A French tribunal has ordered a company to pay a former employee who was wrongly dismissed after he wrote a novel that portrayed his co-workers in unflattering light. “The computer pervert, the dumb blonde secretary, the alcoholic and the boss with “the bloated face and the little black eyes of a pig” were among the characters described by Bruno Perera in his first novel, Petits Meutres Entre Associés (Little Murders Among Colleagues).”
Month: December 2003
Oscar Peterson At 78
At 78, pianist Oscar Peterson has personified jazz piano for more than 50 years. “Personifying mainstream jazz piano isn’t, however, the same thing as being the most significant pianist. Earl Hines, Erroll Garner, Tommy Flanagan and Bill Evans are merely a handful of the dozens of stylists who exceed Peterson in creativity and sheer beauty of playing. But Peterson, in his international stardom and through-the-years box office success, far eclipsed nearly all of these other stalwarts.”
DBC Pierre – Out Of Texas…Really Out
How could DBC Pierre have won this year’s Booker Prize? “Set in America, Pierre’s book is not just bad; it is so awful that its victory suggests there is something deeply wrong with British literary culture. To an American reader the book provokes neither amusement nor outrage, but puzzlement: are the British literati so ignorant of the US that they can think this is a competent parody?”
Indianapolis -Museum City
Indianapolis is in the midst of a museum building boom worth $300 million, with seven major museum projects underway.
WTC Tower Design Compromise
A compromise on the design for the design of the new tower at the World Trade center site has been reached, reports the New York Daily News. “Top aides to Gov. Pataki helped push Daniel Libeskind, whose master plan for Ground Zero was picked earlier this year, and architect David Childs, who works for developer Larry Silverstein, into an agreement.”
The Land Where Music Is Banned
“A public ban on music has gradually taken effect in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, after a radical alliance of right-wing religious parties swept to power in local elections last year. Music and film stores have closed, musicians have been harassed and vigilantes routinely tear down posters and torch tapes, decrying them as un-Islamic.”
Carmen In Seville (For Real)
A production of Bizet’s “Carmen” is going to be staged on the streets of Seville, where the opera is set. “Thousands of spectators will be invited to follow the tale of doomed love as it is played out around city landmarks. Spanish film-maker Carlos Saura will direct only 10 performances as part of the city’s international music festival starting in September.”
NY Subway Musicians Go To Korea
New York subway musicians are a constan presence underground. One entrepreneur thought they would be a hit in the Seoul subway, which doesn’t have performers. So she rounded up some players and flew them to Korea. “They were featured on Korean talk shows and news shows, and their faces were all over the papers. And the buzz only increased as the days passed. On the day of their second performance, the musicians arrived at GangNam station to find several hundred people sitting quietly on the floor, some with their own mats, waiting for the music to start. By the time the trip ended two weeks later, the five musicians were the toast of the town, featured in just about every newspaper, magazine and TV show of note.”
Restoring Baghdad’s Culture
“Baghdad may once have rivaled Rome as a symbol of urban splendor, but most of its historic landmarks are gone. Many of the uniform beige subdivisions and drab commercial buildings constructed in the last 50 years are crumbling — an apt symbol of the failures of modernization. The city’s ornate palaces are painful reminders of the authoritarian rule of Saddam Hussein, who is now in American captivity. Coping with this architectural and cultural loss is clearly beyond the scope of responsibility of the U.S. occupying authority.”
Stratford Signs Exec Director To 2015
Ontario’s Stratford Festival (one of Canada’s largest arts organizations) has signed executive director Antoni Cimolino to a contract extension that runs until 1015. “Under Cimolino’s stewardship, ticket sales since 1998 have increased from 523,000 to more than 600,000 and the festival has been in a budget surplus in each year of his administration. The operating budget has increased from $34-million to $51-million annually.”