Skinny blues: Karen Carpenter, anorexia nervosa and popular music

This article discusses an extraordinary body in popular music, that belonging to the person with anorexia which is also usually a gendered body – female – and that of the singer or frontperson. I explore the relation between the anorexic body and popular music, which is more than simply look- ing at constructions of anorexia in pop. It involves contextually thinking about the (medical) history and the critical reception and representation, the place of anorexia across the creative industries more widely, and a particular moment when pop played a role in the public awareness of anorexia. Following such context the article looks in more detail at a small number of popular music artists who had experience of anorexia, their stage and media presentations (of it), and how they did or apparently did not explore their experience of it in their own work and public appearances. This close discussion is framed within thinking about the popular music industry’s capacity for carelessness, its schedule of pressure and practice of destruction on its own stars, particularly in this instance its female artists. This is an article about a condition and an industry. At its heart is the American singer and drummer Karen Carpenter (1950–1983), a major international pop star in the 1970s, in the Carpenters duo with her brother Richard; the other figures discussed are Scottish child pop star Lena Zavaroni (1963–1999), and the Welsh rock lyricist, stylist and erstwhile guitarist of the Manic Street Preachers, Richey Edwards (1967–1995 missing/2008 officially presumed dead)

Small-X Quarks at HERA Predict the Ultra High Energy Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section

New structure function data at small Bjorken $x$ from HERA are used along with next-to-leading order QCD evolution to predict a cross section for charged-current interactions of ultrahigh energy neutrinos with nucleons. This new result is over twice the size of previous estimates and has important implications for cosmic ray experiments now underway as well as for KM3 arrays (cubic kilometer-scale neutrino telescopes) now in the planning stages.Comment: KITCS94-9-1, 9 pages (REVTeX) plus 3 postscript figures all uuencode

From Brass Bands to Buskers:Street Music in the UK

The purpose of this report is to chart and critically examine available writing about the historical and contemporary presence of street music in the cultural landscape and our shared public spaces, drawing on both academic and ‘grey’/cultural policy literature in the field. The review presents research findings under the headings of – history – cultural policy and legislation – street music advocacy and campaigning – place-making, space and community – protest and social movements – creativity: performers, performance, and audience – festivals, carnival, live and outdoor arts. The report concludes with a set of future recommendations for research. To accompany the report, a substantial annotated bibliography has been produced, which is freely accessible online

Annotated Bibliography:From Brass Bands to Buskers: Street Music in the UK

This research review, consisting of a 43-entry annotated bibliography, was produced as part of an AHRC Connected Communities programme project entitled ‘Public Culture and Creative Spaces’. It supports a report by Dr Elizabeth Bennett and Professor George McKay, ‘From Brass Bands to Buskers: Street Music in the UK’, published by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, launched at the Street Music conference on 14th May 2019

Music From Out There, In Here:25 Years of the London Jazz Festival

Webster and McKay have pieced together a fascinating jigsaw puzzle of archival material, interviews, and stories from musicians, festival staff and fans alike. Including many evocative images, the book weaves together the story of the festival wit the history of its home city, London, touching on broader social topics such as gender, race, politics, and the search for the meaning of jazz. They also trace the forgotten history of London as a vibrant city of jazz festivals going as far back as the 1940s

From Glyndebourne to Glastonbury:The Impact of British Music Festivals

Festivals are at the heart of British music and at the heart of the British music industry. They form an essential part of the worlds of rock, classical, folk and jazz, forming regularly occurring pivot points around which musicians, audiences, and festival organisers plan their lives. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the purpose of this report is to chart and critically examine available writing about the impact of British music festivals, drawing on both academic and ‘grey’/cultural policy literature in the field. The review presents research findings under the headings of: •economy and charity; •politics and power; •temporality and transformation; •creativity: music and musicians; •place-making and tourism; •mediation and discourse; •health and well-being; and •environment: local and global. It concludes with observations on the impact of academic research on festivals as well as a set of recommendations for future research

The impact of (jazz) festivals:An Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded research report

Festivals are an essential part of the jazz world, forming regularly occurring pivot points around which jazz musicians, audiences and organizers plan their lives. Funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, the purpose of this report is to chart and critically examine available writing about the impact of jazz festivals, drawing on both academic and 'grey'/cultural policy literature in the field. The review presents research findings under the headings of economic impact; socio-political impact; temporal impact and intensification and transformation of experience; creative impact--music and musicians; discovery and audience development; place-making; the mediation of jazz festivals; and environmental impact. It concludes with a set of recommendations for future research, which identifes gaps in the feld. To accompany the article, a 100-entry 40,000-word annotated bibliography has also been produced, which is freely accessible online

Judging a book by its cover: interface elements that affect reader selection of ebooks

Digital library research has demonstrated the impact of content presentation on both search and reading behaviours. In this paper, we scrutinise the influence of ebook presentation on user behaviour, focussing on document thumbnails and the first page view. We demonstrate that flaws in presentation increase the volume of short time-span reading, and reduce the likelihood of long-span reading when compared to other documents. This reflects other patterns of information seeking behaviour that demonstrate increased short-term reading when information content is uncertain, and suggests an ineffective use of reader time on less useful content