Among the many anecdotes in Christine Smallwood’s profile: “She never dabbled in the drugs and alcohol that were omnipresent on film sets. Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols once pulled her aside while they were shooting Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains and scared her straight. (Dern celebrated her 13th birthday on that set.) ‘I was saying to my mom, Who knew that the best thing to do would be to send your daughter to do a movie with the Sex Pistols for five months?'” – The New York Times Magazine
Tag: 05.07.19
E.O. Wilson On Creativity In Science And Humanities
“Science tends to advance sometimes in major jumps. Something is discovered, some mystery is solved, some system is for the first time understood and can be duplicated. When that happens, science moves quickly. I started thinking: What moves the creative arts? I thought, maybe a scientist could say something useful to innovators and masters of the humanities. I thought the next big thing could be at the interface of science and the creative arts.” Chronicle of Higher Education
Can A City’s Cultural Vibrancy Be Measured? Here’s An Economist Who’s Trying
“Provided that culture uniquely defines a city, which urban contexts are more culturally vibrant? And in which ones does culture drive creative economies? This study presents a novel and freely accessible dataset – the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor – gathering 29 indicators for 168 European cities. Capitals generally lead on ‘Creative Economy’ but non-capitals do better on ‘Cultural Vibrancy’.” – EconomistsTalkArt.org
Why Alexei Ratmansky Wanted To Choreograph A Shostakovich Triple-Bill
“More than any other composer, his music reflects his life, his situation, his country and his times. … I’ve always felt this very personal connection. It’s hard to explain but when it plays, my brain responds. I have steps in my head, I see images and drama. Even in Shostakovich’s symphonies, which some people consider heavy.” – The Guardian
How Crowdfunding Site Patreon Helps (And Doesn’t) Creators Who Use It
Reporter Mathew Olson: “I interviewed thirteen Patreon users to get a sense how they feel about the platform and the state of crowdfunding more generally. I tried to speak with users across a wide range of creative output and Patreon income levels — though, I’ll admit, folks whose work concerns video games are perhaps overrepresented.” – Digg
Blunt Instrument: The Complexity Of Using Quotas To Drive Equity
“In the future, 50/50 ideologies fade to dust because they are too narrow, too binary and mistake equality for equity or justice. To paraphrase political activist Angela Davis, equality is not to be understood as achieving status or parity with white, able-bodied, cis men because that status is contingent on the oppression of other peoples. In the future, everyone has transformed the meaning of patriarchy so that it no longer operates by domination. This has been done without loss of men or manhood.” – Arts Professional
In Ancient Times, Timekeeping Was Erratic. When We Figured It Out, It Revolutionized The World
“In our own world, filled with ubiquitous date marks, it is easy to underestimate the sheer novelty, and so historical significance, of this mass year-marking. But, in the ancient world, this was without precedent or parallel. In no other state in the ancient Mediterranean or west Asia did rulers and subjects inhabit spaces that were so comprehensively and consistently dated.” – Aeon
Where Does The Original End And The Copy Begin? (And Don’t Even Mention Fakes)
It’s an issue, since the beginning of art. Where does one person’s art end and another’s begin. The lines are quite blurry… – Smithsonian
Nurit Karlin, 80, The New Yorker’s Master Of The Wordless Cartoon
“[She] drew whimsical but thoughtful cartoons: an office worker sitting in what is actually one of his desk’s drawers; a lumberjack peering at a heart pierced by an arrow carved inside the rings of a felled tree; a harpist taking his bows on a concert stage with the strings of his instrument dangling from one hand.” And a favorite: two doves fighting over an olive branch. – The New York Times
Americans Are Finally Reading More Translated Translation — Aren’t They?
Yes, there are some literary stars here whose books come to U.S. readers in translation — Karl Ove Knausgaard, Stieg Larsson, Elena Ferrante — but the number of books published in English that were originally written in another language has held steady at around 3% of the total for many years. Chad Post, founder of the publishing house Open Letter, which specializes in translated lit, writes about the interlocking issues behind “the 3 percent problem.” – Vulture