Tag: 10.21.16

Remember Bookmobiles? Here’s A Book Boat

“The Perahu Pustaka (Book Boat) is sorely needed. … More than 10% of the [province of] West Sulawesi’s adult population cannot read, while in many villages, the only book available is a solitary copy of the Quran. So in 2015, local news journalist Muhammad Ridwan Alimuddin decided to combine his twin passions for books and boats by setting up a mobile library on a baqgo, a small traditional sailboat.”

Claim: Superhero Stories Work Great For Comic Books But Are Terrible For Movies

Jonathan Lethem, who initially set out to become a visual artist, says that comic books are a unique storytelling medium with pleasures that don’t necessarily translate well to live action. “It seems to me there’s a disconnect at a fundamental formal level between what a comic book does when you encounter it and what a CGI superhero movie does when you encounter it,” he says.

How A Young Hollywood Actor Stays Motivated Through Countless Unsuccessful Auditions

“Annie Truex, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles, notes how much she’s learned much about the business of entertainment since moving to the city. For The Atlantic‘s ongoing series of interviews with American workers, I spoke with Truex about why she pursued acting, how she stays motivated throughout the audition process, and how beauty standards for women in entertainment affect her at work.”

Is There A White Writer Who Can Tell Stories About People Of Color Without Appropriating? This One

“What of the white writer who wishes to be artistically engaged but who simultaneously does not want to re-create cultural dominance in her work? Are there complex, nuanced representations by other white people which we might turn toward? I suggest that one answer may lie in the unlikely legacy of a pale, sickly writer from the mid-twentieth century, who smoked and drank herself to death by the age of fifty, and whose own personal turmoil and self-destruction may be at the root of the enormous insights about difference found throughout her work.”

Presidential Elections And The Laws Of Comedy

Ian Frazier: “Certain timeless laws apply to comedy – ‘Put the funniest word in the sentence at the end,’ for example. But in the modern era, in the world of political comedy, strange laws never seen before seem to be kicking in. The law that the efficiency of microchips increases exponentially every few years may now apply to political comedy, which gets exponentially funnier with every election cycle.”

Does Wayne McGregor’s Extreme Choreography Hurt His Dancers? (He Says No)

“His movement style, born of his fascination with extreme physicality and hyperarticulation, has redefined the look of today’s dancers and virtually turned their bodies inside out. … Sometimes it looks as if he’s putting his dancers through a very painful wringer. No way, he counters. ‘These dancers are not stupid – they won’t do whatever I say. They are phenomenally bright individuals who are interested in changing the nature of technique, and with our joint intelligence we want to test the limit of what’s possible.'”

Is Casting Screen Stars In Broadway Plays Good For Theater?

Alexis Soloski: “Well, that depends on your criteria. Certainly, it brings people in who otherwise might not attend and gives Broadway a welcome shot of the glamour it can sometimes lack, making the lights of the Great White Way glow more brightly. But too often celebrity casting seems a cheap ploy to increase box office totals and keep the publicity machine churning. These actors drum up excitement for new plays and goose otherwise bland-seeming revivals.”