficina, part of the tropicalismo movement of the 1960s and ’70s and notorious for performances filled with nudity and onstage drug consumption, is headquartered in a unique, landmarked São Paulo building by architect Lina Bo Bardi with a huge window and retractable ceiling. Mogul and TV personality Silvio Santos owns the land around Teatro Oficina and wants to build three skyscrapers which would block the theatre’s light, and the country’s artistic community is rallying to fight Santos’s plan.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.30.17
Recent Listening: Urban Fado
Mary Ann McSweeney, Urban Fado (McSweeney)
In Lisbon, New York, Montreal, Paris, and Tokyo – among other places around the world – musicians are melding jazz and Fado. Fado’s origins in Portugal extend to at least … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-11-30
Welcome To The News Paywall 2.0
“The first time around, many paywalls simply did not work. But times have changed. The New York Times success in transforming itself into a company that is markedly less dependent on advertising than it has been in recent years has emboldened many other publishers. The Times now makes more than 20 percent of its revenue on digital-only subscriptions, a number which has been growing quickly. In absolute terms, last quarter, the Times made $85.7 million from these digital products. The question is: Can media organizations that are not huge like the Times or The Washington Post, or business focused like Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal, create meaningful businesses from their paywalls?”
Study: Tech Addiction Might Be Caused By Brain Chemical Imbalance
A study of teenagers who are “addicted” to their smartphones or the internet has found that people who struggle with so-called tech addiction seem to have more of a chemical that slows down brain signals, and less of a chemical that makes neurons more active.
Study: Teenage Brains Can’t Distinguish What’s Important (And What’s Not)
“Adults are generally pretty good at being able to tell when a situation is worthy of extra time or concentration. Research has found that, when potential rewards or losses are higher, for example, adults will perform better on tasks. But this doesn’t seem to be the case for adolescents.”
This Year’s Sundance Festival Sits At A Cultural Crossroads
“If the festival’s organizers have found themselves unexpectedly responding to cultural shifts, filmmakers too have seen their work take on new and expanded meaning in the face of the current political environment.”
Lack Of Diversity Among Our Theatre Critics Is Hurting The Theatre
“The lack of diversity in theatre criticism not only does a disservice to the field and the readers, but also to the playwrights and productions. Certainly such artists as Suzan-Lori Parks and Ayad Akhtar, and others artists of color whose work speaks particularly to questions of identity, deserve to have their work scrutinized by a more diverse group of critics. In the age of Hamilton fanatics in New York, Chicago, London, and beyond, audiences have proven that there is not just space but a hunger for stories by and about people of color that work to rewrite, expand, or totally replace the white canon. So where are their peers in criticism?”