“Founded in 1982, the Kolkata-based company [Seeagull Books] publishes everything from literary fiction and poetry to philosophy and even cultural anthropology. But these books aren’t what you’d find on the catalogues of publishing giants such as HarperCollins or Penguin Random House. At Seagull Books, the focus is on translated writing from around the world, much of which has never before appeared in English, in India or anywhere else.”
Tag: 06.30.17
America’s Original Fourth TV Network, Now Forgotten
“Long before FOX was hailed as the true fourth network, there was DuMont, an underfunded and largely forgotten broadcast pioneer whose lost recordings have become the stuff of minor legend. … Debuting in 1946, the network was actually started as a ploy to sell televisions.” (includes video clips)
It’s Time To Rediscover The Greatness Of Mary McCarthy
Ignore Norman Mailer and his evaluation of McCarthy’s books. “This is a perfect moment, in terms of the progress of our political development as well as the sand through feminism’s hourglass, for the Library of America’s release of McCarthy’s complete fiction. The two volumes comprise a body of work that retains startling and unsettling relevance. “
The First-Ever Perfume Concert (It Was A Stinker)
“On a New York stage in 1902, a poet and art critic named Sadakichi Hartmann attempted the first perfume concert, and it was a disaster. Intended to last 16 minutes and transport the audience to Japan through a series of smells, it was cut short at four by the jeers of the crowd.”
How To Keep Your Body Going Through A 20-Year-Ballet Career: Half A Dozen Tips From Someone Who’s Done It
“The luminous principal dancer Xiao Nan Yu, who just marked two decades with National Ballet of Canada, shares how she’s kept her body strong for long-term success.” (For one thing, never blow off morning class.)
A Conference For Young Male Dancers Who Are Feeling Marginalized
“With so few male dancers in classes, a sense of alienation, as well as bullying and a lack of recognition are common experiences. ‘I allowed the boys we were approaching to tell us what they need, what is missing in their dance studios, what they’re looking for,” [co-founder Michael] Vadacchino says about programming [the first Male Dancer Conference, to be held next month in New York’s West Village]. ‘There are little to no all-male large group settings in the dance world. With the exception of some major ballet competitions and large ballet conservatories, there is no event designed specifically for male dancers and their needs.'”
Music Academy Of The West Returns To Business – Music Of Our Time
“We have started to make music of today part of our normal way of doing business. We’re not restricting music of living composers to a far corner of the summer and calling it ‘new music week.’ That sort of new-music ghetto is, to me, not the best way to present it. It suggests that new music is its own thing, and not connected with anything else. We think this music belongs on the same concert as Beethoven, Dvorak, and Stravinsky.”
Does The ‘Scaffold’ Controversy Demonstrate That Museums Are Colonialist By Their Very Nature?
“We asked several American curators to consider the controversy‘s lessons for the larger museum world. Their e-mail responses, which have lightly edited for clarity, set a new tone for how cultural institutions can work with local indigenous communities.”
When Arts Institutions Stagnate, Some Like To Blame The Board – And That’s Unfair, Says Anne Midgette
“Boards are less a problem than a symptom of a larger, systemic issue: a pervasive loss of creativity in large performing arts institutions. I’m not the only one to notice that our largest performing arts institutions have become fundamentally inartistic bureaucracies … Companies have to work so hard to maintain their status quo, to keep the funding coming in and the performances going on, that many of them have lost sight of a truly creative approach. They don’t have the time or resources to break the mold.”
It’s Time For ‘A Move Away From Culture By And For An Elite To Culture By And For All’
Stella Duffy of the Fun Palaces movement: “Our commitment to ‘excellence and quality’ as defined by mainstream, metropolitan-based thinking many decades ago, might need to shift to a new version of ‘excellence and quality’, one defined by a new generation of makers and creators – and this time from every part of society. If we want cultural democracy, genuine culture for all, elitism must make way for creativity and community-led culture. We need to offer everyone not only access to the products of creativity, but access to the means and processes of creativity.” (By, say, funding Duffy’s project.)