“A lucid example of the Western music aesthetic versus an indigenous one would be to consider the concert hall experience and that of a powwow. In the concert hall, the quality of the sound becomes the preeminent value, conceptually superseding the players and the audience. In a concert hall, the audience and orchestra are kept in separate spaces, and the flow of activity is directed from the orchestra to the audience, which remains seated, silent, and motionless. The performers all wear black to hide any individuality, and concerts are typically appraised on the “ugliness” or “beauty” of their collective sound.” – NewMusicBox
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The Creative Class In The Bay Area: Meaningfully Employed And Living In A Shack
Housing is such a problem, that it’s difficult to think about actually being creative. How long can this last? A first-person account of trying to make it in Oakland. – Harper’s
Director Jonathan Miller, 85
“He first achieved fame as an actor in the anti-establishment revue “Beyond the Fringe,” a hit in both London and New York. He went on to win acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic for his productions of Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Mikado” and other works. He also produced and hosted television shows. Most unusually, he was a medical doctor, with a special interest in neurology, who periodically left the world of theater to practice medicine.” – The New York Times
Who Actually Wrote, Or Wrote Down, The Epic Of Gilgamesh?
“The poem we call Gilgamesh is based on copies of a work assembled over a millennium after the earliest stories were written in Old Babylonian. … A specific scribe, editor, collator, poet is given credit for bringing it all together. He may also have been an exorcist, magician, diviner, priest or seer; or a combination of these not unrelated vocations. He was active between 1300 and 1000 BCE. … He goes by the name of Sin-leqi-unninni.” – Literary Hub
Alex Ross: An Iconic Recording Label Turns 50
ECM is one of the greatest labels in the history of recording. Manfred Eicher, who founded ECM and remains its sole proprietor, has forged a syncretic vision in which jazz and classical traditions intelligently intermingle. ECM’s catalogue of some sixteen hundred albums contains abrasive sounds as well as soothing ones, clouds of dissonance alongside shimmering triads. – The New Yorker
Audible Is Becoming A Serious Theatre Company
“It’s not that plays are new to recordings, or that corporations never before invested in the stage. What is novel is how this company is commissioning dramatists to write plays for its global listener base and at the same time curating them for a narrower market of theatergoers. You might say that Audible is assembling a digital repertory company, with platforms both on air and on legs.” – The Washington Post
How A Stolen Native American Artifact Ended Up For Sale In Paris
There is a loophole, in which it’s illegal to traffic certain cultural items within the United States, but exporting them is not prohibited. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which was enacted in 1990, requires repatriation of sacred or culturally significant items to their respective tribes or lineal descendants. It also instituted procedures for when said items are inadvertently discovered in excavations on federal lands. However, NAGPRA does not apply internationally. – Hyperallergic
‘Star Wars’ Saga As Kabuki, Literally
“Star Wars Kabuki-Rennosuke and The Three Light Sabers, which are being staged in Tokyo, will combine plots from each of the franchise’s latest trilogy, substituting plots drawn from the days of feudal clan rivalry with drama from a galaxy far, far away. Ichikawa Ebizo XI, Japan’s pre-eminent kabuki actor, will take to the stage as Kylo Ren … in front of 50 winners of an online lottery.” (The performance will be live-streamed for the rest of us.) – The Guardian
Why Museum Workers Across America Are Unionizing
The New Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle have all formed unions this year. And the tide doesn’t seem to be slowing: On November 22, a group of workers from Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art across multiple departments—exhibitions, education, communications, and audio-visual—followed suit. – Artnet
Heirs Of Nobel-Winning Author Naguib Mahfouz Have Been Fighting His Publisher For Years
The daughters of the author, the most internationally famous Arabic-language writer in modern history, have repeatedly sued the American University in Cairo Press for what they claim are large-scale copyright violations and failure to negotiate a new licensing agreement following Mahfouz’s death in 2006. – Literary Hub