An analysis of dental plaque illuminates the forgotten history of female scribes.
Category: Entertainment Industry
📑 Bullet Journal: One Book to Rule Them All | Jamie Todd Rubin
Reply to 5 CMS tools for indie bloggers | Indie Digital Media
While it still has a lot in common with Drupal, it has reconfigured the core to include some of the most commonly used and requested plugins and they’ve done their best to make it prettier and easier to use for hobby-ists and bloggers as well as small businesses and non-profits that don’t need all the additional overhead that Drupal brings. It’s also got a small but very dedicated community of developers and users.
I’ve also been hearing some great things about Craft CMS, which you highlight, as well as Perch by Rachel Andrew and Drew McLellan.
👓 5 CMS tools for indie bloggers | Indie Digital Media
This is a golden age for indie digital media creators, who have more content creation options than ever in 2019. In fact, there are arguably too many tools to chose from. That’s why I’m going to regularly examine the tools of digital media creation here on IDM - for everything…
Indie Digital Media by Richard MacManus
For creators & fans of independent digital media
Seeing this also reminds me to finish compiling a list I had started based on one of our conversations about topic-specific indie blogs.
🎧 “The Daily”: What the West Got Wrong About China, Part 2 | New York Times
The U.S. misunderstood not only how China would respond to economic growth, but how the U.S. would respond to China.
👓 PW Takes Over the Millions | Publishers Weekly
PWxyz, parent company of 'Publishers Weekly,' has acquired the online magazine the Millions, as well as its website TheMillions.com, for an undisclosed price.
👓 2019 Book Industry Predictions: The Butterflies Will Flap Their Wings | Smashwords
Welcome to my annual publishing predictions. I’ll start by sharing some thoughts on the state of the indie nation and then I’ll jump int...
There’s also a useful question brought up here about the idea of discovering new authors and new books. It’s a similar problem faced by websites and other online content in general. Silo’s general nature and the algorithms they can bring to bear have solved some of the discovery question (for their own enrichment). Solving this from an indie perspective isn’t just useful from the website content perspective, but it’s also very important for the book sales perspective.
🔖 The Art of the Benshi | UCLA Film & Television Archive
March 1, 2019-March 3, 2019 at Billy Wilder Theater
During the silent film era in Japan, which extended into the early 1930s, film screenings were accompanied by live narrators, called benshi. In the industry’s early years, benshi functioned much in the way scientific lecturers did in early American and European cinema, providing simple explanations about the new medium and the moving images on screen. Soon, however, benshi developed into full-fledged performers in their own right, enlivening the cinema experience with expressive word, gesture and music. Each with their own highly refined personal style, they deftly narrated action and dialogue to illuminate—and often to invent—emotions and themes that heightened the audience’s connection to the screen. Loosely related to the style of kabuki theater in which vocal intonation and rhythm carries significant meaning and feeling, benshi evolved in its golden age, between 1926-1931, as an art form unto itself. Well-established benshi such as Tokugawa Musei, Ikukoma Raiyfi, and Nakamura Koenami were treated as stars, reviewed by critics, featured in profiles (in 1909, the first issue of one of Japan’s earliest film journals featured a benshi on its cover) and commanded high salaries from exhibitors. The prominence and significant cultural influence of benshi prompted the government to try to regulate their practice, instituting a licensing system in 1917 and attempts were made to enhance their role as “educators” through training programs overseen by the Ministry of Education. The benshi were not without controversy, however. While some contemporary critics argued that the benshi were essential to differentiating Japanese film culture from the rest of the world’s output, others argued that the benshi, along with other theatrical elements, impeded the artistic and technical evolution of Japanese cinema into a fully modern art form. Benshi did vigorously resist the coming of sound to Japanese cinema and the practice continued, though with increasing rarity, into the sound era. The art, today, is carried on by a small group of specialized performers who have been apprenticed by the preceding generations of benshi, creating a continuous lineage back to the original performers.
The Archive and the Tadashi Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities are pleased to present this major benshi event in Los Angeles which will afford audiences a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience this unique art form in all its rich textures. Pairing rare prints of Japanese classics and new restorations of American masterworks, this weekend-long series features performances by three of Japan’s most renowned contemporary benshi, Kataoka Ichirō, Sakamoto Raikō, and Ōmori Kumiko. Trained by benshi masters of the previous generation, they will each perform their unique art live on stage in Japanese (with English subtitles) to multiple films over the course of the weekend. Every performance and screening will be accompanied by a musical ensemble with traditional Japanese instrumentation, featuring Yuasa Jōichi (conductor, shamisen), Tanbara Kaname (piano), Furuhashi Yuki (violin), Suzuki Makiko (flute), Katada Kisayo (drums).
Special thanks to the Tadashi Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities, The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum at Waseda University and the Top Global University Project, Global Japanese Studies Model Unit, Waseda University (MEXT Grant), National Film Archive of Japan.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
From Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem (1923)
I’ve been thinking lately about writing some poetry and putting it here on my site. Since the muses aren’t visiting today, I thought I would republish Frost’s poem today to to celebrate its entering the public domain. Perhaps I’ll think of a way to remix it too…
Featured photo credit: P1020911 flickr photo by pekka.jarvelainen shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license
👓 #MeToo law restricts use of nondisclosure agreements in sexual misconduct cases | LA Times
Among victims and advocates, an important step in dismantling the pervasive problem of harassment and the system that has kept it under wraps for so long is to void or curb the use of NDAs to settle sexual abuse cases.
👓 Pausing Twitter | Read Write Collect
This is another insightful reflection from Pernille Ripp. It continues on from her apology earlier this year for stepping back. It makes me wonder what happens to the ‘edu-influencer‘ when they step back? As much agree with Joe Sanfileppo about the power and potential of being connected, what happens when those people stop answering?
I’m also reminded of Kathleen Fitzgerald’s recent post Engage. Disengage. Repeat.
📺 Weinstein | Watch S36 E6 | FRONTLINE | PBS
SEASON 36: EPISODE 6
FRONTLINE investigates how Harvey Weinstein allegedly sexually harassed and abused dozens of women over four decades. With allegations going back to Weinstein’s early years, the film examines the elaborate ways he and those around him tried to silence his accusers.
👓 ‘Heathers’ TV show cancelled again following Pittsburgh synagogue shooting | The Independent
Paramount Network's remake of the cult 1988 black comedy has been rendered tasteless by a string of mass shootings over the past eight months
👓 How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success | New Yorker
With “The Apprentice,” the TV producer mythologized Trump—then a floundering D-lister—as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency.