“Raymond Williams is one of those thinkers who helped change his field so profoundly that today it can be difficult to appreciate how original he was. Members of Williams’s generation believed that analyzing culture would bring about revolution. Much of their prose now sounds turgid, and many of their political hopes were either beaten into submission or inflated into a hyperbole that remains purely hypothetical.”
Tag: 05.12.15
Australian Gov’t Moves $100M From Independent Arts Funding Body To Its Own Arts Ministry
The conservative-leaning governing coalition is reallocating half of the Australia Council for the Arts’ budget to a new “national program for excellence in the arts” directly controlled by the arts minister, George Brandis (who is also the attorney general).
In Rehearsal With ABT Boss Kevin McKenzie
Watch as the American Ballet Theatre artistic director directs Julie Kent and Ethan Stiefel in a duet and leads dancers in a group rehearsal. (video)
Rachel Rosenthal, 88, Doyenne Of L.A. Performance Artists
“She had hot wax poured over her shaved head, buried herself in artificial snow, read alternately from the ancient Kabbalah and car magazines, and shared the stage with more than 40 animals, including her beloved pet rat, who could often be found perched on her shoulder when she was off-stage.”
Ira Glass Says ‘Public Radio Is Ready For Capitalism’ – On Podcasts, Advertisers, And Content
“A couple of weeks ago, NPR and two of its most influential member stations, WNYC and WBEZ, invited a large group of media and marketing people to Le Poisson Rouge, a nightclub in Greenwich Village, for an event called ‘Hearing is Believing.’ … Ira Glass, the host of This American Life and producer of Serial, told a reporter for AdAge, ‘My hope is that we can move away from a model of asking listeners for money and join the free market.'”
Can The Guggenheim Win Over Reluctant Finns? (And Why The Answer Matters)
“In the art and design world, the fate of the prospective museum has become a matter of global import: with everyone from the Louvre to the Hermitage looking to set up outposts abroad, Helsinki has become the latest battleground in an ongoing conflict over how – and whether – small cities and emerging countries should accommodate expansionist mega-museums.”
Crowdfunded Novel Wins The Bookseller’s First Book Of The Year Award
“The prize is intended to recognise the publisher as well as the book, and goes to both [Paul] Kingsnorth and Unbound, the crowdfunding publisher which released The Wake last year … The novel is set in 1066, and tells the story of guerrilla fighters who take up arms against the Norman invaders in the Lincolnshire fens. It is written in a reimagined version of Old English after Kingsnorth found that modern English ‘didn’t fit’ the world he was creating.”
‘I Was Born Homosexual; I Chose To Be Gay’: On Sensibility And (Or Versus) Same-Sex Attraction
“Implicit in the notion that an apartment like mine can ‘be gay’ – and that you, despite any politically correct training against saying so, could easily recognize it as such – is an understanding of gayness as something more than a basic sexual orientation. … Gayness may be found not just in whom you sleep with, but also in the sort of sheets you insist on sleeping between.” A longread by J. Bryan Lowder.
Do Gay Men And Lesbians Share A Sensibility? And How Do Their Sensibilities Differ?
A dialogue between the two editors of Slate‘s LGBT blog, Outward: June Thomas and J. Bryan Lowder.
How Procrastination Works
“Procrastination is, in essence, stealing from yourself. The reason goals are so hard to reach, many psychologists think, is because each person believes they are really two people: Present Me and Future Me. And to most people, Future Me is much less important than Present Me. Present Me is the CEO of Me Corp, while Future Me is a lowly clerk.”