“New technologies are shifting the balance of power in artists favor. Direct-to-fan platforms offer viral content distribution and even commerce. Discovery services such as 8tracks, Pandora and Soundcloud suggest content to their users. In turn, creators use them to reach new fans on a far more level playing field than the pre-digital era.”
Tag: 05.27.14
The New Cultural Divide: The Curious Versus The Incurious
“Twenty-first-century economies are rewarding those who have an unquenchable desire to discover, learn and accumulate a wide range of knowledge. It’s no longer just about who or what you know, but how much you want to know.”
I Was Kim Jong Il’s Poet Laureate (Until I Wasn’t And Had To Escape)
“As a state-appointed poet laureate, Jang Jin Sung reached the pinnacle of elite life in North Korea. He spent his days writing epic poems for dictator Kim Jong Il – and overseeing inter-Korean espionage. … In 2004, having committed a minor transgression deemed treasonous by the state, he fled, becoming one of North Korea’s highest-ranking defectors.”
Stop Shaming People Who Live In Book Deserts
“Not everyone lives in a great city, not everyone lives near a great city, and not every great city is a great city for bookstores.”
Clive James, Terminally Ill, Says He’s Starting To Say Goodbye
“The 74-year-old, who has leukaemia and emphysema, has written of having ‘lungs of dust’ in his most recent work, Sentenced To Life.” He told BBC Radio 4, “But the trick is not to overdo it. As my friend PJ O’Rourke told me, ‘you’re going to have to soft pedal this death door stuff, Clive, because people are going to get impatient.'”
An Algorithm That Turns Books Into Music
“The text of a novel — with the first experiments including To Kill a Mockingbird and Alice in Wonderland — is segmented into four parts, the octaves determined by the “joy and sadness densities,” and the length of notes set by the density of those emotions. These emotions in turn are determined by a database of words linked to eight different sentiments, including joy, anticipation, anger, disgust, trust, fear, surprise, and sadness.”
Students, Professors, Alumni Sue Cooper Union For “Mismanagement”
The lawsuit charges that trustees “undermined the financial health” of the school when they “built an extravagant new academic building that the school could not afford.” In addition, it alleges that “the Trustees compounded the impact of this mistake by squandering the endowment through investments in risky hedge funds.”
Where Physics Meets Dance – Yale Offers A Course
“In the studio work, we explore the effects of physical forces on our bodies and use the scientific concepts as points of departure for creating choreographic studies.”
Opera Cinemacasts Aren’t Raising Interest In Art Form: Survey
“The investigation found that, after seeing an opera at the cinema, around 75% of participants reported feeling no different about attending a live production, with around 10% feeling less motivated. … It [also] revealed that around 80% of cinema opera attendees were more than 60 years old, which was slightly older than the average age of live opera-goers.”
Mandela Bio-Opera Closes After Three Shows For Lack Of Funds
The lead producer of Madiba: The African Opera, who is Nelson Mandela’s grand-nephew, says that the R2.86 million [$2.73 million] awarded by South Africa’s national lottery was not enough to pay the large cast and crew for the full five-show premiere run in Pretoria, let alone the planned national tour.