“Daniel Lofredo Rota is an Ecuadorian DJ and musician on a quest to unravel a decades-old family mystery. His eccentric grandfather has left a clue: a grimy, battered suitcase filled with old tapes. Inside are songs, secret loves, and the resurrection of a long-lost record label.” (podcast)
Tag: 10.20.18
How Richard Florida’s “Creative Class” Was The Wrong Prescription
Florida’s central aim, as I read it, was to have cities and states rethink industrial policy—but not by ignoring housing, transportation, health policies and other important aspects of running large cities. Rather, I read it as forcing a serious look into the economic consequences of cultural spaces. Sadly, his book and corresponding creative class thesis gave many urban policy professionals the cover to give up on the constellation of policies and remedies aimed at decreasing inequality, and widen the wealth gap.
Inside Disney’s Super-Secret Vault
OK, it’s not actually super-secret, and it’s not a vault – it’s the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, “a silent, temperature-controlled labyrinth that underlines Disney’s zealous protection of its past and huge ambitions for its future.”
How Is Country Music Dealing With Its Own Me Too Movement?
Hm. Not that well. “While there have been conversations behind closed doors about certain gatekeepers … there hasn’t been a tipping point like what’s happened in Hollywood with Weinstein. As one singer told Rolling Stone during an investigation that looked at harassment in country radio, ‘Nashville is a town of subtleties. Everything is covered by a friendly gauze.'”
What Books Have Made Poet Danez Smith Into The Artist He Is?
The British poet says that “Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler teaches me what a book of poetry can look like. In form, heart, focus and humility it’s everything I hope to give to the reader. Smith is the greatest living poet. Every book is better than the last.”
What’s The Artistic Moment We’re Living Through?
Hysterical surrealism. Heck, there’s a whole subgenre of foreclosure art. And then there are movies like Sorry to Bother You. “The register is manic horror-comedy rather than depressively dystopian. I’ve noticed the same tone in other works, including contemporary poetry about inequality and market ruin.”
Finding Ink In (The Ashes Of) Apple Trees
This artist makes ink from the things he finds outside, in the city. That’s right, he’s an ink forager. “Logan doesn’t just focus on nature in his foraging; he also makes ink from the detritus. … He stops suddenly, picks up a rusty nail and puts it in his pocket. Rust, he says, can make yellow, red, orange or black.”
The Sculptor Who Tried To Be An Accountant (It Didn’t Take)
John McKenna might not have made it in accountancy, but as a sculptor, he knows that the money he makes as an artist is always in flux. “It’s a precarious existence. Some years are lean and some hectic, but it’s always hard to save – the profits from the good years go on servicing the debts and repairs from the bad.”
Viola Davis On ‘Smothering’ Herself In Hollywood, And Breaking Free
She’s ready for films to change, a lot. “Davis says she wants to play the sort of roles Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep have had. ‘I would love to have a black female Klute, or Kramer, or Unmarried Woman, or Annie Hall. But who’s gonna write it, who’s gonna produce it, who’s gonna see it, again and again and again?'”
A Prized 12,000-Year-Old Fossil Skull Has Been Recovered From The Burned-Out National Museum In Brazil
Well, some of the skull, anyway. “On Friday the museum’s director announced that 80% of Luzia’s skull fragments had been identified. … The museum staff said they were confident they could recover the rest of Luzia’s skull and attempt reassembly.”