“Going home for holidays I noticed that buzzwords had come and perhaps already gone—nerd, dink—without my ever using them. Editors were forever picking up Italianisms in my writing. Setting a new story in England I began to feel vulnerable. Often Italian expressions came to mind when what I needed was English. Even Italian situations. Often English expressions came to mind that quite likely no one was using any more.”
Tag: 05.10.16
What’s The Meaning Of Photos Taken From Behind Their Subjects?
“One of my first photo teachers told me to avoid making this kind of portrait at all costs – their recommendation (or commandment!) was meant as an encouragement – to get to know people, explore something deeper, make a connection or challenge me to engage on a deeper level. But what can this sometimes frowned-upon approach disclose in gesture or body language?”
Tehran Book Fair Has A Photo Booth Where People Pose In Front Of Syrian War Rubble
“One woman is seen posing with a grenade in her hand. A man had his photo taken with a little boy sitting on his lap.” Weirder still is who put the booth there.
A New Complete Version Of Copland’s ‘Appalachian Spring’
Copland originally composed his score for Martha Graham’s dance piece for only 13 instruments, and when he later expanded the music for full symphony orchestra, he abridged it into a suite. Eugene Ormandy once asked the composer to restore the cuts and orchestrate the full-length score, but the project was never finished – until now.
Using Shadow Puppets To Recreate A Medieval Persian Epic
Iranian-American graphic artist Hamid Rahmanian has combined computer generated background with the centuries-old techniques of shadow puppetry – common in the medieval Near East but since lost – to perform an adaptation of a Romeo-and-Juliet-style episode from the Shahnameh.
Canadian School Boy Appears To Have Discovered Lost Ancient Mayan City
“Studying 22 different constellations, William found that they matched the location of 117 Mayan cities scattered throughout Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. When he applied his theory to a 23rd constellation, he found that two of the stars already had cities linked to them but that the third star was unmatched.”
Isao Tomita, 84, Pioneer Of Music For Moog Synthesizer
“The weirdest thing about Tomita’s electronic music is that it almost never happened. … He was uninterested in the military marches that he heard on the radio as a young child. His attitude toward music changed when the war ended and his family’s radio started picking up broadcasts from the occupying American forces. Suddenly, jazz, Latin, classical and a host of other exotic genres rushed in to his living room.”
Five Young Egyptians Arrested For Facebook Videos Making Fun Of President
The young men, all between 19 and 21 and members of a satirical group called Awlad al-Shawarea (“Children of the Streets”), “have been accused of ‘inciting anti-government protests’ and ‘insulting state institutions.'”
Amazon Already Runs Its Own Version Of Netflix; Now It’s Starting Its Own YouTube
“With the launch of Amazon Video Direct, open to any video creator, the e-commerce giant will compete head-to-head with Google’s YouTube for video-ad dollars and views as well as other big Internet video distributors like Facebook and Vimeo.”
New York’s New Museum Plans Ambitious Expansion
“At a time when the Whitney Museum of American Art has opened a sleek new building and the Museum of Modern Art is also expanding, having just announced a $100 million gift from a single donor, David Geffen, the New Museum’s initiative might seem almost modest. But for an institution that began in 1977 in a single room and now has an annual operating budget of only $13 million (MoMA’s budget is $147 million a year), the campaign is a turning point, the largest fund-raising effort in its history.”