Bookmarks for June 7th through June 12th
These are my links for June 7th through June 12th: Class, power & ideology – – the illusion of control causes people to over-estimate the chances of them escaping the working class through their own efforts, and so under-estimate the importance of collective class action . – the in-group heterogeneity bias (which is the flipside [...]
Bookmarks for October 16th through October 22nd [del.icio.us]
![Bookmarks for October 16th through October 22nd [del.icio.us]](http://www.paulbailey.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/bear-in-griffith-park.-on-Flickr-Photo-Sharing1-150x150.jpg)
Bookmarks from October 16th through October 22nd:[del.icio.us]
- Space, movement and Rudy Perez — latimes.com -
“The Times cited Perez as “the conscience of Los Angeles dance.” That he continues choreographing is something of a minor miracle. Not only is the arts economy dire, but Perez also has been visually impaired for the last decade. Moving slowly and burdened with hazy vision at best, Perez says the work keeps him going. The Armory engagement is particularly meaningful, because it was there, in 1992, that the Center first presented “The Dance-Crazy Kid From New Jersey Meets Hofmannsthal.” clip “The site-specific concert is dedicated to Cunningham, who died in July at age 90. It features two works with original music by longtime collaborator Steve Moshier, performed live by the composer and his Liquid Skin Ensemble.”
- WitnessLA.com » Blog Archive » The Arrest of Alex Sanchez – Part 5: A Game Changer?- UPDATED -
“FIRST LET’S RECAP THE BACK STORY: Alex Sanchez is the El Salvadoran-born, former MS-13 gang member who transformed his life to become a nationally respected gang intervention leader. Sanchez founded and is the executive director of Homies Unidos, and has been praised in cities across the country as someone who has helped turn around the lives of many, many young men and women. Then this past June, Alex was arrested by the FBI as part of a federal racketeering indictment and accused of plotting the murder of another gang member among other charges. It was not that the Feds accused Sanchez of shooting anyone himself, or personally dealing in drugs and guns. Worse, the indictment maintained that Sanchez is a shot caller—AKA a leader—of a particular clique of MS-13 who ordered such things done. He was, said the Feds, leading a double life and had successfully pulled the moral and psychological wool over the eyes of his myriad friends, admirers and supporters…”
- Big teaching cuts this week at CSUF – College Life OC – OCRegister.com -
“Faculty at Cal State Fullerton will be on furlough Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week as part of a larger move by the California State University system to save hundreds of millions of dollars to help balance the state budget.” The furloughs will affect thousands of students and hundreds of professors and lecturers at Orange County’s largest university, and will be followed on Friday by a general furlough for management and staff workers who aren’t on the faculty.
- Là ci darem la mano- A Conversation October 18, 2009 -
“Joe: seems weird to me that the entire genre of classical music is being portrayed as this sort of backwards, insecure entity it seems to me that the person who wrote it comes from the point of view of an outsider me: yeah except she doesn’t, i mean she knows classical music pretty well Joe: I’ve learned from the school that musical taste is extremely personal and if there are overall “musical trends” it’s more a result of music that either appeals to everybody by being kind of soul-less or music that captures the thinking of a particular time period to me, the 21st century is tech-obsessed, and preoccupied with nostalgia and particularly reworking the classics so these musical trends don’t surprise me at all. They’re just a product of the times…” …. Joe: it’s not new me: but 1. none of these artists are new they’ve been around Joe: though to some it may be great… … me: there’s no angle on this article that makes me care. none of the content or position is interesting”
- The Random Band Game – ConceptArt.org Forums -
This is incredibly fun and addicting… 1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 – Go to “Random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.
- LA Eastside » Target’s humorous “illegal alien” costume -
‘Dear Target, What’s up with this “Illegal Alien” costume? I don’t get why a corporation that boasts about giving back to the community (can’t say I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the ¡Bienvenido Dudamel! concert a few weeks ago) and celebrates Nuestra Gente would sell such a despicable costume. (I know not all undocumented immigrants are Latino, but we do make up a plurality of the population.) Is it to make a buck? Is that enough to alienate (no pun intended) undocumented immigrants, their allies and our dollars? Couldn’t you make a buck by not selling “humorous costumes” that demean and make light of the situation faced by many undocumented immigrants and advance dehumanizing language? Is it humorous that thousands die trying to cross the US/Mexico border? Between 1998-2004 1,954 migrants died on the perilous journey north source). Since 2004, the Arizona Star Border Death Database has recorded 1,193 deaths at the border. Funny, no? ¡Chistoso!”
- Artists Paid-Spotify -
“I love Spotify as much as the next music fan, but its struggle to extract value is in danger of becoming a spectacle. To consumers it’s a miracle, to the industry it’s a problem to be solved. The strategy looks right – drive a developing ad-products business as much as possible, while trying to upscale users to a pay model for a better experience. It has to be the test case and I would strongly argue, deserves all the help it can get from its music partners. We need to begin to realise though, Spotify’s potential. It has the potential to generate revenues equivalent to a large niche, while at the same time eating further into CD revenues. This is the future music market – fragmentation into a number of niches.”
Bookmarks for October 2nd through October 8th [del.icio.us]
![Bookmarks for October 2nd through October 8th [del.icio.us]](http://www.paulbailey.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/bnkm1-150x150.jpg)
Bookmarks from October 2nd through October 8th:[del.icio.us]
- (Glen) Beck Tries to Kill Parody Website : Dispatches from the Culture Wars -
“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Did Glenn Beck Rape and Murder a Young Girl in 1990 website, but it’s fairly amusing. It’s a political satire of the style of argument Glenn Beck likes to engage in, which involves requiring that someone prove a negative (“prove you didn’t do X”) and making claims in the form of an interrogative (“Hey, I’m just asking questions here. I’m not saying he did this. What’s wrong with asking questions?”). Well now Beck is trying to kill the site by making a formal complaint (PDF) to an international internet governing body, the World Intellectual Property Organization. He wants the domain name taken away from the person who registered it…”
- Manifesto (this one’s for you, Lindemann) « Là ci darem la mano -
I, Maura, aka mlaffs on twitter, “so white I glow,” do hearby declare my intent: Firstly, that classical music is awesome. In fact, it’s so great that we should all take Alex Ross’ suggestion and start calling it “Awesome Music.” After all, “classical” is an arbitrary label, has negative connotations, and isn’t very sexy. Second, that my friends are the best. I was shocked and flattered by the overwhelmingly positive response when I suggested that I might want to start a blog. I can’t believe that people actually want to hear what I have to say! I’m just a mousy little second-year employee at a regional orchestra that likes to whine. Third, that strawberries are the best snack ever. I am going to start buying them more frequently. Actually, I’m going to start eating more fruits & veggies in general. I am so much more focused and energetic this afternoon than usual. Love it. …”
- David Cross: An Open Letter to Larry the Cable Guy -
“…Okay, here’s what I said in the RS interview: “He’s good at what he does. It’s a lot of anti-gay, racist humor – - which people like in America – all couched in ‘I’m telling it like it is.’ He’s in the right place at the right time for that gee-shucks, proud-to-be-a-redneck, I’m-just-a-straight-shooter-multimillionaire-in-cutoff-flannel, selling-ring tones-act. That’s where we are as a nation now. We’re in a state of vague American values and anti-intellectual pride.”
- Will California become America’s first failed state? | World news | The Observer
“Few places embody the collapse of California as graphically as the city of Riverside. Dubbed “The Inland Empire”, it is an area in the southern part of the state where the desert has been conquered by mile upon mile of housing developments, strip malls and four-lane freeways. The tidal wave of foreclosures and repossessions that burst the state’s vastly inflated property bubble first washed ashore here. “We’ve been hit hard by foreclosures. You can see it everywhere,” says political scientist Shaun Bowler, who has lived in California for 20 years after moving here from his native England. The impact of the crisis ranges from boarded-up homes to abandoned swimming pools that have become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Bowler’s sister, visiting from England, was recently taken to hospital suffering from an infected insect bite from such a pool. “You could say she was a victim of the foreclosure crisis, too,” he jokes.”
- Dudamel’s press briefing – The Arts Blog – OCRegister.com -
“Dudamel was charming throughout, and genuine. I’m not cynical. The hype surrounding him may be hard to take at times, but he’s good, and appears to have his head on straight. His music directorship is going to be marked by his efforts to take classical music to the people, to the regular guy, but I don’t sense that he equates that with cheapening the product in any way. Just making it available to more folks. The phrase “creative use of digital platforms” was uttered, though not by him… …Underneath the hubbub, there are plenty of naysayers, atheists if you will. They give looks to each other, roll their eyes, just to show they’re not chumps. It doesn’t matter. It’ll all come out in the wash. The music’s the thing and we’re about to get to that”
comfort zone
if i said its been a tough year it probably wouldn’t be quite exact. i guess its more accurate to say it feels like its been a tough year. the biggest problem with working in higher education and the economy going to crap is that you feel pretty good about having a job for about 4 months until you have to start worrying if you have any work the next semester. i actually worked (and made more) more money teaching college than i ever had, but unfortunately there is no guarantee that i’ll have any classes in the fall.
its not been a bad year, i really enjoyed teaching quite a few new classes; a music pedagogy class for general ed elementary teachers and music appreciation (through southwest college) for charter high school students. both classes exposed me to the non self-selecting music students for the first time in my teaching career and i loved it. in both classes besides focusing on the traditional lecture materials we sang songs, played games and learned a variety of instruments.
although the increased workload of teaching new classes kept me extremely busy i was really happy to do something outside of my comfort zone. as bad as the economy is right now fall 09 is looking better. i still will probably have some work at csuf (although they are expecting to cut an additional $29 million), and my charter HS is exploring creative ways to get me back in the fall by setting up their arts electives through a different community college.
it all could still go to shit (like it did at the end of last summer) but right now i’d choosing to see the future with the glass half full.
