Archive for August, 2007
Riding on The City of New Orleans: Losing Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Joy Fuqua, Queens College, City University of New York — August 16th, 2007|
My first response was panic as I approached the pile of unmarked VHS tapes. Where was the videotape of "The Christmas Show" (air date: December 4, 2006) from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? I knew I put it in a safe place because I wanted to write about the New Orleans musicians, fictionalized as "The City of New Orleans," playing "O Holy Night" as part of the show-within-the-show. Given that Studio 60 was pulled from NBC's schedule on February 17, 2007, I was relieved to see that the network' [...]
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New Orleans and the Symbolic Politics of Place and Poverty
Mark Vail, Tulane University — August 15th, 2007|
At first, John Edwards’s announcement of his presidential campaign from New Orleans’ devastated Ninth Ward seems to be one more political trope with little in the way of substance. But further reflection shows the richness of the symbolism of this setting, in ways that Edwards himself may not have intended. The sparse population in this area of New Orleans symbolizes the lack of serious attention paid by American political candidates to the issues of poverty, racial and socio-economic excl [...]
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The Real K-Ville
Betsy Weiss, Filmmaker, adjunct professor at Tulane University in New Orleans — August 14th, 2007|
After some reflection, I wrote the following words, then put some images together. Two years post-Katrina, a veneer of normalcy covers New Orleans. The French Quarter thrives, chefs cook, musicians play on, and the Garden District mansions stand tall under leafy oak trees. But the lower 9th ward is mostly a wasteland; generations of New Orleanians remain displaced; others dream of living in a town with lower insurance rates and a functioning justice system. People of all colors die, my friend He [...]
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The Aesthetic of Disaster: Live, Broken, and Pretty
Michele White, Tulane University — August 13th, 2007|
Driving the New Orleans streets, I cycle between rushes of pleasure at the magnificent architecture and melancholy. Views of cultural heritage are intermeshed with scenes of flooded homes, interiors and personal belongings littering the streets, spray painted signs indicating the bodies and living creatures found after the flooding, and people who struggle to put their lives, homes, and communities back together as buildings molder and sag next door.
In a series of important installations in [...]
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The West (Coast) Wing: How Studio 60 Moved Off the Sunset Strip
Alisa Perren, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Georgia State University — August 10th, 2007|
The evolution of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip over the 2006-2007 season was fascinating not only to me but to the press and bloggers as well. What began in September as a show about the inner-workings of a sketch comedy series slowly turned into a screwball comedy before settling into a politically-tinged melodrama. By the end of its run, this heavily marketed critical darling could barely be found on NBC’s schedule. (With minimal fanfare, NBC burned off the last six episodes after May sweep [...]
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The Promises and Challenges of Fan-Based On-Line Archives for Global Television
Sharon Shahaf, University of Texas at Austin — August 9th, 2007|
Recently there has been a surge of new, extremely rare clips from old Israeli TV on youtube and similar local websites. The clip presented here – A song on punctuation performed by young Ofra Haza on the Israeli Educational Television is just one example.
These discoveries provide access to bits and pieces of what is largely non-available history of local broadcast. The example I was GOING to use is a sketch from the legendary satirical show Nikuy Rosh (1976-1977) extremely relevant for m [...]
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TV on the Brain
Amelie Hastie, University of California, Santa Cruz — August 8th, 2007|
Magnetic Resonance Imaging – the MRI – makes frequent guest appearances on medical dramas. Like other diagnostic tools, it uses a screen to let the doctors see into a patient’s body, though its particular talent usually showcased on television is its ability to display neurological functions and disorders. As the patient disappears into the machine, it shows us the brain: the center of cognitive activity and a seemingly perceptible indication of who we are.
The MRI was itself developed [...]
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Andy Samberg’s D-ck in a Book?: The Highs and Lows of Marketing Literature on the Internet
Hollis Griffin, Northwestern University — August 7th, 2007|
Journalist, socialite, and billionaire’s daughter Holly Peterson released her first novel to much fanfare in June 2007. A comedic gender-reversal tale, The Manny relates the story of a Park Avenue mom who hires a hunky male nanny to care for her children. The novel is unremarkable in many respects: publishers perennially release "beach books" in time for summer vacations, the industry famously targets female readers across many different fictional genres, and the successes of "chick lit" books [...]
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It’s Carrboro!: Local Pride in a Global Space
James Daniel Elam, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill — August 6th, 2007|
Carrboro, North Carolina is a unique place: its radical political identity (and notoriety) stands in all but direct opposition to the red-state politics that surround it. (What other small southern town can claim its own Anarchist Collective?) Even some UNC-Chapel Hill students and faculty fear crossing the railroad tracks that separate the university town from the former mill town; simply having a ZIP code of 27510 probably means you’re an anti-war vegetarian intellectual interpretive dancer. [...]
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Household: Learning from Leaving New Orleans
Joy Fuqua, Queens College, City University of New York — August 17th, 2007