Tag: MKBHD

No. 9 • 2020-07-01

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Hamilton! (what else?)

If you’ve been following this newsletter for any length of time, you know that I’m a fan of Hamilton. This is a big week for all fans, with the filmed performance of the Original Broadway Cast premiering on the Disney+ streaming service this Friday. Just you wait… just you wait!

Why has this show been able to transcend musical theater, attaining cultural prominence even beyond past Broadway megahits (Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, etc.)? Maybe it’s the mashup of styles (hip hop, Brit pop, classic theater torch songs)? Or perhaps the unique reframing of the American Revolution as it relates to our current struggles of immigration, racism, bigotry, and equality? The inspired casting of people of color in the leading roles of our country’s founding fathers and mothers? Or just the story of the ultimate innovation-powered startup: the United States of America? Of course, it’s all of these elements and more.

An additional component relatively new to the arts world is the creative team’s avid use of Twitter (in particular, composer, librettist, and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda) to engage with the show’s ever-growing legion of fans. Not only does this open a window into the creative process and humanize the creators, it’s another avenue to connect the show to the current world and raise awareness and advocate on behalf of issues. It’s hard to imagine Stephen Sondheim or Andrew Lloyd Webber engaging with the public in such a manner, to explain a lyric or the research behind an historical moment!

Another unique innovation is the Hamilton Education Program(EduHam), an opportunity for students from Title I high schools to see the show (for just $10, “a Hamilton”) andcreate their own raps and performances that they share onstage (!) before they watch the musical. It’s an incredible way of broadening students’ exploration and understanding of American history and its relevance to our very modern challenges. With performances on hold for the COVID-19 outbreak, they recently launched EduHam at Home, a virtual version of the program.

The original plan was to release the film in theaters in 2021, but since live productions aren’t currently running, they made a bold (I think) decision to release the film early on the new Disney+ streaming platform. Cynics will say it’s just a way to make money during the shutdown, but it would have been much easier to wait and release the film in movie theaters to maximize profits (the traditional route of theater > pay per view > streaming). I credit Disney for trying something different to meet this moment.

On top of all this, the original cast just put out a new socially-distanced collaboration with The Roots, playing household instruments. It’s not only a fantastic performance of the show’s hit song “Helpless”, but pushes beyond the standard Zoom grid-style performances that we’ve become accustomed to. Even in isolation, Hamilton continues to innovate.

This is what we should aspire to: a synthesis of creativity, technology, inclusivity, virtuosity, emotion, and profound storytelling that integrates authentic learning. And despite this darkest of years, it helps me remain hopeful and excited for this Independence Day.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Thoughts on Racial Injustice Part III [via LinkedIn Live] A lunch conversation (today at 12pm!) with renowned designers John Maeda and Raja Schaar (Drexel Product Design Program Director and IDSA board member).
  • CO VID-88 [Ted Arthur and friends, via Facebook] A beautiful collaborative composition with 20 pianists, with each composing a short segment to add to the end of the video.
  • Lawrence Brownlee discusses race and opera [ABC News] The renowned operatic tenor (and artistic advisor to Opera Philadelphia) highlights the lack of diversity among artistic administrators. Also don’t miss The Sitdown with LB, his show on Facebook Live.
  • Code Blue [Wilma Theater] A new 13-minute digital work shot with the actors’ iPhones. According to director Blanka Ziska, the Wilma’s Artistic Director, the piece is “looking at our current moment of crisis that has been exacerbated by two kinds of viruses: COVID-19 and racism.”
  • C-U Sings Vol. 1: Let It Be [via YouTube] More than 50 musicians in my hometown of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois came together to produce this collaborative version of this Beatles’ classic as a fundraiser for local healthcare services.
  • MKBHD interviews Apple’s Craig Federighi [via YouTube] Preeminent YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee remotely interviews Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering about the company’s recent announcements at this year’s (virtual) Worldwide Developers Conference.

What I’m creating

Wait For It… here’s a work (very much) in progress that I’ll post without further comment.

No. 6 • 2020-06-10

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Watch Reflections on the Color of My Skin, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, renowned Astrophysicist and Director of the Hayden Planetarium, or read his essay.

#ShutDownSTEM / #ShutDownAcademia and #TheShowMustBePaused (Blackout Tuesday)

I have built my professional career on the many positive connections between the Arts and STEM (science, tech, engineering, math). But another link between the two is a blindness to systemic inequities and exclusionary practices. Ironically, both areas also proclaim (embarrassingly loudly, at times) to be about progress and the future. But any tradition built almost entirely on white privilege will, by default, propagate its founding structures. In order to change, we must actively pursue a different course and resist defaulting to the cultural norms of each discipline, tacitly approving institutionalized racism.

The tech industry is rightly receiving enormous criticism right now because of the gross underrepresentation of Black and Latinx people among employees and leadership and the incredible hypocrisy of idolizing a “meritocratic” culture while accumulating enormous financial gains for an increasingly smaller and less diverse group of people. I’m fairly certain no tech founder goes into entrepreneurship with the goal of promoting discrimination… They want to solve problems and build successful businesses, and week to hire the “best” people to achieve those goals. But let’s stop kidding ourselves: It’s not a meritocracy. The tech centers and the college campuses that business and hiring networks draw from are themselves highly exclusionary.

Ah, college campuses. Having been part of higher education nearly all my adult life, I will say that we get an ‘F’ in advancing equity and inclusion. Academics, particularly in STEM, love to use the “rationality” of science and engineering to blind us to the actual discrimination that we are complicit in. Representation, particularly in the high growth fields, like computing, is no better (in some ways, ven worse) than 15-20 years ago.

Again, I don’t believe that’s intentional, but an outcome of an academic culture that is slow to change and where so many perversely believe themselves to be adhering to purely “meritocratic” ideals. Academic rigor, peer review, mountains of prerequisite knowledge, and accreditation “requirements”, are just forms of hazing that disproportionately exclude those from non-white, non-male backgrounds.

In the arts, recall that symphony orchestras employed very few women until they moved to blind auditions (literally, musicians would audition behind a screen) and still employ very few Black and Latinx musicians. It’s still “news” when a lead instrumentalist, opera singer, or ballet dancer is Black. It reminds me of when there were “serious” discussions of whether a Black quarterback could succeed in the NFL, which now seem ridiculous. There are still many many issues with the NFL (mostly having to do with an incredibly exclusive group of uber-wealthy owners), but as a society we’ve moved passed that one. (Unless you start a serious, thoughtful protest movement, in which case you’ll never work in football again.) Still a long ways to go.

Both the Arts and STEM ought to be better aligned with popular culture. While the music industry is far from equitable, Hip Hop has become the predominant popular genre. The film industry is terrible, but #OscarsSoWhite is having an impact. People, not a self-selected exclusionary group, should be the drivers of knowledge, culture, and expression. The Arts and STEM should skate to where the puck is going, and embrace a much more inclusive future.

As with last week’s #TheShowMustBePaused (Black Tuesday), I fully support #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia, and this will be my only post today. This is a day for all institutions to take an honest look at themselves and their practices. A day for each of us to look in the mirror to ask “Have I done all that I can”? A day for us to commit to being on right side of history. I’ll see you tomorrow.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Reflecting on the Color of My Skin[MKBHD] Superstar tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson’s essay, shares his thoughts on being a black man in technology (and ultimate frisbee). Also check out his many links to black creators in the video notes.
  • #BlackInTheIvory[Twitter] A hashtag where Black colleagues share their experiences in academia’s “Ivory Tower”. See also a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
  • Kill Move Paradise[Wilma Theater] Stream local playwright James Ijames’ 2018 work from June 8 to 21. The play is Inspired by the ever growing list of slain unarmed Black people by police in America. Viewers are asked to donate any amount of money they can to Black Lives Matter Philly.
  • A thread on why change is hard in academia[Daniela Witten] Twitter thread about the difficulties of moving beyond racist figures and traditions in higher education by Daniela Witten, Dorothy Gilford Endowed Chair & Professor of Statistics and Biostatistics.
  • BTS Fans Say They’ve Raised $1 Million for Black Lives Matter Groups[NYTimes] Fans of mega-popular K-Pop group BTS have directed tremendous support and attention towards #BlackLivesMatter.
  • “Share Love, Strength & One Core”[World Cafe Live and Mighty Writers] A new songs collaboration between Mighty Writers youth poets and World Cafe Live teaching artist Ami Yares, inspired by this unprecedented spring of 2020 and the theme of “Community.”

What I’m creating

In support of #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia, I’m not posting any new creations today. I’ll be back with lots of new stuff next week!