CULTURE

Posts in "Culture"

Ecuador Legalizes Gangs as Cultural Associations, Murder Rate Plummets

Ecuador legalized gangs. Murder rates plummeted.

In Ecuador, the unprecedented decision to legalize gangs across the country was basically a decision to adopt the opposite attitude [to the USA] . The country allowed the gangs to remake themselves as cultural associations that could register with the government, which in turn allowed them to qualify for grants and benefit from social programming, just like everybody else.

This approach appealed to David Brotherton, a sociologist at the City University of New York who’s been arguing since the 1990s that US policy wrongly pathologizes gang members. So in 2017, a decade after Ecuador legalized gangs, he headed over there to conduct ethnographic research on major groups like the Latin Kings and Queens.

It turned out they’d undergone a stunning transformation. The members were still very active in their gangs, but these were functioning more like social movements or cultural groups. Previously violent Latin Kings were working in everything from catering to crime analysis. And they were collaborating with other gangs they’d warred with in the past.

 

A Salute to Every Frame a Painting: Watch All 28 Episodes of the Finely-Crafted (and Now Concluded) Video Essay Series on Cinema

Documentaries about film itself have existed for decades, but only with the advent of short-form internet video — preceded by the advents of powerful desktop editing software and high-quality home-video formats — did the form of the cinema video essay that we know today emerge. Over the past few years, the Youtube channel Every Frame a Painting has become one of the modern cinema video essay’s most respected purveyors, examining everything from how editors think to the bland music of superhero films to why Vancouver never plays itself to the signature technique of auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Jackie Chan, and, yes, Michael Bay.

Link: http://www.openculture.com/2017/12/a-salute-to-every-frame-a-painting.html

With a Bikeshare-Powered Tree, a Town Chooses Sustainability Over Tradition

On a chilly Saturday evening in a suburb just outside Washington, D.C., a crowd of kids were furiously pedaling away on a dozen bikes bolted to the base of a 35-foot Christmas tree display. We were just minutes from Silver Spring’s annual tree-lighting ceremony at the downtown plaza, and some were seriously giving themselves a full workout.

Link: https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/11/christmas-tree-bikeshare-display-silver-spring-maryland/545726/

Download 10,000 of the First Recordings of Music Ever Made, Courtesy of the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive

Long before vinyl records, cassette tapes, CDs and MP3s came along, people first experienced audio recordings through another medium — through cylinders made of tin foil, wax and plastic. In recent years, we’ve featured cylinder recordings from the 19th century that allow you to hear the voices of Leo Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Walt Whitman, Otto von Bismarck and other towering figures.

Link:http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/download-10000-of-the-first-recordings-of-music-ever-made-courtesy-of-the-ucsb-cylinder-audio-archive.html

Barcelona’s African street traders swap crime for craft

BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When Alioune Thiam arrived in Barcelona, he joined hundreds of other undocumented African migrants peddling their wares illegally on the streets. Now he’s part of a scheme to give some of the Spanish city’s most vulnerable people an alternative.

Link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-migrants-unemployment/barcelonas-african-street-traders-swap-crime-for-craft-idUSKBN1CH1CD

100 Women: The Dalit women breaking stereotypes by forming a drum band

Savita Devi is leading a group of 10 Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) women who have broken stereotypes by coming together to form a drum band.

Performances by drum bands have been part of an old tradition at various ceremonies, but it’s a profession almost completely dominated by men.

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-41446323/100-women-the-dalit-women-breaking-stereotypes-by-forming-a-drum-band

The Floor Routine That Broke The Internet

Gymnastics at the highest levels is serious business: A minor stumble can mean losing a medal, and stepping out of bounds could keep you off the team entirely.

At a college meet over the weekend, Katelyn Ohashi of U.C.L.A. delivered a brilliant technical floor routine, with nary a step on her landings. But a YouTube video of that performance has attracted millions of viewers not because of her skill level but rather the unabashed fun she seems to be having while doing it.

“What you see is how I feel,” Ohashi said of her effervescent floor routine over the weekend, which has garnered millions of views on YouTube.

Cambodian brand turns lotus flower into luxury fashion

On the large terrace of a traditional, stilted wooden Cambodian house just four kilometres from downtown Siem Reap, a dozen or so countryside workers sit cross-legged atop rattan floor mats, brows furrowed deep in concentration. Methodically – almost meditatively – they craft a mysterious product. Through an intricate process, they transform the fibre from green and woody stems into ‘white gold’ – shimmering threads of lotus fibre that is fast becoming a coveted luxury fabric.

http://sea-globe.com/lotus-flower-luxury-fashion/