Literary classics are hot with readers right now, and they’re selling fast. “Baby boomer nostalgia, the rise of book clubs and a longing for ageless wisdom after 9/11 are among reasons for the trend cited by publishers, editors and authors. High profit margins for books out of copyright help, too.”
Month: December 2003
Met Broadcasts – Where Are Our Priorities?
Jan Herman wonders about the scale of American culture that would allow broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera go off the air. The Met needs $7 million to fund the broadcasts. “In major league baseball, $7 million would not pay the salary of a decent pitcher. The six stars of ‘Friends’ make $1 million each per half-hour episode. Compare this to the absolute top fee for a singer at the Met, Amercia’s most prestigious opera house: $15,000 per performance. No one, no matter how big, not even Placido Domingo, makes more. Mere bagatelle or pittance indeed. What does all this signify? Many things, of course. But one of them is that “given America’s wealth, talent, and educational resources, it could be the Athens of the modern world, but is fast losing that chance” and opting instead to be its Rome.”
It’s Official – We’re All Nerds
“Over the past decade, those cultural phenomena that we once filed as geeky minority pursuits have become our masters. The internet now boasts a global community numbering 679 million. Video gaming pulls in more annual revenue than Hollywood. For its part, the film industry seems increasingly in thrall to the comic-book movie , the sci-fi epic and the wizard fantasy. Next week sees the release of the final instalment in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, awash with elves and hobbits and surely the most monumental nerd-fest of the lot. All of which raises some frightening implications. Could it be that there are more nerds today than there were before?”
Are The Rockettes Eating Nutcracker’s Lunch?
With touring holiday Rockettes shows fanning out across America, many ballet companies are worried their audiences for Nutcrackers will be eaten up. But is it happening? The answer is complex and not entirely clear. “The discussion going on among ballet executives nationwide is a slice of an issue facing all arts leaders trying to grow audiences. Will the arrival of a new facility or show in town make the entire audience of arts patrons larger? Or does new competition simply ‘cannibalize’ existing audiences?”
“Y” Me?
Every generation has those writers who somehow help define it. But “Generation Y, the teens and early twenty–somethings who are said to represent the biggest chunk of pop culture marketing power, have no one who has encapsulated their generation in their writing so far. Sure, there are some authors their age but they haven’t produced a work meant to encapsulate the generation. Nor has one of them been called upon to become the chief essayist, chronicler or spokesperson for their peers. So where are they? ‘This isn’t a literary generation. It’s the MTV/high–speed Internet generation’.”
Broadway – Standing In
This has been Broadway’s Year of the Understudy. “Thanks to star walkouts, babies, influenza and the common cold, understudies – typically theater’s most obscure, least appreciated actors – have been stepping into the spotlight in record numbers.”
Indy Film’s UK Woes
“It felt disorientating to be British at the European Film Awards, now in their 16th year and celebrated at a ceremony in Berlin last weekend. Those of us from the UK mingled with movie-makers and press from a score of countries, all perfectly relaxed about enjoying films from other nations, even those requiring subtitles. It was hard not to muse gloomily on the difficulty for even exceptional non-English-language films to obtain exposure in a British cinema culture so in thrall to Hollywood.”
Why PBS Programming Is So Timid
PBS programming is staid and unadventurous. Why? Consider an acclaimed 36-year-old one-man show about Mark Twain and why PBS declined to air it: “What could literary legend Mark Twain have said 130 years ago that would cause PBS programmers of two different regimes to reject an acclaimed performance of his wit and wisdom by one of America’s most respected actors? Well, about 35 minutes into the one-man show, after the first intermission, Twain/ Holbrook includes a passage ofHuckleberry Finn. In this five minutes of the program, “Twain” acts out the parts of young Huck, his drunk father Pap and old Jim, a slave…”
Taking Flight On The 100th Anniversary Of It
It’s the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight, and the Dayton Ballet had the idea to celebrate the feat in movement. “Certainly the subject of the human body’s sloughing off earthly shackles to claim air as its element is apt for dance, given the art’s constant challenge to gravity’s pull and its ecstatic emotional dimension, often equated with soaring.” But Tobi Tobias wonders if perhaps the commissioned choreographers interpreted their guiding muse a tad loosely?
Video Store As Research Tool
“As budget-conscious film studios increasingly greenlight remakes of old films and recycled television shows (coming soon: “Cheaper by the Dozen” and “The Stepford Wives”), independent video stores are finding themselves with a new role in the $9 billion-a-year video-rental industry. They are often used as research libraries and idea factories for the movie studios in whose shadows they lurk.”