David Porter » Archive
Old Codes and Symbols Reinvented Through Modern Technologies
New technologies mean most old ways of doing things end in museums. However, some flourish with fresh applications and vital restyling for modern times. Technology for playing music has long been digital, consigning records (singles spinning on a turntable at 45 revolutions per minute, or long-players at 33 rpm) to history. Cameras with film developed in dark-rooms are by-gone curiosities. However, many people enjoy old film processes, including black/white, and prefer background crackles from scratched records. While the retro-nostalgia market is alive and many things are naturally recycled in music, film and the arts, others are absorbed into Now. Post Codes and ZIP Codes Have Modern Applications British Postal districts were named in London and large cities from 1857, refined in 1917 to include numbered subdivisions, extended in 1934 and incorporated into the UK … Read entire article »
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Folk East
Folk East at The Cut, Halesworth Review published in East Anglian Daily Times, 2 Sept 2011 A dry run for a major folk festival during next year’s August Bank Holiday, Halesworth’s Cut presented acts from the wide range of contemporary folk music during this year’s holiday. The final night started with Bridget Cousins, accomplished on celtic harp, followed by Horses Brawl, a talented pair of versatile craftsmen-musicians, taking fragments from medieval to Swedish. Mike Heron was co-founder of The Incredible String Band, and he brought a new ensemble which included his daughter Georgia, with new songs and a couple of ISB classics from the 1960s, ‘The Tree’ and ‘A Very Cellular Song’. He doesn’t look his 69 years, and his still-inventive music interpreted by talented young performers brought the era and the culture flooding back. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Reviews
The Arts, Science and Technology Fuse Together for Mutual Benefit
Normally thought to co-exist in splendid isolation, science and the arts can work with technology in perfect harmony to push artistic boundaries. The arts have always been at the forefront of technological and scientific advances, from the latest in cave paints to computerised/digital film making/theatrical effects that cause some to wonder if real human actors will be needed at all in the future. Technology in the Arts explores the intersection between arts management and on-line technology. Many universities run joint department programs, conscious of the synergy between arts & sciences. When Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact There is a growing genre of stories and movies that started out as far-fetched ideas, but gradually found reality as science advanced. HG Wells’ 1898 story War of the Worlds doesn’t seem impossible today. While life may … Read entire article »
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National and International Days, Weeks, Years Around the World
The UN designates special days, weeks and years to celebrate something or somebody, or raise awareness about a cause. They’re not alone. Others cash in too. The United Nations designates dates ‘to draw attention to major issues and encourage international action to address concerns of global importance and ramifications’. For financial reasons and to avoid ‘trivialization’, they don’t name every year or day, but when other organisations do it too, their impact may be diluted. UN ‘Years’ Since 1959 First, was 1959/60, World Refugee Year; 1965 was International Cooperation Year; 1967, Tourism and 1968, chiming with the political zeitgeist, International Year for Human Rights. Then followed 1970 with Education; 1971, Action to Combat Racism & Racial Discrimination; 1974, Population; 1975, Women; 1978, Anti-Apartheid; 1979 was Year of the Child; 1981, Disabled Persons. 1982 … Read entire article »
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Signs, Omens, Superstitions and Old Wives’ Tales
They’re part of the cultural fabric of folk memory, but do good luck charms and a myriad of superstitions actually make any difference to what happens? Most people know about touching wood (UK) or knocking on wood (US), not walking under ladders, not letting two people pour from the same teapot at the same meal for fear of the second one ’having ginger twins’ . Many heed the old adage, ‘be careful what you wish for…’ In other words, what people want could be disastrous. The Romans invented ‘superstition’ as credulous belief, not based on reason. Early Christians dismissed anything outside their views as the tales of silly old pagan women. In violent times of uncertain acts of nature, disease and the … Read entire article »
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A List of List-Makers & the Columns to Which They Are Addicted
Lists of things, people, places, memories, preferences come in all shapes and sizes. That’s why list-formators may be emotionally balanced. Or not. In Hamlet, Shakespeare mentioned: ‘a list of landlesse resolutes’. In the Coots/Gillespie song, ‘Santa Claus is making a list/and checking it twice/gonna find out who’s naughty and nice’. Some psychiatrists believe the making of lists relieves stress and gives some sense of purpose. The media is obsessed with A-list and B-list celebrities. Lists on social networking sites have become commonplace. The list is here to stay. Linton Weeks, writing on NPR sets out a list of 10 reasons why people love writing lists. They range from bringing order to chaos, aid to memory, they are finite and making them can … Read entire article »
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Bob Dylan and The Movies: His Songs and His Acting
Poet, singer, songwriter, musician, painter, actor: there is no limit to what Bob Dylan brings to the world through his creativity and originality. Bob Dylan is no stranger to screen, whether concert recordings or documentaries. He has helped make and participated in movies, using his music and his many-times reinvented persona. Documentaries About the Man According to Internet Movie Database (IMDb), D A Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back (1967), famous for opening with Subterranean Homesick Blues word cards, was a portrait of the artist as a young man, following Dylan round a three week British tour two years earlier. Among others, Joan Baez and British troubadour Donovan are featured. IMDb also rate Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005) as a portrait of an artist as a young man. Using interviews cut with archival … Read entire article »
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Post-Democracy and Post-Modernism: What Comes Next?
With widespread disillusion in the west about politics & politicians, local & national democracy, tax & spend, is the end in sight for the current system? ‘Post-democracy’ has come in the past decade to describe governance which subscribes to democratic rule, but where power and application have become progressively limited, concentrated in the hands of elite government officials, police, civil servants, bankers or media-brokers, most of whom are indifferent to public opinion, determine their own salaries and pensions and are separated from those they ‘serve’. Different Commentators, Varied Views British commentator, Peter Oborne, believes current political disenchantment is a postmodern design of agendas and programmes that deny ‘independent reality, where truth gives way to mere credibility, a narrative is created for events and claims of acting in good faith within rules that allow … Read entire article »
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Humour In the Most Unlikely Places Can Be the Funniest of All
Intentional or not, there is comedy where people least expect it, and that can be lucrative in the arts, business or just keeping everybody’s spirits up. Man is inventive, creative and enjoys humour. Even the Bible is full of humorous devices like irony, puns, wordplays and sarcasm. From the office joker, to the stand up comedian, the circus clown to government directive that’s laughably unbelievable, people find something to laugh about in almost every circumstance. Humour in Enterprise Finding and creating a comical business enterprise can sell. Special occasion cards, wind-up and prank calls and messages, role-playing at parties – these have all been successful business ventures. Geoff Williams from Loveland, Ohio is one of a number of writers pointing out the financial benefits for companies … Read entire article »
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The Bible as an Unexpected Source of Humour
Comedy, parody, sarcasm, wordplays, puns, irony are not the first Bible elements that spring to mind as literary devices, but they’re all there, and more. According to Practical Dreamers Drop-In Centre‘s Evan R Lewis ‘checks scriptures for jocular materials’ making connections, noting what was funny 3000 years ago, may not seem such today. He argues comic texts must be fictitious, not sober historical reporting, containing surprise or shock that make a point beyond expected ridiculous, irrational or exaggerated behaviour, which is the essence of basic comedy. Jonah is a prime candidate, he argues: it’s parody, funny because here is a prophet behaving in an un-prophet like way telling God what God should have done. Old Testament Sarcasm, Derisive Amusement Friedman’s and Stern’s … Read entire article »
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