Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Rare 3D Film Shows Warsaw Devastated After WWII // Warsaw Uprising Museum
Full article here // Excerpt below
By All Art News
Polish historians have created an unusual 3D film that documents the shocking sea of rubble that Warsaw was reduced to during World War II.
Jan Oldakowski, the director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, said the film “City of Ruins” is mainly meant for young people who do not realize the degree to which Poland’s capital was destroyed from 1939-45.
Marveling at Wonders Out of This World // Beyond: Visions of Our Solar System
By Edward Rothstein
The images on view at a remarkable exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum here could well serve as inspirational space cards for this century. But they possess far greater power than those old naïve fantasies. They are vividly, compellingly real; they astonish and bewilder, luring the viewer into a state of wonder.
Keep reading...
What Does WikiLeaks Reveal About Our Inner Selves? // From Speaking of Faith Observed
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Nancy Rosenbaum
Micah Sifry’s commentary on the unfolding WikiLeaks story on the war in Afghanistan has gotten me thinking about questions of trust and relationship-building in and beyond the realm of journalism and politics. At its worst, needing to keep our “seat on the bus,” as Sifry puts it, can result in collusion and self-censoring. Information or, put differently, necessary truths, get squelched in favor of preserving expedient relationships.
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Beyond Indie // Canadian Band Arcade Fire
Full article here // Excerpt below
By Jon Pareles
ONE July morning, the seven members of the Arcade Fire and a handful of their employees were assembled on the patio of the elegant Hôtel le Germain-Dominion here, awaiting their tour bus amid haphazardly piled luggage and instrument cases. When Chantal Vaillancourt, a band assistant who has worked for the Arcade Fire since 2006, arrived to join them, they burst into “Happy Birthday” while she grinned and blushed. The song started out as cheerfully ragged as any gathering of a dozen friends might sound. But not for long: by the last line it had become a ringing, full-fledged chorale, in hymnlike four-part harmony. These friends are, above all, musicians.
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Mysteries and Obscurities, Many by Ghosts // "The Evryali Score" at David Zwirner
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Holland Cotter
Lately it’s been too hot to think, never mind schlep around Chelsea, though a large summer group show at David Zwirner called “The Evryali Score” has made such exertions worthwhile.
Organized by the curator Olivia Shao, the show originated at MoMA P.S.1 in May as part of “Greater New York.” Mr. Zwirner saw it there, liked the mix and invited Ms. Shao to recreate it in his gallery in an expanded form.
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A 6-Acre Preserve Where Artists Roam // Watermill Center
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Guy Trebay
ARTISTS and their antics are central to the Hamptons mythos: car crashes, bonfires, wife swapping, boyfriend swapping, dune trysts and drunken carousing, all interrupted by spells of intense creativity under the area’s fabled luminous skies.
The artists are pretty well gone now, all but the wealthiest ones. Everybody knows that Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner couldn’t find a quarter-share in a renovated chicken coop in a market where even a teardown in Sag Harbor — long since elevated from its lowly status as the poor relation of hamlets like East Hampton — is priced at $1.8 million. (Admittedly it’s just a few doors down from Cindy Sherman’s Greek Revival place on Madison Street, but still.)
Keep reading...Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Risking the Heart: Telling True Stories in an Age of Irony // The Image Seminars: Charleston
Bret LottNovember 4–8, 2010
Charleston, South Carolina
One thing all human beings share is the need for Story—it is as essential as the need for air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat. Whether we believe in a creator God or a random universe, we do not know ourselves without knowing our own story: where we are from, to whom we are related, what our trials and our triumphs have been...
A Web Exclusive Interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie // Nigerian Novelist
Full article here // Excerpt belowFrom Image Journal
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist and short-story writer and recipient of a 2008 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, won the Orange Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her most recent book is a story collection, The Thing around Your Neck (Granta). A longer version of this interview, conducted by Susan VanZanten, appears in Image's International Issue (#65).
Keep reading...Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Khaled: The King Of Rai // NPR's All Things Considered
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Banning Eyre
Algerian singer Khaled is known as the King of Rai — a kind of North African music with roots in traditional folklore. Taken literally, rai translates to "opinion," and Khaled has taken this idea to heart in his music, speaking out to his countrymen with a voice that transcends borders.
He was born Khaled Hadj Brahim in 1960 in the Mediterranean port city of Oran — or "Crazyville," as he once called it. Oran marks an intersection of cultures, a place where Spanish, Moroccan, French, Arabic, American, Berber, Jewish and gypsy ideas and idioms collided. Khaled came of age during the lull between two bloody conflicts: the 1950s war that freed Algeria from French colonialism; and the religiously fueled civil war of the 1990s. In a land torn apart by intolerance and violence, Khaled stood out as an artist who embraced openness and peace.
Keep reading...August 6 at Duke // Student Action with Farmworkers End of Summer Celebration
SAF Invites you to our End of Summer Celebration!
¡SAF te Invita a la Celebración de Fin del Verano!
August 6, 2010 | 6-11 pm
Center for Documentary Studies
1317 W. Pettigrew St, Durham NC
To be a Sponsor or to RSVP, contact
Nadeen Bir 919-660-3652
Enjoy an outdoor party with great food, live music, dance performances, kids games, and a dance party. Bilingual program- All are welcome!
¡Disfruten de una fiesta al aire libre con buena comida, música en vivo, presentaciones de baile, juegos para los niños, y baile para todos. Programa bilingüe- todos están invitados!More info
Israel Museum to Unveil New Look After Major Expansion and Renovation // LA Times' Culture Monster
By Suzanna Muchnic
The Israel Museum -- home of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the world’s largest trove of Biblical and Holy Land archeology and a broad collection of fine art and Judaica -- will dedicate a $100-million expansion and renovation project Sunday and unveil its new look to the public on Monday.
[...]
Beyond providing more room for the 500,000-piece collection and better accommodations for the public, the project enhances the museum’s original design by Israeli Modernist architect Alfred Mansfeld and associate Dora Gad, which had been compromised over time.
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Transforming Trash Into Treasure // Drawing Out Potential
By Kate Singleton
Revelations are about removing layers and perceiving the value of what is underneath. Though this sounds somewhat elevated, the circumstances surrounding the experience itself are often simple enough. Costanza Algranti’s seminal revelation came about in 1993, when she was chipping old plasterwork off the wall of a farmhouse she was restoring outside her hometown of Livorno, on the Tuscan coast.
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U2 Announce Return to the Stage // Homemade Video
By Rolling Stone
In late May, the biggest rock tour in history hit a speed bump: Bono underwent emergency back surgery in Munich for a compressed sciatic nerve that forced U2 to postpone the summer leg of their mammoth 360° Tour and cancel their headlining spot at Glastonbury. After nearly two months, the band has broken its silence in a homemade video shot by drummer Larry Mullen Jr., in which all four bandmembers give fans the good news: Bono is healthy, the band is in the studio, and U2 will be back in American stadiums in the summer of 2011.
Keep reading...
Also, here's a video of a live performance of "Where the Streets Have No Name," prefaced by a snippet of "Amazing Grace":
Ongoing at Duke // Shared Origins: An Adoptive Family's Journey Back to Ethiopia
July 19–September 3, 2010
Porch and University Galleries
Reception: Tuesday, August 3, 5-8 p.m.
See photographs from this exhibition
Lory Mills is the parent of two children adopted from Ethiopia. She and her partner, Sonya, adopted their first child, Zoe, as an infant, and later they adopted two-year-old Tsehaye. For Lory, the trip to Ethiopia was first about helping Zoe and Tsehaye find a connection with their birth country and culture. Her dream is to find an ongoing connection with Ethiopia for herself and her children.
More info
‘Mad Men’: A Conversation About the New Season // WSJ's Speakeasy
Full article here // Excerpt below
By Walter Dellinger
The Wall Street Journal asked law professor and Supreme Court advocate Walter Dellinger to assemble a group of scholars to comment each week on the fourth season of “Mad Men.” Dellinger, on leave from Duke Law School, is a partner at O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C.
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Sound & Spirit Sees Its Last Broadcast // Ellen Kushner's Farewell
Full article here // Excerpt belowThe week of 6/27/2010 sees the final public radio broadcast of Sound & Spirit. The show will continue to live here online, though, with past programs archived for on-demand listening! (We regret that we cannot offer podcasts, due to music rights issues.) Thanks for tuning in for the last 14 years, and please stay in touch. Ellen's farewell thoughts are posted on her personal blog.
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R.E.M. Finish New Album in Berlin // Set for 2011 Release
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Daniel Kreps
R.E.M. have completed recording their 15th studio album with producer Jacknife Lee at Berlin, Germany's Hansa Studios and will mix the disc in the fall. The band have penciled in a spring 2011 release date for the follow-up to 2008's Accelerate, and while Michael Stipe and Co. haven't offered up much in terms of details about their new LP, "postcards" from the studio posted on their official website have given fans the impression that recording in Berlin has influenced the band's latest work.
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When Discourse Has the Upper Hand Over Art // The 21st Century
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Souren Melkian
Future historians peering at the outcome of art sales this year may conclude that the early 21st century was the time when abstract notions took precedence over visual perception.
That trend came out strongly in Sotheby’s auction of Impressionist and Modern art on Tuesday. In earlier days, the offerings, which were mostly modest, would have been greeted with commensurately modest prices. The 35 lots that found takers could never have added up to £112 million, about $167 million, not even in a market as bullish as it was this week.
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A Contract With God // Adapting Eisner for the Big Screen
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy George Gene Gustines
One of the seminal works of Will Eisner, the comic book writer and artist, is headed for the big screen. “A Contract with God,” a graphic novel composed of four interlocking stories set in the tenements of the Bronx during the Depression, will be written and produced by Darren Dean.
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Turn Off the Dark // ‘Spider-Man’ Rehearsals to Start (Finally)
By Patrick Healy
Julie Taymor’s musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” looks increasingly like a go for Broadway. After a year of uncertainty about the fate of the $50-million extravaganza, a spokesman for the show said on Wednesday that Ms. Taymor and the full cast were scheduled to begin rehearsals on Aug. 16.
Keep reading...
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts // From Spirituality to Hospitality
Our Mission
We are Christians called to minister through our creative gifts to foster worship which makes disciples of Jesus Christ.
We Value
Worship Arts that lead to spirituality and faith formation.
Relationships that lead to hospitality, fellowship and nurture.
We Are...
Musicians, clergy, dancers, artists, lay ministers, and others, all involved in creating, supporting and implementing worship in local congregations.
An affiliate of The United Methodist General Board of Discipleship and serves as a resourcing organization to its members.
An open fellowship that provides training on all aspects of worship through its events and publications.
__________
In June, FUMMWA hosted the Music and Worship Arts Week at Lake Junaluska, NC. Their website has all kinds of resources, from their Worship Arts publication to an annual Lectionary Guide and more. How did I not know about this? This is awesome! -- Sarah
August 11 at Duke // Feminists of Faith: A Celebration
Please join us for an afternoon honoring women of faith who have contributed their papers to the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture. The Bingham Center has a variety of materials which document women's religious experiences and activities, particularly personal spiritual struggles and women's involvement in Protestant religious organizations. During this program we will celebrate the contributions of Diane Weddington, Bett Hargrave, Bertha "B" Holt, Tibbie Roberts, Nancy Peeler Keppel, and the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. Light refreshments will be served. This program is sponsored by the Sallie Bingham Center and the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. When: August 11, 2010, 3:00 pm
Where: Biddle Rare Book Room, Perkins Library
A Revival of Rural Craft, With a Modern Twist // The Raw Material of Clay
By Alice Rawsthorn
Seeing villagers digging up clay and turning it into pots in Peru persuaded the Dutch designers Nadine Sterk and Lonny van Ryswyck to do the same in Europe. They planned to collect clay from several countries to show how it changes from place to place, but once they started digging in the Dutch countryside, they were astonished by what they found.
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Jazz and Classical Meet to Learn and Improvise // Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute
Improvisation, a fundamental quality of jazz, is by nature a risky business. The act usually involves a confrontation between two perspectives — that of a composer and that of a performer or performers — with the goal of achieving a combination informed and enriched by both perspectives. At its idealistic peak, as in recent large-ensemble works by the composer and bandleader Anthony Braxton, improvisation can represent a vision of collaborative democracy.
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Japanese Village Creates Art From Hues of Rice // Inakadate's Artistic Rice Paddies
Full article here // Excerpt belowNearly two decades ago, Koichi Hanada, a clerk in the village hall, received an unusual request from his superior: find a way to bring tourists to this small community in rural northern Japan, which has rice paddies and apple orchards, but not much else.
Mr. Hanada, a taciturn but conscientious man, said he had spent months racking his brain. Then, one day he saw schoolchildren planting a rice paddy as a class project. They used two varieties of rice plants, one with dark purplish stalks and the other bright green ones. Then it struck him, why not plant the colored varieties in such a way as to form words and pictures?
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Sunday, July 25, 2010
Old Shows, Stripped Down So They Shine // Menier Chocolate Factory in London
Full article here // Excerpt belowTREVOR NUNN had a money problem. The director of such lavish musicals as “Cats” and “Les Misérables,” he wanted a particular dress — somber but frisky — for the leading lady in his latest show here, this summer’s revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Aspects of Love.” But Mr. Nunn was now working at the Menier Chocolate Factory, a 160-seat theater known for its scaled-down productions — including, in the case of “Aspects,” not a single dressmaker. So Mr. Nunn found himself asking David Babani, the Chocolate Factory’s 32-year-old artistic director, for extra money for shopping. Mr. Babani agreed, and soon the perfect dress, in an elegant grape-purple, was snapped up. On sale, for £85 ($130).
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MICD 25 Spotlight on Winston-Salem, North Carolina // The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County
Full article here // Excerpt below
The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County in North Carolina, incorporated in 1949, was the first locally established arts council in the country. Once of its goals is to make the city of Winston-Salem a “City of the Arts.” We spoke with Randall Tuttle, Chair of the Creative Corridors Coalition about Winston-Salem’s MICD 25 project.
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Adding to the Quality of Life // The Denver Art Museum
Full article here // Excerpt belowJohn Hickenlooper, mayor of Denver since 2003, has been using the arts to increase the city’s livability since he took office (and even before). In 2004, he participated in the NEA’s Mayors’ Institute on City Design, using the session to discuss the design of Denver’s Union Station Plaza with design and architecture professionals. Over the last seven years, he has championed arts-related projects, such as the opening of the Frederic C. Hamilton Building of the Denver Art Museum. In an excerpt from this week’s Art Works podcast, Hickenlooper discusses an innovative approach to supporting the arts in Denver.
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It Don't Mean a Thing // This Week's Art Works Podcast
Full article here // Excerpt belowThis week’s podcast continues our look at the nation’s capital, this time turning our attention to one of DC’s most famous sons, Duke Ellington. One of the country’s greatest composers and bandleaders, Ellington achieved national fame when his orchestra became the house band at Harlem’s Cotton Club in the 1920s. But before that Ellington had learned his art in the streets of DC. Listen to this week’s Art Works podcast to find out how.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
'Routes of Arabia' Exhibition at Louvre Is Startling // Never Before Seen Artifacts from Saudi Arabia
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Souren Melkian
The most novel show of the year is now on view at the Louvre. “Routes d’Arabie” (Roads of Arabia) sets off the viewer’s mind dreaming like none other.
The revelations to be found in hundreds of artifacts never before seen outside Saudi Arabia are startling.
Forget about Arabia as a land without figural representation. It was already there in the fourth millennium B.C. In a small village near Ha’il, three sandstone steles were dug up within the last four decades. The geometric stylization of one, a standing man with two straps across his chest and a long dagger with split blade, would have appealed to Western avant-garde sculptors of the 20th century.Keep reading...
‘Inception’ Marks the Return of Smart, Engaging Blockbusters // Film Review
Full article here // Excerpt below
By John P. Hanlon
In the United States, the highest grossing movie of 2008 was “The Dark Knight,” a movie with a strong story, fascinating characters and great visual effects. The highest grossing movie of 2009 was “Avatar,” a movie with great visual effects, weak characters and a forgettable story. There was a great difference between some of the biggest blockbusters of 2008 and the blockbusters of 2009.
Now, with a solid weekend at the box office and strong reviews, “Inception” (directed by Christopher Nolan, the director of “The Dark Knight”) might mark the beginning of a return to the smart special effects-laden blockbuster. “Inception” is a smart thriller that shows that highly-anticipated blockbuster movies can have great imaginative stories to go with their eye-opening effects.
When Hollywood Had A Song In Its Heart // Philip Furia's The Songs of Hollywood
Full article here // Excerpt belowFrom NPR's Fresh Air
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Furia says, songwriters who wrote for Broadway were celebrated far more often than their contemporaries in the film industry. On Broadway, he says, the songwriters were "central to the production right from the beginning." Their names were featured prominently on the marquee — think Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma or George and Ira Gershwin's Strike Up the Band.
More important: They were intimately involved with all stages of a production — working with the director, producers and choreographers to translate their visions to the stage.
"But in Hollywood, songwriters were just part of the whole production machine," says Furia, the coauthor (with wife Laurie Patterson) of The Songs of Hollywood, an account of how music in films has changed over the past 80 years.
Female Imams Blaze Trail Amid China's Muslims // From NPR's All Things Considered
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Louisa Lim
It is 5:50 in the morning, and dark shadows scurry through narrow alleys to the mosque, as the call to prayer echoes from a minaret in Kaifeng. This city in central China's Henan province has an Islamic enclave, where Muslims have lived for more than 1,000 years.
In an alleyway called Wangjia hutong, women go to their own mosque, where Yao Baoxia leads prayers. For 14 years, Yao has been a female imam, or ahong as they are called here, a word derived from Persian.
As she leads the service, Yao stands alongside the other women, not in front of them as a male imam would. But she says her role is the same as a male imam.
"The status is the same," Yao says confidently. "Men and women are equal here, maybe because we are a socialist country."
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Solomon's Temple in Brazil would put Christ the Redeemer in the shade // Huge Replica Planned for Sâo Paulo
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Tom Phillips
One of the world's largest and most controversial Pentecostal churches has been given permission to build a $200m (£130m) replica of Solomon's Temple in Brazil's economic capital, São Paulo.
The 10,000 capacity "mega-church", which is the brainchild of Brazil's Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, will also house a replica of the Ark of the Covenant and be built according to "biblical orientations".
__________
Here's a question many churches today need to answer: where is the line between being good steward of worship spaces/honoring God and falling into ostentation? -- Sarah
What Stories Do We Tell? // From Speaking of Faith Observed
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Pádraig Ó Tuama
Last year, while working with a primary school class here in Belfast, a child said:
“Pádraig, let me ask you a question. God loves us right?”
Avoiding the complexity of anthropomorphic projections of human experiences onto God, I answered, from the heart of me, with what I hope.
“Yes,” I said.
“And God made us all didn’t he?” she continued.
I avoided discussions of “made” and “He” and said:
“Yes.”
“Tell me this,” she said, “why did God make Protestants?”
When I asked her why she was asking me this, she said:
“Well, they hate us and they hate Him.”
I had been amused at the start. Now, I was not amused. I wondered what stories were educating this funny, witty, engaging, and lively child.
Keep reading...Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Chelsea Clinton Wedding // Can Mixed-Faith Marriages Work?
From Huffington Post
With Chelsea Clinton's July 31 wedding to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky fast approaching, the surrounding media frenzy has zeroed in on a particular point of interest: the fact that Mezvinsky is Jewish and Clinton Methodist.
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Geeks, Tweets and Bums on Seats // How Social Media Is Shaping the Arts in Australia
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Elissa Blake
Sitting in the back row during Bell Shakespeare's King Lear, 21-year-old Hannah Suarez is softly tapping her iPhone screen. She is a tech-savvy theatre lover logged into Twitter, quietly sharing her thoughts on Shakespeare's epic tale of power, love and betrayal with her friends and followers, one or two pithy sentences at a time. Every few minutes she taps out a tweet:
This is kind of like watching Underbelly especially the scene with Regan gouging out his eyes and the blinding light flashes #KingLear
Shake It // Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture
Full article here // Excerpt belowFrom Pop Theology
Heather Hendershot’s Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture is one of several recent books that provides an insightful analysis of evangelical Christians’ relationship with popular culture. Like her contemporary, Daniel Radosh, Hendershot also takes a sympathetic approach to the topic, recognizing that evangelicals make significant meaning out of their interactions with and consumption of popular culture, while also being highly critical of its theological and cultural shortcomings. Hendershot reveals that in this relationship both popular culture and evangelical Christianity are deeply affected by their interactions with one another.
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Rosanne Cash: Composed // A Candid and Moving Memoir from the Critically Acclaimed Singer and Songwriter
Full article here // Excerpt belowFor thirty years as a musician, Rosanne Cash has enjoyed both critical and commercial success, releasing a series of albums that are as notable for their lyrical intelligence as for their musical excellence.
Now, in her memoir, Cash writes compellingly about her upbringing in Southern California as the child of country legend Johnny Cash, and of her relationships with her mother and her famous stepmother, June Carter Cash.
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Frescoes Revamped at Ancient Roman Villa // From the NY Times' In Transit
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Elisabetta Povoledo
“A blinding vision.” That’s how the first century B.C. Roman architect and theoretician Vitruvius described the fresco technique popular during his time, and it’s an apt description for the newly revamped rooms of an ancient villa that is showcased at the Palazzo Massimo, part of the Roman National Museum.
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NASA: The Nerdiest Paparazzi // Images from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
Full article here // Excerpt belowWhen NASA scientist Dr. Peter Eisenhardt said, "There are brown dwarfs all around us," he wasn't making a paranoid reference to Snow White. He was talking about a type of star that, until very recently, is often too faint to see. Brown dwarfs are also called "failed stars" because they lack the energy to ignite like normal stars during the birth process. And, much like the paparazzi, NASA can't get enough of failed stars. That's why they built the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, affectionately called WISE.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010
What Amazes a Group of Disaster Doctors? // "Jesus, Thank You for Loving Us" Resounds in Port-au-Prince
Full audio here // Description below"As this NPR radio report has revealed, Haiti’s poor have demonstrated an amazing faith in Christ during the worst of this ordeal." Click the link above to hear this moving program that tells the story of hymn bursting out spontaneously in a hospital in a devastated part of Haiti.
The Father of Video Art // Nam June Paik's TV Garden
Full article here // Excerpt belowNo artist has had a greater influence in revealing the artistic potential lurking behind television's flickering facade than Nam June Paik. Commonly hailed as the father of video art, he has reshaped perceptions of the electronic image through a prodigious output of manipulated TV sets, live performances, global television broadcasts, single-channel videos, and video installations.
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The World as Our Studio // Dedicated to Socially Responsible Design Since 1993
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Ernest Beck
The website for Worldstudio, a New York-based design and marketing firm, proudly proclaims its dedication to promoting “lasting social and environmental changes” through design. Worldstudio, the site says, can help corporations “connect their marketing goals with strategies for corporate social responsibility.” Those core values are certainly part of the Worldstudio story, but social change isn’t the firm’s only business. Consider its logo and signage for a Mexican restaurant in Munich and packaging for a high-end tea company. The reality, says Worldstudio co-principal Mark Randall, is that these clients “pay part of the bills” in a multifaceted company whose client roster includes for-profit corporations, nonprofits and a nonprofit foundation dedicated to promoting social-change initiatives.
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What Does Amazon.com's Rosy eBook News Mean? // From LATimes' Jacket Copy
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Carolyn Kellogg
Authors Charlaine Harris, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, Nora Roberts and Stieg Larsson have each sold more than 500,000 ebooks for the Kindle, Amazon.com announced today.
This was just one piece of news in a very positive release today from the online bookseller about ebook sales for the Kindle, and sales of the Kindle itself.
"Even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books.”
Keep reading...Announcing MICD25 // ArtsQuest Receives Grant for New Center in Bethlehem, PA
ArtsQuest, a not-for-profit arts organization headquarted in Bethlehem, [PA], has received an MICD 25 grant to support continued development of SteelStacks, a new arts and culture campus on the site of the former Bethlehem Steel Plant. We spoke with ArtsQuests’s Julie Benjamin about how the arts are transforming that community.
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ReligionStyleBook // Reporting on Religion 2: A Stylebook on Journalism’s Best Beat
Reporting on Religion 2: A Stylebook on Journalism’s Best Beat is an easy-to-use, authoritative guide created for journalists who report on religion in the mainstream media. It includes entries on the major religions, denominations and religious organizations journalists often encounter; preferred spellings, capitalizations, some definitions and usage guidelines for religious terms; accurate titles for religious leaders in different traditions; selected pronunciation guides; entries on terms used in stories on current topics in the news, such as abortion and homosexuality; and entries on religion terms that are not included in The Associated Press Stylebook.
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Found in Translation // Word Archaeology
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Susan Carpenter Sims
I’m a research junkie and a word nerd. When I was in graduate school, I spent a year researching one of the earliest Old English poems, “The Dream of the Rood.” The project began as a lexical analysis for a linguistics class, and what I discovered was that many words had multiple senses — and the available translations didn’t emphasize this. I ended up doing my own translation of all 256 lines. It was immensely rewarding to unfold levels and layers of meaning this way.
I then began studying the Bible with a concordance and would spend whole afternoons looking up every word in one verse. I felt like I was digging up ancient treasure. Word archaeology.
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Zhang Huan’s Hope Tunnel Opens at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art // Visual Reflections on the Sichuan Earthquake
By All Art News
Zhang Huan is one of China’s best-known performance and conceptual artists. He is also known for his shocking and absurd photographs and images. For his solo show at the UCCA, Zhang Huan will exhibit remains of the train which crashed during the 5.12 Earthquake in Sichuan and stretch it over the whole Big Hall exhibition space.
“This exhibition is a way of showing the victims of the Sichuan earthquake that they haven’t been forgotten. It’s a curated social project, an artist and an institution working together to help solve a problem.
Images from the Field // The "New Normal" in the Gulf
I grew up in this diocese, and spent many summer days at Camp Beckwith - sailing, canoeing, and swimming in the waters of Weeks Bay, an ecologically sensitive estuary of Mobile Bay. It was a shock for me to see the lines of protective boom running down the shore here. Although it has been a common sight in the area this summer, somehow it seemed worse at Beckwith, where both children and adults of the Central Gulf Coast have come since the 1930's to spend time with each other and with God. This is our "new normal:" hoping and praying that places which have not yet been touched by oil will survive this disaster, mourning for those beloved places which have, and wondering if young people like our campers this week will know the same way of life and culture that we did.
"Crude Greed" by David Wilcox // Bluesy Tune Mourns BP Oil Spill
Monday, July 19, 2010
Faith in Action. Love in Person. // Carolina Cross Connection
Saturday, July 10, 2010
As China Seeks to Cultivate the Arts, the West is Ready // China’s Offering New Culture Venue to Its Citizens
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
On its opening night in May, the Guangzhou Opera House featured Puccini’s “Turandot,” directed by the Chinese filmmaker Chen Kaige, with Lorin Maazel conducting. The Swedish soprano Irene Theorin and the Canadian tenor Richard Margison sang the lead roles.
The Opera House, designed by Zaha Hadid, then was host to Ballet Preljocaj, a French dance company performing the contemporary “Snow White” with costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier.
That was followed with a concert by Michael Bolton, the American soft-rock singer.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Your Voices, Your Stories // Share with Speaking of Faith
Borders Crossed, Moved and Defied // Latin Alternative Music Conference
Full article here // Excerpt belowBy Jon Pareles
The words “border,” “frontier,” “frontera” (Spanish for border or frontier) and “barrera” (barrier) flashed on a video screen between images of a chain-link fence. It was the Central Park SummerStage concert on Wednesday night headlined by Nortec Collective Presents: Bostich and Fussible, who are electronica conceptualists from Tijuana.
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El Gringo Mariachi // Matthew 'Mateo' Stoneman
From American Public Media
Matthew Stoneman moved to Los Angeles with dreams of rock 'n' roll stardom. Instead he became a thief and landed in prison. To pass the time, he got a guitar and learned over a hundred classic songs, in Spanish, from the Mexican inmates. When he got out he became an unlikely troubadour, singing and playing for tips in the Latino restaurants around East L.A. Matthew’s red hair and sweet voice got him noticed, and he became a local celebrity. Then one day a reporter started digging a little too deep into his past. Matthew talks with Dick Gordon about discovering his true talent in prison, and how the truth set him free.
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Mateo's music is available on CDBaby.
Read this 2009 LA Times article to learn more about Matthew's story.
Gallery Launches Appeal to Secure First British Portrait of a Black African Muslim // The National Portrait Gallery
Full article here // Excerpt belowFrom All Art News
The National Portrait Gallery today launches, with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the Art Fund, an appeal to acquire for the nation the earliest known British oil painting of a freed slave, and the first portrait that honours a named African subject as an individual and an equal.
Never before seen in public, and currently on temporary display at the Gallery, this portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (c.1701-73) (known when he was in England as Job ben Solomon), shows the sitter painted in 1733 in his traditional dress wearing his copy of the Qur’an around his neck.