Japanese (along with many lesser-known languages) doesn’t distinguish between blue and green. Koreans divide what anglophones see as green into two different colors; Russians do the same with blue. These differences do affect the ways in which we perceive color, studies indicate – although the effect isn’t equal across people or even across parts of the brain.
Tag: 06.11.12
How English Literature Has Come To Dominate The World
“In 1946 only 5 percent of Holland’s book production was made up of translations; by 2005 it had reached 35 percent and in the area of prose fiction the share had grown to 71 percent. Of those translations, 75 percent now come from English. What figures I have managed to find for Germany and Italy do not differ a great deal.”
“There Are No Asians In The 1800s!” – The Continuing Saga Of Theatre And Asian-Americans
“I have a stand up set that pokes fun at stereotypes and assumptions about being Asian and being in theater. I rarely perform it now because afterwards people seem to be reminded I’m Asian for the first time, and oftentimes have an endless stream of really helpful additional jokes to add or awkward comments to make about it all.”
Can A Law Get Javanese People To Keep Speaking Javanese?
“In late May, the province of Central Java, Indonesia, passed a law requiring residents to use the regional tongue, Javanese, once a week. The law is symbolic and probably unenforceable … but addresses what a local councillor called ‘a tendency for many Javanese people not to use Javanese in their daily lives’.”
Why Notes From Underground Isn’t Just A Literary Landmark, It’s A Kick In The Gut
David Denby: “The modern element in Notes From Underground is Dostoevsky’s exultation in human perversity. You can read this book as a meta-fiction about creating a voice, or as a case study, but you can’t escape reading it also as an accusation of human insufficiency rendered without the slightest trace of self-righteousness.”
The Point-And-Clicks Replacing Artist Music Labels
“It’s part of a trend among music companies toward a straight, fee-for-service industry, in which the important task of moulding artists and shaping consumer tastes has devolved from record labels and is left mostly up to the artists themselves.”
William Blake To B-Movies: Decoding The Cultural Influences In Ridley Scott’s Prometheus
“The striking images Ridley Scott devises … reference everything from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires. Scott also expands on the original Alien universe by creating a distinctly English mythology informed by Milton’s Paradise Lost and the symbolic drawings of William Blake.”
Pina Bausch’s Dancers Keep The Flame Burning
Three years after the choreographer’s sudden death, the members of Tanztheater Wuppertal – with the ongoing support of the small German city they call home, and a boost from Wim Wenders’s acclaimed 3D documentary film about Pina – are working ferociously to keep her body of work intact.
Anthony Roth Costanzo, Janai Brugger Among Winners of Operalia 2012
“Soprano Janai Brugger, who recently graduated from L.A. Opera’s Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program, took home three awards – the first-place prize, a zarzuela prize and an audience award.” The other two winners of the $30,000 first prize were fast-rising New York countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat.
The Internet Change The World? The Rich World Perhaps. For Everyone Else…
“The total proportion of population in 2011 who are internet users is 30 per cent (Internet World Stats 2011a). So if the internet is bringing the world together, it is primarily the affluent who are being brought into communion with each other. Most of the world’s poor are not part of this magic circle of ‘mutual understanding’.”