He Rise Fall and Rise Again of Privoters the Independent Review Aledander Tabarrok Spring 2007
New Life for 1 Brooklyn Church building
Rainwater, snow and current of air swept through the broken stained glass windows at Rugged Cantankerous Baptist Church for years. Plaster on the walls crumbled, exposing some of the wooden beams that held upwardly the almost 100-year-old construction.
Church interior being restored
"When we moved here it was cute, but equally the years went by, it deteriorated," explains parishioner Maggie Daughtry, who joined the congregation in 1982.
But now, the church, which sits just off the corner of Lafayette Artery and Patchen Avenue in Brooklyn, is undergoing some major changes.
With public funding and help from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the religious establishment is existence restored as part of the conservancy'south Sacred Sites programme, which aims to restore houses of worship beyond New York Country.
Birds nests previously occupied this area.
The not-turn a profit grouping learned of the crumbling church building when, six years ago, the church's pastor, Rev. Emma Knox chosen for help.
"They called our preservation hotline considering they had an chantry window with a crucifix and the upper half of Jesus was literally failing out of the building," recalls Ann Friedman, director of the Conservancy's Sacred Sites program.
Leaks in the church building's ceiling were damaging its original gas calorie-free fixtures and a statuary lectern, Friedman explains.
After visiting the site, the Landmarks Conservancy awarded the church a $lxx,000 grant for its restoration.
Altar area still undergoing restoration
The outside has now been restored, but Mohamed Patwary, the contractor in charge of the restoration, says he and his 11 workers take a calendar month of work left to do on the interior, including plastering and painting the ceiling.
"But Jesus is back in the building," Friedman says.
By July, services now held in a carpeted room with metal chairs in the basement, volition return to their rightful, calorie-free-filled space.
Posted in Art Tagged contour
Hamilton's New York Domicile Wins Preservation Laurels
Alexander Hamilton, ane of America's founding fathers, fabricated a home in Harlem in 1802. And just this past year, his residence was relocated and restored as a national memorial known every bit Hamilton Grange.
Photo Courtesy NPS.gov
"It serves equally a fitting tribute to the builder of our national government," says Shirley McKinney, superintendent of Hamilton Grange.
And it's a tribute deemed fit enough for the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Honour from the New York Landmarks Conservancy as well. The site received the award at the conservancy's annual awards ceremony held last month at the New York Historical Society.
"The home is a beloved part of the community and we take heard from many of our neighbors and visitors how impressed they are with the quality of the restoration," McKinney says.
Photograph Courtesy NPS.gov
Before its restoration began, the dwelling house was actually moved from 287 Convent Avenue at 141st Street in Manhattan ii blocks overto the northwest corner of St. Nicholas Park at 141st Street. In June of 2008, restoration began, but while it was opened to the public again final fall, the grange is still being improved.
Simply recently, the dwelling added replicas of the dining room chairs that Alexander Hamilton actually owned, according to McKinney.
Later this year, Hamilton Grange will add together an audio tour and interactive exhibit every bit well.
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Landmarks Salvation President Aims to Restore Ellis Island
A descendent of Irish citizens who suffered through famine, Peg Breen, a New Yorker, understands how Ellis Island offered hope to new immigrants and opened a door to health, wealth and opportunity. She still gets teary-eyed when she visits, she says.
Peg Breen (correct) with engineer Robert Silman. Courtesy: nylandmarks.org
Breen is the president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, just also serves on the board of Save Ellis Island, a nonprofit grouping devoted to restoring structures and celebrating the historical value of the island. Well-nigh ane in ten Americans has a family fellow member who passed through Ellis Island, Breen notes.
And the Landmarks Conservancy, nether Breen'due south advisement, has been doing its role to give the island landmark its proper respect.
The grouping has funded building stabilization projects on the island and is working to turn an abandoned hospital in that location into a place of reflection, where visitors can stand in the place where a sick immigrant once stood, hoping to be healthy enough to gain entry to America, Breen explains.
"I think we were instrumental in telling the story and getting those buildings to where they are now," Breen says.
Save Ellis Island has been in talks with the National Parks Service to become more than funding to restore structures on the Isle.
Courtesy: Ellis Isle National Monument
"It's been admittedly somewhat frustrating with this group to work out an agreement with the National Park Service," says Breen. Ruby-red record from concerns about public-individual partnerships funding the Ellis Island restoration are preventing full parks service support, and therefore adequate authorities funding.
"I think it'due south an island we should be proud of and it deserves respect," Breen says.
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Is Traditional Picture Criticism On The Verge Of Extinction?
There was a time in which film criticism really mattered. On the 1950's, It mattered to the indicate that a bunch of French critics were capable of irresolute the future of movie theatre forever. Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer, Chabrol… they all started reviewing films for Cahiers du Cinéma before directing movies. Their theories about the function of the director and the importance of the mise en scène in a movie contributed to alter people's perception towards the medium: cinema was no longer just an entertainment, it was an art grade.
Nowadays, movie critics don't seem so relevant. Or at least they seem to have lost their touch with the general public. A film like The Hangover Office 2 scored 44 percent on Metacritic and 35 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and all the same made $85 1000000 on the box part in its starting time calendar week. Those two sites compile the reviews of the nigh prominent critics from all over the country. On the other hand, a site which only compiles fan votes like imdb.com, rewards the same movie with a vii out of 10.
From a professional person point of view, critics are not living through their all-time period either. On 2006, Sean P. Ways, flick critic for The Salt Lake Tribune, began compiling on his blog a listing of colleagues that have lost their jobs in print outlets all over the state. By the time of his terminal entry, on May 2009, just a month before the official end of the recession, he had on record 55 American picture show critics that ceased holding their positions in between that 3 year period for various reasons.
Since then, more film critics have been losing their jobs. The nearly notable probably is Todd McCarthy, who was fired last twelvemonth from Variety after 31 years working for it as chief movie critic. The magazine, which has the honor of publishing the first movie review in history in 1907, decided to cut costs and move on to freelance reviews instead.
All these arguments point towards one question: Is there a future for traditional film criticism? I decided to give a voice to three moving-picture show critics from three different print outlets and let them attempt and answer it.
Lisa Kennedy (Denver Post)
Amy Biancolli (Houston Chronicle, member of the Houston Film Critic Society)
James Verniere (Boston Herald, member of the Boston Order of Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics)
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Think You lot Know How To Trip the light fantastic? You're Probably Wrong (Update)
I changed the blueprint of the quiz to make it a little more animated. I likewise reworded some of the questions to brand them a piffling more understandable. I likewise added two more than sources to the blog postal service so information technology talks a footling more virtually copyright in dance.
Photo courtesy of purpleslog
Go to any Sugariness Sixteen, Bar Mitzvah or wedding ceremony this summertime and you'll undoubtedly get a chance to do the Electric Slide or the Hokey Pokey or The Craven Trip the light fantastic. But exist careful you lot don't miss any steps or Richard Silvery will be subsequently you lot.
In 2007, Silver, the creator of the Electric Slide, cracked down on those doing the dance wrong. He said at that place were thousands of videos online of people doing the incorrect version of the Electrical Slide. He owned the copyright to the dance and had been writing web sites, threatening to sue if the missteps were not removed.
Though information technology seems a little farfetched that you could sue someone for doing a dance wrong, according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Human activity rights-holders can complain to services like YouTube that content uploaded by users infringes their copyrights.
Nigh people are aware that they are doing something illegal when they upload a pirated movie, but accept no thought they could be forced to take down a video of their family unit. But possibly fifty-fifty more than importantly, a lot of these people don't realize they're doing these dances wrong.
"Ballet is very specific, merely something like the Electric Slide doesn't seem like it should be," Desiree Duarte, a one-time Broadway dancer, said. "When you're dancing at a political party you shouldn't be worried about counting your steps."
Duarte, who now teaches trip the light fantastic toe at Art House Astoria in Queens, admits every bit a choreographer it can exist frustrating, especially when choreographers get trivial credit for the dances they create.
Just like a work of art, a work of dance performed by a trip the light fantastic company tin can be copyrighted, only dances performed by a single person such as The Robot, which Silver also claims to have created, as of at present cannot be copyrighted.
In an commodity by Julie Van Camp, she explains that the definition of a "choreographic work" has never conspicuously been defined by the Federal Copyright Law of 1976 making information technology hard for choreographers to know whether their works qualify. Currently the definition the courts uphold excludes purely social and recreational dances like those you perform at a family gathering. Silver's Electric Slide is an exception since information technology was originally performed by a company of dancers for a nightclub opening.
On Feb 16, 2011, the Electric Slide was legally claimed by Ric Silvery under the seal of Copyright Function. Though he is now receiving compensation for anyone wanting to use his dance, he withal spends his time correcting those doing his dance incorrect. Tina Williams, owner and director of Precise Dance Studio in Woodside Queens stands behind what he is trying to do. As a dancer with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company she took pride in the works that were created and how they were created.
"These works didn't come from thin air, someone worked to make them just right," she says.
Though Williams admits she doesn't actually know how many steps are in the Electric Slide (there are 22 full) she thinks it is important to stress the purity of these dances. "Someone worked hard to make these dances we know and honey," she says. "Now we just take to make sure they're doing them right."
How well do yous really know your favorite party dances? Accept the quiz and find out!
In the High- Depression Fence, Graffiti Art Once Once again in the Spotlight
Since the MOCA show is receiving so much attention, I decided that I would get together a scattering of manufactures that cover the history of graffiti and street art and discuss graffiti in the digital age.
'The History of American Graffiti': From Subway Car to Gallery'
In this installment of PBS Newshour, Roger Gastman and Caleb Neelon discuss their book, "The History of American Graffiti." They provide a historical context to the emergence of street art and reflect on the relocation of the art grade, from the street into the gallery. This is a quick and piece of cake introduction to how street art evolved into i of the hippest global movements of our time.
"'Taki 183' Spawns Pen Pals" At that place was no byline for this July 21, 1971 article that is commonly cited as the first contour written well-nigh a graffiti creative person. In 1971, Taki 183 was a seventeen year old from Washington Heights who gained notoriety for scrawling his proper name and street number in bold marker just almost everywhere he went. The article calls out a handful of imitators, who just increased in number later this article'south publication. New York Times online subscribers can download the original article in pdf form here.
"Graffiti in its Ain Words"by Dimitri Ehrlich and Gregor Ehrlich forNew York Magazine . This article is fantastic because of its many chief sources. Folio one gives a cursory historical introduction. The post-obit pages are a fractional transcript of graffiti 'writers,' and writers, filmmakers and historians in conversation virtually the graffiti art motility. The conversation is formatted as a timeline, beginning in 1969 through 2006.
"Subway-style Graffiti's Shift to Canvas"
Ken Johnson'sNew York Timesreview of the Brooklyn Museum's show "Graffiti" besides gives a concise overview of graffiti's shift from "low" art to "high"art.
"High-Tech Graffiti: Spray Paint Is And then 20th Century" byGeeta Dayal, for the New York Times. Like every other branch of art and culture, graffiti also has been inverse by applied science. At the most basic level, the Internet has provided a forum for graffiti artists to showcase their work and exchange techniques. Withal, this article profiles Evan Roth and James Powderly creators of the Graffiti Research Lab, who began using digital technology not just to document street art, simply to create information technology. The duo creates images by launching "throwies" –magnetized battery powered L.E.D. lights– onto urban center walls, and past writing software used to project digital murals.
"Street Fine art Style Below the Street"by Jasper Rees for theNew York Times.
When a subculture becomes part of the mainstream, or worse, is picked up by consumer civilization, those who remain truthful to the class's underground roots attempt reclaim them past farther pushing the genre's original boundaries. In 2010, a group of graffiti artists attempted to reclaim the lost days of risk and adventure through the Underbelly Projection– a cloak-and-dagger "exhibition" of graffiti art in an undisclosed location, somewhere within the tunnels of the MTA.
Bonus: "Broken Windows"by George Fifty. Kelling and James Q. Wilson
This 1982 Atlantic article past criminologists Wilson and Kelling introduces the Cleaved Window Theory. The theory recommends maintaining well groomed streets, parks and buildings (i.due east. fixing cleaved windows, painting over graffiti) and cracking downwardly on petty street crime (such as panhandling and public drinking) to lower crime rates. It is ofttimes cited in arguments against graffiti and is useful background knowledge for those engaged in the fence near the virtues or detriments of street fine art.
Posted in Art
Music and Engineering: The Legitimacy of Sampling
Initially, artists who used sampling cruised under the radar because they weren't making copious amounts of money off of the works, but soon, some of these musicians starting seeing some serious financial returns. That'south when industry people started getting aroused and the lawsuits began to function in (think Danger Mouse).
I've complied a list of documentaries, articles, and websites that accost this tangle of technology, music, artistic license, and police. Curlicue through the links and try to make up your own determination. Is sampling a 21st century version of the "stealing" that musicians take been doing for centuries, or is it more complicated, less creatively legitimate, and more ethically unsafe.
- Good Re-create Bad Re-create: Here is a link to a full documentary that explores issues surrounding copyright and sampling. It'south a natural audio piece (at that place is no narration), and and so the interviewed musicians tell the story. Daughter Talk (Greg Gillis) plays a large curlicue in the piece. I was particularly interested in his arguments regarding the legality of his own music. Danger Mouse, creator of The Greyness Anthology, is also interviewed almost his EMI lawsuit.
- Zilch Yard Limited: Zero G Limited is a United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland visitor that offers hundreds of "original" sample CDs filled with breakbeats that artists can contain into their own music. You can experiment with the box in the upper left hand corner of the website to find specific types of breakbeats. I found information technology fascinating that Zero Thousand is able to stay in business by mass-producing only a few measures of music at a time. The situation begs for a dialogue regarding whether this is art or an electronic associates line of manufactured music.
- The History of the Amen Break: This mini documentary created in 2004 by artist and writer Nate Harrison, gave me the basis for my technology & music presentation. The video breaks down the importance of this 6 second intermission on American pop civilisation, beginning with the release of The Winstons' Unmarried Amen Brother, all the way upwards to NWA'south hitting Straight Out of Compton. Harrison is a scrap pessimistic in his view of how sampling volition ultimately fit into American culture (I'thousand meet the chance for a more positive outcome), but the video is detailed and clever. Information technology'due south a neat history lesson on the evolution of breakbeat.
- Amen Pause Database: I highlighted this website information technology my class presentation. It alphabetically lists many 20th and 21st century songs that incorporate the Amen Break. Information technology's illuminating to ringlet through the site and to encounter just how prevalent this one sample has go in American popular music.
- From Mozart to Hip-Hop: The Touch on of Bridgeport v Dimension Films: Lauren Fontein Brandes' wrote this thesis on digital sampling as a thesis while she was a law student at UCLA. The text is available on LexisNexis. The piece centers on the 2005 lawsuit of Bridgeport v Dimension Films—a case that ominously ruled that no samples (no matter how short) could be used in new productions. As well, the introduction is particularly interesting because she addresses the fact that musicians have been "borrowing" (or stealing) from i another for centuries and discusses whether or not modern twenty-four hour period sampling is really all that different.
- A New History of Jazz: In preparing for my presentation, I also checked out this book by Alyn Shipton. Shipton traces jazz music dorsum to its roots in West Africa. It was really cool to see how one genre of music tin abound into another. Again, similar Brandes' slice, information technology encourages thought regarding how different this "natural" process of musical influence is from the electronic procedure of digital sampling.
Posted in Culture, Music, Uncategorized
Nutrient Writing To Chew On
Cakes in Cuba
Food writing has been getting a lot of action this spring. Betwixt the James Beard honor's recognition of nutrient journalism and the Futurity of Food conference held by the Washington Mail, it's pretty articulate that writing about food culture has finally arrived to popular soapbox. But nutrient is however a actually touchy bailiwick for many Americans, and we all know that we don't like to be told what to swallow, fifty-fifty if information technology's good for u.s.. This listing is by no means exhaustive, especially since the torso of food writing has gotten quite robust over the by few years. These are pieces that have helped me retrieve about food writing, food culture and how the conversation is ebbing and flowing everyday:
- This article about Julia Childs by Micheal Pollan, seriously blew my mind when I read it a few summers ago. I don't think I thought near food similar this before I read this piece. It really caused me to think critically well-nigh the connections between popular culture and food and how the ii interlace with politics.
- All hail the almighty lobster! I came across this piece in researching my high and low presentation found information technology a really great breakdown of the crustaceans rising to the top. Unfortunately considering of the paywall you lot can't access this only here is the championship should yous desire to search it: "How lobster went up in the world" by Henderson, Mark (October 24, 2005). London: The Times.
- I used "Dining through the Decades" for a lot of my enquiry on the history of nutrient in the US in the twentythursday century. This slice does an exhaustive job going through the greatest hits in food and it'south evolution over the decades.
- "What Food Says about Class in America:" was also a slice I looked at non because I didn't already know what this piece was going to say, but because I wanted to know what people accept been reading in mainstream media. Information technology'south not all that nuanced in the manner it very simply breaks the conversation merely in that location are a lot of people that feel this way virtually the electric current food talk. Likewise the "10 things that changed the mode we eat" kind of obvious if yous know annihilation about food, but a skillful way to look at as a food writer.
- This piece: "Why beingness a foodie isn't elitist" came out the day afterwards I did my high and low presentation. Information technology always makes me pleased to find things in print that back up my theories, but it also made me realize that again, the conversation about food isn't only about what's for dinner. Nutrient for Americans are a fundamental part of identity, nourishment and for many a source of income.
Posted in Uncategorized
The Long Lasting Battle Against Online Movie Piracy
Two months ago, Chris Dodd, the newly appointed CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), dedicated his beginning speech since he took his seat to the dangers of online motion-picture show piracy, according to Jennifer Martinez of politico.com. Dodd called it the "single greatest threat" to the film manufacture and he added that the major function of his chore will exist "to passionately fight back, not only for an manufacture, merely more importantly for the people who brand their living in this industry."
Coincidentally or not, just a few weeks agone, an independent film visitor called Nu Image, backed past the U.South. Copyright Group, announced the biggest file-sharing lawsuit ever in the history of this country. More than than 23,000 IP addresses have been cited for illegally downloading past bit-torrent the Sylvester Stallone's movie "The Expendables". Co-ordinate to the Hollywood Reporter, a federal judge is allowing the plaintiff to subpoena Internet Service Providers to identify the customers behind each IP address.
Once identified, these customers will face legal action. In case you are worried you may be involved in this lawsuit, you can check if your Ip is beingness targeted using this tool provided past Wired. If you observe out that you lot are, check this faq provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to know what to exercise next.
What this would mean to the future of online film piracy is not nonetheless clear. As Ted Johnson from Multifariousness points out in his commodity "Peeving private pirates has its price," initiatives like the ane taken past Nu Image "has largely been abandoned by the major studios considering of the legal morass involved and because of the public-relations peril."
The large boxing against online piracy needs to be fought from Washington, politicians seem to call up. Democratic and Republican Senate Judiciary Committee leaders introduced last week a beak that aims to prosecute websites dedicated to the sale of counterfeit products, including movies and boob tube shows, Los Angeles Times reports. "This legislation volition protect the investment American companies make in developing brands and creating content and will protect the jobs associated with those investments," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D), who introduced the bill.
This bill, of class, has institute friends and foes on the Internet. Andrew Keen from the ArtLab blog pinpoints his views right on his headline "At that place's no excuse for digital piracy, thank you to online services like Netflix." Keener describes Leahy'south neb as a "adept start step". "Rather than going subsequently niggling old ladies "guilty" of shoplifting the odd song with ridiculously excessive fines, the act seeks to shutter businesses designed exclusively around the illegal distribution of intellectual content," he writes. Keener added that the $vii,99 a month deals for streaming movies offered by both Netflix and Hulu should exist enough statement to put an end to movie piracy once and for all.
Larry Downes from CNET wrote a story representing the other side with a headline that again says it all: "Leahy's Protect IP pecker fifty-fifty worse than COICA." In it, Downes basically compiles all the criticism the new bill has generated and besides explains in item its nearly controversial clauses. "Preemptively shuttering a Web site is certainly i way to curb illegal distribution of copyrighted materials and black market place goods, but many encounter information technology as a blunt musical instrument that could ban other, legal content on the site," writes Downes.
Posted in Uncategorized
The New Celebrity
Bryan Boy's recently signed with Hollywood "heavy weight" talent agency, CAA
It is no surprise that fashion bloggers have increased their trend prediction power, compared to their traditional magazine counterpart, mostly due to the rapid dissemination of information that is organic to reporting on line.
Ability players like Scott Schuman, aka, The Sartorialist, and Susie Bubble, founder of StyleBubble.com, or even the net'due south newest style-ista star, Bryan Boy, receive several thousands of hits per day, catapulting their fashion blogs to celebrity status.
In an attempt to harbor some celebrity status for their names, not simply their URLs, mode bloggers are at present turning to talent agencies to promote the writer behind the words.
MOD Idiot box's contempo report on Bryan Boy's signing with CAA Talent Agency showcases the powerful synergy betwixt blogger and brand ambassador like CAA, an agency that represents mainstream celebrities like Oprah, Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise.
Forbes' 2010 story nearly the Rising of the Fashion Blogger details the new establish fame and power online style trend writers have, including the ability to influence fashion designers.
Taking to the web, traditional magazine manner editor Jane Pratt makes her motility to the web. The New York Times Commodity shows how traditional fashion editors re-invent themselves in the digital age.
The Independent Fashion Bloggers website posted a video discussion about the ascension of the fashion blogger. The panel was divided on their views but 1 consensus is that the future of the celebrity blogger is a growing trend.
MYFDBlog posted the pressure level for famous fashion bloggers to stay famous. They must blog, blog weblog, all mean solar day long to stay on superlative.
Posted in Uncategorized
Source: http://nyccultureblog.journalism.cuny.edu/
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