K-Pop and K-Drama success wasn’t by accident. “The wave spread across Asia before reaching a global audience thanks to savvy social networking strategies and a steady stream of media with increasingly high production values.” – Los Angeles Times
Tag: 02.22.20
Vine Started The Short Video Craze, And Then Died – But It May Be Back
Vine was introduced in 2012, bought by Twitter, and killed in 2016. But in its time, it “turned everyday people into stars on other platforms and beyond. Its musical whims warped the music industry. It cultivated memes that might have been dismissed as inside jokes if not for their tendency to flourish outside the app.” Can the app make a comeback in 2020, where TikTok rules the internet? – The New York Times
The Vibrant Electronic Music Of Video Game Soundtracks
They’re different from the quality of movie soundtracks, many of which don’t stand alone, and they’re “a marvelous untapped source of experimental instrumental electronica. … The context of gameplay encourages compositions that are melodically specific, sharp-edged, and hummable.” – Hyperallergic
Archaeologists Find A New Shrine In Rome, Perhaps To Romulus
The find is in the Roman Forum, where authorities revealed on Friday that they believe this may date to the 6th century B.C.E., 200 years after Romulus was said to have lived. That means it’s a memorial site, if indeed it is a site to Romulus. Also, oops: “It’s the second time the sarcophagus and cylindrical stone stub have been unearthed, but it’s only now that archaeologists are attributing an exciting significance to them.” – The Washington Post (AP)
The People Who Decide What Books Are Allowed In Prisons Censor Thousands
Of course, the officials say, books and article about how to strangle someone or how to escape handcuffs must be censored. But what about Angie Thomas’ young adult book The Hate U Give? What about The Bluest Eye or The Color Purple? (All have been banned in some prisons – some while Mein Kampf was allowed.) – NPR
How Autumn De Wilde Came To Direct A New ‘Emma’
Take one cane, add whiskey, then gather a “mood” pitch for movie financiers, decades of photography, years of moving pitching, and presto! A new Emma. Miranda July on the director: “If there were more female directors, Autumn’s story wouldn’t be such a rare and precious thing to us. … Basically a single mom who worked so hard and at this age is coming into her own. I think we all feel really tender because it’s a very powerful example.” – Los Angeles Times
Sure, Years Elapsed Between Book Two And Book Three, But Hilary Mantel Did *Not* Have Writer’s Block
Mantel says there are so many stories in the Cromwell trilogy that the books are like a pamphlet. But of course: “At a combined total of more than 2,000 pages – with [forthcoming book three] The Mirror & the Light accounting for nearly half of them – you couldn’t get much further from a pamphlet. ‘I’ve got quite amused at people suggesting I have writer’s block, you know. I’ve been like a factory!’ She also chafes at the suggestion that her latest book was delayed because she was reluctant to kill off Cromwell. ‘It’s not something I’ve ever said; it’s what people think I should have said. It’s this version in which the woman writer is sentimentally attached to her creation.'” – The Guardian (UK)
Technology Recreates The Sound Of 500-Year-Old Singing In The Hagia Sophia
This is a rather unbelievable story. “When [the two researchers] met, Pentcheva started telling Abel about the Hagia Sophia – how we couldn’t really understand the experience of worshipers there unless we could hear the music the way they did. And as she talked, Abel started to feel a prickling of excitement. They could recreate what that music would sound like. If only they could get in the Hagia Sophia and pop a balloon.” (Note: They did.) – NPR
The Subtitles Vs. Dubs Debate, Reignited By ‘Parasite’
How did we get here, with most U.S. audiences only seeing subtitles on non-English-language films and many other countries using excellent voice actors and technology for dubbing, and where are we going? (In other words, are the one-inch subtitle barricades about to fall?) – BBC