To what extent does pop culture reflect our society's values?
web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/socialsignificance.htm
www.globaldarkness.com/articles/true_meaning_of_hip_hop_bambaata.htm
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James McBride
(born September 11, 1957) is an American writer and musician. He is the recipient of the 2013 National Book Award for fiction for his novel The Good Lord Bird. James was raised in Brooklyn's Red Hook housing projects and was the last child Ruth had from her first marriage, the last child of Rev. Andrew McBride, and the eighth of 12 children.
His memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (1995), describes his family history and his relationship with his mother.
Two of his older brothers, Dennis and Billy, graduated with doctorates in medicine, but that did not appeal to James McBride. He earned an undergraduate degree in music composition from Oberlin College in 1979, after which he earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. As a journalist, McBride worked on the staffs of many well-known publications, including The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, the Wilmington News Journal, and People magazine. Additionally, he has written pieces for Rolling Stone magazine, Us magazine, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence magazine, The New York Times, and others. McBride is a charter member of the Clint Harding Network, a group of well-known journalists, writers, and musicians who periodically have appeared live on a Missouri radio program for the last two decades. McBride is currently a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at New York University.
His memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (1995), describes his family history and his relationship with his mother.
Two of his older brothers, Dennis and Billy, graduated with doctorates in medicine, but that did not appeal to James McBride. He earned an undergraduate degree in music composition from Oberlin College in 1979, after which he earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. As a journalist, McBride worked on the staffs of many well-known publications, including The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, the Wilmington News Journal, and People magazine. Additionally, he has written pieces for Rolling Stone magazine, Us magazine, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence magazine, The New York Times, and others. McBride is a charter member of the Clint Harding Network, a group of well-known journalists, writers, and musicians who periodically have appeared live on a Missouri radio program for the last two decades. McBride is currently a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at New York University.
Hip Hop Planet
ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/04/hip-hop-planet/mcbride-text
www.npr.org/2020/02/29/810052791/james-mcbrides-advice-for-new-writers-a-simple-story-is-the-best-story
www.brookings.edu/articles/understanding-urban-riots-in-france/
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".
Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. After an apprenticeship with a printer, Twain worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to the newspaper of his older brother, Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. In 1865, his humorous story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published, based on a story he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought international attention, and was even translated into classic Greek. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
Though Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he invested in ventures that lost a great deal of money, notably the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter, which failed because of its complexity and imprecision. In the wake of these financial setbacks, he filed for protection from his creditors via bankruptcy, and with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers eventually overcame his financial troubles. Twain chose to pay all his pre-bankruptcy creditors in full, though he had no legal responsibility to do so.
Twain was born shortly after a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it", too. He died the day after the comet returned. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".
Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. After an apprenticeship with a printer, Twain worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to the newspaper of his older brother, Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. In 1865, his humorous story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published, based on a story he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought international attention, and was even translated into classic Greek. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
Though Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he invested in ventures that lost a great deal of money, notably the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter, which failed because of its complexity and imprecision. In the wake of these financial setbacks, he filed for protection from his creditors via bankruptcy, and with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers eventually overcame his financial troubles. Twain chose to pay all his pre-bankruptcy creditors in full, though he had no legal responsibility to do so.
Twain was born shortly after a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it", too. He died the day after the comet returned. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".
Corn-Pone Opinions
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Ray Bradbury
(/ˈbrædˌbɛri/; August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. He worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, and mystery fiction.Predominantly known for writing the iconic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), and his science-fiction and horror-story collections, The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and I Sing the Body Electric (1969), Bradbury was one of the most celebrated 20th- and 21st-century American writers. While most of his best known work is in fantasy fiction, he also wrote in other genres, such as the coming-of-age novel Dandelion Wine (1957) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992).
Recipient of numerous awards, including a 2007 Pulitzer Citation, Bradbury also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted to comic book, television, and film formats.
Upon his death in 2012, The New York Times called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Bradbury cited H. G. Wells and Jules Verne as his primary science-fiction influences. Bradbury identified with Verne, saying, "He believes the human being is in a strange situation in a very strange world, and he believes that we can triumph by behaving morally". Bradbury admitted that he stopped reading science-fiction books in his 20s and embraced a broad field of literature that included Alexander Pope and poet John Donne. Bradbury had just graduated from high school when he met Robert Heinlein, then 31 years old. Bradbury recalled, "He was well known, and he wrote humanistic science fiction, which influenced me to dare to be human instead of mechanical."Bradbury claimed a wide variety of influences, and described discussions he might have with his favorite poets and writers Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, and Thomas Wolfe. From Steinbeck, he said he learned "how to write objectively and yet insert all of the insights without too much extra comment". He studied Eudora Welty for her "remarkable ability to give you atmosphere, character, and motion in a single line". Bradbury's favorite writers growing up included Katherine Anne Porter, who wrote about the American South, Edith Wharton, and Jessamyn West.
Bradbury was once described as a "Midwest surrealist" and is often labeled a science-fiction writer, which he described as "the art of the possible." Bradbury resisted that categorization, however:
First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see? That's the reason it's going to be around a long time—because it's a Greek myth, and myths have staying power.
Bradbury recounted when he came into his own as a writer, the afternoon he wrote a short story about his first encounter with death. When he was a boy, he met a young girl at the beach and she went out into the water and never came back. Years later, as he wrote about it, tears flowed from him. He recognized he had taken the leap from emulating the many writers he admired to connecting with his voice as a writer.
When later asked about the lyrical power of his prose, Bradbury replied, "From reading so much poetry every day of my life. My favorite writers have been those who've said things well." He is quoted, "If you're reluctant to weep, you won't live a full and complete life."
Recipient of numerous awards, including a 2007 Pulitzer Citation, Bradbury also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted to comic book, television, and film formats.
Upon his death in 2012, The New York Times called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Bradbury cited H. G. Wells and Jules Verne as his primary science-fiction influences. Bradbury identified with Verne, saying, "He believes the human being is in a strange situation in a very strange world, and he believes that we can triumph by behaving morally". Bradbury admitted that he stopped reading science-fiction books in his 20s and embraced a broad field of literature that included Alexander Pope and poet John Donne. Bradbury had just graduated from high school when he met Robert Heinlein, then 31 years old. Bradbury recalled, "He was well known, and he wrote humanistic science fiction, which influenced me to dare to be human instead of mechanical."Bradbury claimed a wide variety of influences, and described discussions he might have with his favorite poets and writers Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, and Thomas Wolfe. From Steinbeck, he said he learned "how to write objectively and yet insert all of the insights without too much extra comment". He studied Eudora Welty for her "remarkable ability to give you atmosphere, character, and motion in a single line". Bradbury's favorite writers growing up included Katherine Anne Porter, who wrote about the American South, Edith Wharton, and Jessamyn West.
Bradbury was once described as a "Midwest surrealist" and is often labeled a science-fiction writer, which he described as "the art of the possible." Bradbury resisted that categorization, however:
First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see? That's the reason it's going to be around a long time—because it's a Greek myth, and myths have staying power.
Bradbury recounted when he came into his own as a writer, the afternoon he wrote a short story about his first encounter with death. When he was a boy, he met a young girl at the beach and she went out into the water and never came back. Years later, as he wrote about it, tears flowed from him. He recognized he had taken the leap from emulating the many writers he admired to connecting with his voice as a writer.
When later asked about the lyrical power of his prose, Bradbury replied, "From reading so much poetry every day of my life. My favorite writers have been those who've said things well." He is quoted, "If you're reluctant to weep, you won't live a full and complete life."
The Affluence of Despair
www.wsj.com/articles/SB891548443286311500
karalycke.weebly.com/uploads/9/1/3/9/91393338/bradburt_affluence_of_despair.pdf
Scott McCloud
(born Scott McLeod on June 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist and comics theorist. He is best known for his non-fiction books about comics, Understanding Comics (1993), Reinventing Comics (2000), and Making Comics (2006). McCloud was born in 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts, and spent most of his childhood in Lexington, Massachusetts. He decided he wanted to be a comics artist in 1975, during his junior year in high school.
Syracuse University's Illustration program was closest to his career goals. He selected that school and major, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1982.
McCloud was the principal author of the Creator's Bill of Rights, a 1988 document with the stated aim of protecting the rights of comic book creators and help aid against the exploitation of comic artists and writers by corporate work-for-hire practices. The group that adopted the Bill also included artists Kevin Eastman, Dave Sim, and Stephen R. Bissette. The Bill included twelve rights such as "The right to full ownership of what we fully create," and "The right to prompt payment of a fair and equitable share of profits derived from all of our creative work."
Syracuse University's Illustration program was closest to his career goals. He selected that school and major, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1982.
McCloud was the principal author of the Creator's Bill of Rights, a 1988 document with the stated aim of protecting the rights of comic book creators and help aid against the exploitation of comic artists and writers by corporate work-for-hire practices. The group that adopted the Bill also included artists Kevin Eastman, Dave Sim, and Stephen R. Bissette. The Bill included twelve rights such as "The right to full ownership of what we fully create," and "The right to prompt payment of a fair and equitable share of profits derived from all of our creative work."
from Show and Tell
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David Denby
(born 1943) is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine. Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B. A. from Columbia University in 1965, and a master's degree from its journalism school in 1966.
Denby's Great Books (1996) is a non-fiction account of the Western canon-oriented Core Curriculum at his alma mater, Columbia University. Denby reenrolled after three decades, and the book operates as a kind of double portrait, as well as a sort of great-thinkers brush-up. In The New York Times, the writer Joyce Carol Oates called the book "a lively adventure of the mind," filled with "unqualified enthusiasm." Great Books was a New York Times bestseller. In The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th century, Peter Watson called "Great Books" the "most original response to the culture wars." The book has been published in 13 foreign editions.
In 2004, Denby published American Sucker, a memoir which details his investment misadventures in the dot-com stock market bubble, along with his own bust years as a divorcé from writer Cathleen Schine, leading to a major reassessment of his life. Allan Sloan in the New York Times called the author "formidably smart," while noting this paradox: "Mr. Denby is even smart enough to realize how paradoxical it is that he not only has a good, prestigious job, but that he is also in a position to make money by relating how he lost money in the stock market."
Snark, Denby's book from 2009, is a polemical dissection of the spread of low, annihilating sarcasm in the Internet and in public speech. In 2012, Denby collected his best film writing in Do the Movies Have a Future?
Denby's next book, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-Four Books That Can Change Lives. was released in February 2016.
Denby's Great Books (1996) is a non-fiction account of the Western canon-oriented Core Curriculum at his alma mater, Columbia University. Denby reenrolled after three decades, and the book operates as a kind of double portrait, as well as a sort of great-thinkers brush-up. In The New York Times, the writer Joyce Carol Oates called the book "a lively adventure of the mind," filled with "unqualified enthusiasm." Great Books was a New York Times bestseller. In The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th century, Peter Watson called "Great Books" the "most original response to the culture wars." The book has been published in 13 foreign editions.
In 2004, Denby published American Sucker, a memoir which details his investment misadventures in the dot-com stock market bubble, along with his own bust years as a divorcé from writer Cathleen Schine, leading to a major reassessment of his life. Allan Sloan in the New York Times called the author "formidably smart," while noting this paradox: "Mr. Denby is even smart enough to realize how paradoxical it is that he not only has a good, prestigious job, but that he is also in a position to make money by relating how he lost money in the stock market."
Snark, Denby's book from 2009, is a polemical dissection of the spread of low, annihilating sarcasm in the Internet and in public speech. In 2012, Denby collected his best film writing in Do the Movies Have a Future?
Denby's next book, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-Four Books That Can Change Lives. was released in February 2016.
High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies
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Emily Nussbaum
(born February 20, 1966)[citation needed] is an American television critic. She serves as the television critic for The New Yorker. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
She went on to get a master's degree in poetry from New York University and started a doctoral program in literature, but decided not to pursue teaching. After living in Providence, Rhode Island, and Atlanta, Georgia, Nussbaum started her early career writing reviews of TV shows following her infatuation with the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and posting at the website Television Without Pity. She began writing for Lingua Franca and served as editor-in-chief of Nerve. She also wrote for Slate and The New York Times.
Nussbaum then worked at New York magazine, where she was the creator of the "Approval Matrix" feature and wrote about culture and television. She was at New York for seven years and was the culture editor.
In 2011, she became the television critic at The New Yorker, taking over from Nancy Franklin. She won a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary in 2014 and the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2016.
She went on to get a master's degree in poetry from New York University and started a doctoral program in literature, but decided not to pursue teaching. After living in Providence, Rhode Island, and Atlanta, Georgia, Nussbaum started her early career writing reviews of TV shows following her infatuation with the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and posting at the website Television Without Pity. She began writing for Lingua Franca and served as editor-in-chief of Nerve. She also wrote for Slate and The New York Times.
Nussbaum then worked at New York magazine, where she was the creator of the "Approval Matrix" feature and wrote about culture and television. She was at New York for seven years and was the culture editor.
In 2011, she became the television critic at The New Yorker, taking over from Nancy Franklin. She won a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary in 2014 and the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2016.
The Price is Right: What Advertising Does to TV
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/12/the-price-is-right-emily-nussbaum
Troy Patterson
Troy Patterson is Slate’s writer at large and a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine.
How the Motorcycle Jacket Lost Its Cool and Found It Again
www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/magazine/how-the-motorcycle-jacket-lost-its-cool-and-found-it-again.html
Hua Hsu
is an Asian-American writer and academic. He is a tenured associate professor of English and director of American Studies at Vassar College and staff writer at The New Yorker. His work includes investigations of immigrant culture in the United States, as well as public perceptions of diversity and multiculturalism. He is the author of A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific.Hsu is a tenured associate professor of English and director of American Studies at Vassar College and contributor to The New Yorker. His work includes investigations of immigrant culture in the United States, as well as public perceptions of diversity and multiculturalism. Other research work and interests include studies of literary history and arts criticism.
Hsu has been a fellow at New America, a public policy think tank and a contributor to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, and The Wire. He is a board member of the Asian American Writers' Workshop. His book, A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific, was published in June 2016 by Harvard University Press.
In 2017, Hsu became a staff writer at The New Yorker.
Hsu has been a fellow at New America, a public policy think tank and a contributor to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, and The Wire. He is a board member of the Asian American Writers' Workshop. His book, A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific, was published in June 2016 by Harvard University Press.
In 2017, Hsu became a staff writer at The New Yorker.
How to Listen to Music
www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-to-listen-to-music
Angelica Jade Bastien
Angelica Jade Bastién is a Chicago based critic and essayist. She’s written for the New York Times, Vulture, The Atlantic, and The Village Voice.
Have Superheroes Killed the Movie Star?
www.laweekly.com/have-superheroes-killed-the-movie-star/
Mark Greif
Greif received a BA in History and Literature from Harvard in 1997, after which he received a Marshall Scholarship, which he used to study British Literature and 19th and 20th century American Literature at Oxford through 1999. He holds a PhD in American studies from Yale.
In the fall of 2004, along with fellow writers and editors Keith Gessen, Chad Harbach, Benjamin Kunkel, and Marco Roth, Greif launched the literary journal n + 1. Greif has served as both an editor and writer for the journal, contributing essays on a wide variety of topics: politics, sociology, Radiohead. In 2010, he described the journal's mission: “We are creating a long print archive in an era of the short sound bite.”
Greif's criticism is marked by a willingness to address pop culture, conservative books, and leftist academic critical theory, and to link these to literature and larger questions of culture.
In the fall of 2004, along with fellow writers and editors Keith Gessen, Chad Harbach, Benjamin Kunkel, and Marco Roth, Greif launched the literary journal n + 1. Greif has served as both an editor and writer for the journal, contributing essays on a wide variety of topics: politics, sociology, Radiohead. In 2010, he described the journal's mission: “We are creating a long print archive in an era of the short sound bite.”
Greif's criticism is marked by a willingness to address pop culture, conservative books, and leftist academic critical theory, and to link these to literature and larger questions of culture.
Get Off the Treadmill: The Art of Living Well in the Age of Plenty
www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/23/how-to-live-well-in-age-of-plenty
Justin Peters
is a Slate correspondent and the author of The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet.
The Ballad of Balloon Boy
Bob Dylan
(born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, and visual artist who has been a major figure in popular culture for more than fifty years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights movement and anti-war movement. His lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defied pop-music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture.Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which mainly comprised traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the following year. The album featured "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall." For many of these songs, he adapted the tunes and phraseology of older folk songs. He went on to release the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan encountered controversy when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966). The six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965) has been described as challenging and transforming the "artistic conventions of its time, for all time."[3]
In July 1966, Dylan withdrew from touring after being injured in a motorcycle accident. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had previously backed him on tour. These recordings were released as the collaborative album The Basement Tapes in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes in John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969), and New Morning (1970). In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks, which many saw as a return to form. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s. The major works of his later career include Time Out of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001), Modern Times (2006) and Tempest (2012). His most recent recordings have comprised versions of traditional American standards, especially songs recorded by Frank Sinatra. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour.
Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. He has sold more than 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has also received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize Board in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
In July 1966, Dylan withdrew from touring after being injured in a motorcycle accident. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had previously backed him on tour. These recordings were released as the collaborative album The Basement Tapes in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes in John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969), and New Morning (1970). In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks, which many saw as a return to form. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s. The major works of his later career include Time Out of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001), Modern Times (2006) and Tempest (2012). His most recent recordings have comprised versions of traditional American standards, especially songs recorded by Frank Sinatra. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour.
Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. He has sold more than 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has also received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize Board in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
Nobel Prize Banquet Speech
www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/11/bob-dylan-nobel-prize-i-never-considered-whether-i-was-producing-literature
Robin Givhan
(September 11, 1964) is the fashion editor for The Washington Post. She left The Washington Post in 2010 to become the fashion critic and fashion correspondent for The Daily Beast and Newsweek. She returned to the Post in 2014. She won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the first such time for a fashion writer. The Pulitzer Committee explained its rationale by noting Givhan's "witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism."
The native of Detroit, Michigan was valedictorian at Renaissance High School in 1982, graduated from Princeton University in 1986, and holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After working for the Detroit Free Press for about seven years, she held positions at the San Francisco Chronicle and Vogue magazine. She has been employed on and off with The Washington Post for more than 10 years.
She moved from New York City to Washington, D.C. in 2009 where her fashion beat was expanded to also cover First Lady Michelle Obama.
Givhan appeared as a guest on The Colbert Report in January 2006.
Givhan generated an uproar on July 20, 2007, when she penned a Washington Post opinion piece that drew attention to an outfit worn by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during her July 18 speech on the Senate floor. Givhan said Sen. Clinton's slightly V-shaped neckline was "unnerving" and "startling," especially for a woman "who has been so publicly ambivalent about style, image and the burdens of both." She added, "[I]t was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!
Givhan has made a reputation for being blunt. In an interview on writers who cover the fashion industry, Givhan told CBS News, "There are a lot of people who sort of say that something is good or important or progressive or edgy when in fact, it's just crappy. And no one will just say it's crappy," Givhan states bluntly." She added, "I'll also say when I think something is absolutely magnificent."
Commenting on a heavy, dark-green parka worn by Vice President Dick Cheney at a ceremony in 2005 commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Givhan wrote, "It's the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.... Here he was wearing something that visually didn't symbolize to me the level of solemnity and respect that I thought a service like this demanded... He was representing the American people. I don't want to be represented by someone in, you know, a parka who looks like he's at a Green Bay Packer game."
She also slammed the attire worn by the wife and young children of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts during his swearing in as Supreme Court Chief Justice, saying they resembled "a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of jelly bellies, three little Necco wafers."
In August 2009, she criticized First Lady Michelle Obama for wearing shorts while on a family vacation. "Avoiding the appearance of queenly behavior is politically wise. But it does American culture no favors if a first lady tries so hard to be average that she winds up looking common," wrote Givhan on the subject of the first lady's attire. Givhan continued her criticism in the January 3, 2010 Washington Post, complaining the First Lady lacked "focus" in her advocacy.
In 2013, Robin Givhan was inducted into the University of Michigan's Detroiter Hall of Fame. Givhan's upcoming book about The Battle of Versailles Fashion Show, tentatively titled One Night at Versailles is due to be released in late 2014 or early 2015. She has also contributed to a number of books, including captions for photographer Lucian Perkins's book Runway Madness and a commemorative book entitled Michelle: Her First Year as First Lady.
Givhan will publish The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History in 2015 from Flatiron Books.
The native of Detroit, Michigan was valedictorian at Renaissance High School in 1982, graduated from Princeton University in 1986, and holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After working for the Detroit Free Press for about seven years, she held positions at the San Francisco Chronicle and Vogue magazine. She has been employed on and off with The Washington Post for more than 10 years.
She moved from New York City to Washington, D.C. in 2009 where her fashion beat was expanded to also cover First Lady Michelle Obama.
Givhan appeared as a guest on The Colbert Report in January 2006.
Givhan generated an uproar on July 20, 2007, when she penned a Washington Post opinion piece that drew attention to an outfit worn by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during her July 18 speech on the Senate floor. Givhan said Sen. Clinton's slightly V-shaped neckline was "unnerving" and "startling," especially for a woman "who has been so publicly ambivalent about style, image and the burdens of both." She added, "[I]t was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!
Givhan has made a reputation for being blunt. In an interview on writers who cover the fashion industry, Givhan told CBS News, "There are a lot of people who sort of say that something is good or important or progressive or edgy when in fact, it's just crappy. And no one will just say it's crappy," Givhan states bluntly." She added, "I'll also say when I think something is absolutely magnificent."
Commenting on a heavy, dark-green parka worn by Vice President Dick Cheney at a ceremony in 2005 commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Givhan wrote, "It's the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.... Here he was wearing something that visually didn't symbolize to me the level of solemnity and respect that I thought a service like this demanded... He was representing the American people. I don't want to be represented by someone in, you know, a parka who looks like he's at a Green Bay Packer game."
She also slammed the attire worn by the wife and young children of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts during his swearing in as Supreme Court Chief Justice, saying they resembled "a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of jelly bellies, three little Necco wafers."
In August 2009, she criticized First Lady Michelle Obama for wearing shorts while on a family vacation. "Avoiding the appearance of queenly behavior is politically wise. But it does American culture no favors if a first lady tries so hard to be average that she winds up looking common," wrote Givhan on the subject of the first lady's attire. Givhan continued her criticism in the January 3, 2010 Washington Post, complaining the First Lady lacked "focus" in her advocacy.
In 2013, Robin Givhan was inducted into the University of Michigan's Detroiter Hall of Fame. Givhan's upcoming book about The Battle of Versailles Fashion Show, tentatively titled One Night at Versailles is due to be released in late 2014 or early 2015. She has also contributed to a number of books, including captions for photographer Lucian Perkins's book Runway Madness and a commemorative book entitled Michelle: Her First Year as First Lady.
Givhan will publish The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History in 2015 from Flatiron Books.
An Image a Little Too Carefully Coordinated
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/21/AR2005072102347.html
www.pulitzer.org/winners/robin-givhan
Steven Johnson
(born June 6, 1968) is an American popular science author and media theorist. Johnson grew up in Washington, D.C., where he attended St. Albans School. He completed his undergraduate degree at Brown University, where he studied semiotics, a part of the school's modern culture and media department. He also has a graduate degree from Columbia University in English literature.
In 1997, Harvey Blume reviewed Johnson's first book, Interface Culture, and called it "a rewarding read -- stimulating, iconoclastic, and strikingly original."
The A.V. Club said in a review of Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, "It's a good argument made in great detail, mapped out with lists and charts of decision-affecting contingencies and intricate narrative structures. But how necessary it is remains debatable, especially once Everything Bad settles into simply restating its already convincing premise."
Johnson's book Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software was a finalist for the 2002 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. His Where Good Ideas Come From was a finalist for the 800CEORead award for best business book of 2010, and was ranked as one of the year's best books by The Economist. His book The Ghost Map was one of the ten best nonfiction books of 2006 according to Entertainment Weekly, and was runner up for the National Academies Communication Award in 2006. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He was the 2009 Hearst new media professional-in-residence at Columbia Journalism School, and served for several years[when?] as a distinguished writer in residence at New York University's Journalism School. He won a Newhouse School Mirror Award for his 2009 TIME magazine cover article "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live." He has appeared on television programs such as The Colbert Report, The Charlie Rose Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
In 1997, Harvey Blume reviewed Johnson's first book, Interface Culture, and called it "a rewarding read -- stimulating, iconoclastic, and strikingly original."
The A.V. Club said in a review of Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, "It's a good argument made in great detail, mapped out with lists and charts of decision-affecting contingencies and intricate narrative structures. But how necessary it is remains debatable, especially once Everything Bad settles into simply restating its already convincing premise."
Johnson's book Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software was a finalist for the 2002 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. His Where Good Ideas Come From was a finalist for the 800CEORead award for best business book of 2010, and was ranked as one of the year's best books by The Economist. His book The Ghost Map was one of the ten best nonfiction books of 2006 according to Entertainment Weekly, and was runner up for the National Academies Communication Award in 2006. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He was the 2009 Hearst new media professional-in-residence at Columbia Journalism School, and served for several years[when?] as a distinguished writer in residence at New York University's Journalism School. He won a Newhouse School Mirror Award for his 2009 TIME magazine cover article "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live." He has appeared on television programs such as The Colbert Report, The Charlie Rose Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
stevenberlinjohnson.com/
Watching TV Makes You Smarter
www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/watching-tv-makes-you-smarter.html?_r=0
harris-celebrity-bodies.pdf | |
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Chuck Klosterman
(born June 5, 1972) is an American author and essayist who has written books and essays focused on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times Magazine. Klosterman is the author of nine books, including two novels and the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto.
Klosterman was born in Breckenridge, Minnesota, the youngest of seven children of Florence and William Klosterman. He is of German and Polish descent. He grew up on a farm in nearby Wyndmere, North Dakota, and was raised Roman Catholic. He graduated from Wyndmere High School in 1990 and from the University of North Dakota in 1994.
After college, Klosterman was a journalist in Fargo, North Dakota, and later an arts critic for the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, before moving to New York City in 2002.
Klosterman was a senior writer for Spin and wrote a column titled "My Back Pages" (formerly "Rant and Roll Over" and "### Words from Chuck Klosterman"). He has written for GQ, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, The Guardian, and The Washington Post.
Klosterman participated in an e-mail exchange on ESPN's Page 2 with writer Bill Simmons in August 2004. In September 2005, Simmons interviewed him in his "Curious Guy" segment. Though initially recognized for his rock writing, Klosterman has written extensively about sports and began contributing articles to Page 2 on November 8, 2005. The ESPN site featured his week-long blog from Super Bowl XL in early 2006, and a weekend-long blog covering his experience at the 2007 Final Four.
In 2008, Klosterman spent the summer as the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.
In 2009, Klosterman married journalist Melissa Maerz.
In 2011, Klosterman joined Grantland, a now defunct sports and pop culture web site, which was conceived and led by former ESPN employee and founder of the web site The Ringer, Bill Simmons. Klosterman was a consulting editor.
He also appeared in the first three episodes of the Adult Swim web feature Carl's Stone Cold Lock of the Century of the Week, discussing the year's football games as an animated version of himself and trying (unsuccessfully) to plug his book as Carl cuts him off each time. He vanished after the third episode, with Carl giving the explanation of "He had to go do a book tour and also he didn't like how I kept calling him 'pencilneck'".
In 2012, Klosterman appeared in the documentary film Shut Up and Play the Hits, as the interviewer for an extended interview with the film's subject, LCD Soundsystem leader James Murphy that is featured throughout the film.
In 2015, Klosterman appeared on episodes 6 and 7 of the 1st season of IFC show, Documentary Now! as a music critic for the fictional band "The Blue Jean Committee."
His ninth book, titled But What If We're Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past, was published June 7, 2016. It visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear in the future to those who will perceive it as the distant past.
Klosterman was born in Breckenridge, Minnesota, the youngest of seven children of Florence and William Klosterman. He is of German and Polish descent. He grew up on a farm in nearby Wyndmere, North Dakota, and was raised Roman Catholic. He graduated from Wyndmere High School in 1990 and from the University of North Dakota in 1994.
After college, Klosterman was a journalist in Fargo, North Dakota, and later an arts critic for the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, before moving to New York City in 2002.
Klosterman was a senior writer for Spin and wrote a column titled "My Back Pages" (formerly "Rant and Roll Over" and "### Words from Chuck Klosterman"). He has written for GQ, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, The Guardian, and The Washington Post.
Klosterman participated in an e-mail exchange on ESPN's Page 2 with writer Bill Simmons in August 2004. In September 2005, Simmons interviewed him in his "Curious Guy" segment. Though initially recognized for his rock writing, Klosterman has written extensively about sports and began contributing articles to Page 2 on November 8, 2005. The ESPN site featured his week-long blog from Super Bowl XL in early 2006, and a weekend-long blog covering his experience at the 2007 Final Four.
In 2008, Klosterman spent the summer as the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.
In 2009, Klosterman married journalist Melissa Maerz.
In 2011, Klosterman joined Grantland, a now defunct sports and pop culture web site, which was conceived and led by former ESPN employee and founder of the web site The Ringer, Bill Simmons. Klosterman was a consulting editor.
He also appeared in the first three episodes of the Adult Swim web feature Carl's Stone Cold Lock of the Century of the Week, discussing the year's football games as an animated version of himself and trying (unsuccessfully) to plug his book as Carl cuts him off each time. He vanished after the third episode, with Carl giving the explanation of "He had to go do a book tour and also he didn't like how I kept calling him 'pencilneck'".
In 2012, Klosterman appeared in the documentary film Shut Up and Play the Hits, as the interviewer for an extended interview with the film's subject, LCD Soundsystem leader James Murphy that is featured throughout the film.
In 2015, Klosterman appeared on episodes 6 and 7 of the 1st season of IFC show, Documentary Now! as a music critic for the fictional band "The Blue Jean Committee."
His ninth book, titled But What If We're Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past, was published June 7, 2016. It visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear in the future to those who will perceive it as the distant past.
My Zombie, Myself
www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/arts/television/05zombies.html?mtrref=www.bing.com&gwh=14AF83D5A55091F5E4B7386D6D788158&gwt=pay&assetType=REGIWALL
VISUAL TEXTS
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was the most successful portrait painter of his era, as well as a gifted landscape painter and watercolorist. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy to American parents.
Sargent studied in Italy and Germany, and then in Paris under Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran.
Sargent studied with Carolus-Duran, whose influence would be pivotal, from 1874-1878. Carolus-Duran's atelier was progressive, dispensing with the traditional academic approach which required careful drawing and underpainting, in favor of the alla prima method of working directly on the canvas with a loaded brush, derived from Diego Velázquez. It was an approach which relied on the proper placement of tones of paint.
Click the link below for a greater biography.
www.johnsingersargent.org/biography.html
Portrait of Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children
Andy Warhol
(born Andrew Warhola; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist, director and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertising that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental film Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67). Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a commercial illustrator. After exhibiting his work in several galleries in the late 1950s, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist. His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons. He promoted a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with coining the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." In the late 1960s, he managed and produced the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founded Interview magazine. He authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. He is also notable as a gay man who lived openly as such before the gay liberation movement. After a gallbladder surgery in 1987, Warhol died in February of that year at the age of 58.
Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$105 million for a 1963 canvas titled "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)"; his works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.[2] A 2009 article in The Economist described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market"
Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$105 million for a 1963 canvas titled "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)"; his works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.[2] A 2009 article in The Economist described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market"
Myths
CONVERSATION
The Value of Celebrity Activism
1. C. Wright Mills/from The Power Elite
2. Dave Gilson/Dr. Clooney, I Presume? (illustration)
3. Brad Knickerbocker/West Memphis Three: Internet Campaign, Hollywood Drove Their Release
4. Andrea Jiminez/Why Celebrity Activism Does More Harm Than Good
5. Jeffrey Kluger/Jim Carrey, Please Shut Up about Vaccines
6. Georgia Cole, Ben Radley, and Jean-Benoit Felisse/Who Really Benefits from Celebrity Activism?
7. Joshua Ostroff/ Beyonce and Why Celebrity Activists Matter
8. Jay Caspian Kang/ Should Athletes Stick to Sports?
C. Wright Mills
(28 August 1916 – 20 March 1962) was an American sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills was published widely in popular and intellectual journals. He is remembered for several books, such as The Power Elite, which introduced that term and describes the relationships and class alliances among the US political, military, and economic elites; White Collar: The American Middle Classes, on the American middle class; and The Sociological Imagination, which presents a model of analysis for the interdependence of subjective experiences within a person's biography, the general social structure, and historical development.Mills was concerned with the responsibilities of intellectuals in post–World War II society, and he advocated public and political engagement over disinterested observation. Mills's biographer, Daniel Geary, writes that Mills's writings had a "particularly significant impact on New Left social movements of the 1960s era."[15] It was Mills who popularized the term New Left in the US in a 1960 open letter, "Letter to the New Left".[16]
1. From The Power Elite
The Power Elite is a 1956 book by sociologist C. Wright Mills, in which Mills calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggests that the ordinary citizen is a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those entities.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Elite
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Elite