“Suddenly the worst thing that can happen to a creative person has happened to me. … Somehow I became respectable. I don’t know how — the last film I directed got some terrible reviews and was rated NC-17. Six people in my personal phone book have been sentenced to life in prison. I did an art piece called Twelve Assholes and a Dirty Foot, which is composed of close-ups from porn films, yet a museum now has it in their permanent collection and nobody got mad. What the hell has happened?” – The Paris Review
Tag: 05.21.19
Why Anna Deavere Smith Created ‘Notes From The Field’, Her Documentary Play About The School-To-Prison Pipeline
“I was in hair and makeup next to a [Nurse Jackie] castmate, British actress Eve Best, and I told her I couldn’t get out of my mind a news story I had just heard: that a kid in Baltimore, my hometown, had peed in a water cooler at school and they were going to send him to jail. Eve responded, in her fabulous accent, ‘Oh, well, whatever happened to mischief?’ That was when it struck me: rich kids get mischief, poor kids get pathologized and incarcerated.” – Literary Hub
Voice-Of-America-Service For Cuba Fails To Meet Basic Journalism Standards: U.S. Study
“The analysis of content aired and published by Radio and Television Martí, a sister agency to the better-known Voice of America, was launched by the broadcasters’ parent organization.” It found that Martís content routinely fails to meet standards of fairness, sometimes descends into outlandish propaganda — and that none of this is due to the direction of any Trump administration official. – The Washington Post
Michigan Lawmakers Say There’s A Crisis With The State’s School Libraries
“Michigan ranks 47th in the nation for its ratio of students to certified librarians — it’s also in the bottom five in literacy. The two statistics have legislators like State Rep. Darrin Camilleri questioning why more isn’t being done to increase the presence of librarians in schools.” So he and colleagues have introduced three different bills to address the problem. – WXYZ (Detroit)
The Mozart Problem: Revolution In Tight Form
Stephen Brown: “This is the problem that Mozart poses for our contemporary ears. His music is so balanced, clear, rational in its order, especially in comparison to the music that has come after, that it is easy – for performers as well as listeners – to miss the drama.” – Times Literary Supplement
Political Protest Becomes Conceptual Art: Kazakhstan Police Arrest Man For Silently Holding Up A Blank Poster
The “culprit” was Aslan Sagutdinov, a blogger in the city of Uralsk. In a video taken of his arrest, he said, “I want to show that the idiocy in our country has gotten so strong that the police will detain me now even though there are no inscriptions, no slogans, without my chanting or saying anything.” (The writer of this report compares Sagutdinov’s action to John Cage’s 4’33”.) – Hyperallergic
Butterflies, Roasted Pigs And Radios: Christopher Rountree And The Music Of Anything
And he’s having a moment now, with the LA Philharmonic’s FLUXUS Festival. – San Francisco Classical Voice
Study: More Millennials Are Defining Themselves By Their Work
According to Jobvite’s annual Job Seeker Nation survey, 42% of American workers define themselves by the jobs they perform and/or the companies they work for, and that number rises to 45% among those under the age of 40. Furthermore, of the 42% who say that they define themselves through their work, 65% say it’s “very important” to who they are as people. – Fast Company
Are You Obsessive Compulsive? You Fit The Age In Which We Live
“There’s no sugar-coating it: full-fledged OCD is pathological. It renders you unable to function, as I have experienced firsthand. But at the same time, obsessiveness suits our current cultural moment, and functional obsessives are often found perched at the top of social and vocational hierarchies.” – Aeon
This Year’s NEA Jazz Masters
Jazz’s highest public honor will go to Roscoe Mitchell, Dorthaan Kirk, Reggie Workman and Bobby McFerrin at a ceremony in April 2020. Held at the SFJazz Center in San Francisco, it will be the first Jazz Masters gala in California since 2005. Awardees receive cash prizes of up to $25,000. – The New York Times