What will Scotland’s year-long culture review consist of? “The culture minister, Frank McAveety, called the review the start of a ‘new era’ and a “once-in-a-generation opportunity”. But there were few specifics in the “cultural policy statement” that the executive produced yesterday in a glossy brochure. Mr McAveety talked repeatedly of changing a “20th- century” arts infrastructure in Scotland and of “trimming unnecessary bureaucracy” to achieve ‘best value’. But the document offered no concrete working proposals.”
Month: April 2004
Sanitary Music
“The prevalence of swearwords in modern pop has led to the rise of ‘radio friendly’ versions of singles, in which obscenities are muted, leaving only either the initial consonant or an isolated vowel. When swearing is the very point of a record, this approach results in a quite bizarre stop-start patchwork of noise and silence. Perhaps this is a cunning marketing ploy.”
Killing The iPod – Try The Celestial Jukebox
“By using licenses, the labels and their download sites are secretly transforming music into a service—something to which you subscribe, and about which they can change the rules any time they want. But it’s a particularly crappy service. Who wants to ‘own’ this sort of pseudo-property, these annoying, stubborn, mulelike music files? In contrast, a music-streaming site advertises itself as a service, with an entirely different sort of consumer logic and much more satisfying results.”
The Electronic Paper Book (Wow!)
A new electronic book reader mimics the look of paper. “The quality of the display will come as quite a shock to any seasoned user of mobile devices; it looks more like paper than the computer screen it is. The closest comparison is to think of old-fashioned ink on pulp you’re likely holding now, unless you’re reading this online, in which case the Librie looks far better. In fact, as it’s a reflective screen, it looks the same whether you read it indoors or out.”
But Dahhhh-ling, Say It Isn’t So
Workers at a UK opera company have been banned from using the theatrical greeting ‘darling’. The English National Opera confirmed they had issued staff new guidelines on using the term of endearment. They fear use of the word ‘darling’ could constitute sexual harassment in the workplace.”
Brit Art Plays Well In Teheran
You might have thought that a show of contemporary edgy British art in Teheran might have set off a few fundamentalist fireworks. But “the mullahs kept quiet, and the show ended last week after a noisily popular run. Thousands crowded in during the first few days; thereafter it drew a record 600 visitors a day on average.”
Will Pittsburgh Tour Without A Music Director?
According to a German company which specializes in booking American orchestras into European venues, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is planning two major tours of the continent in 2005 and 2006, despite not having a music director. The plans call for Hans Graf to conduct the PSO on the first tour, with Andrew Davis leading the way in late summer 2006. It is highly unusual for an American orchestra to tour without its music director, but the PSO may be attempting to take advantage of the worldwide reputation it earned under departing MD Mariss Jansons as one of the U.S.’s best, if not best-known, ensembles.
Cannes’s New Look
“Comedies, documentaries, animated features and genre films join the usual art-house fare in this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, which has undergone a substantial overhaul following numerous complaints that last year’s selection was one of the worst in the festival’s history. After three years in the understudy role, Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux is completely in charge of the festival for the first time this year and he seems determined to shake off Cannes’s cobwebs, along with its reputation as a self-congratulatory club for a handful of admired but little-watched veteran directors surrounded by photo opportunities for many famous movie stars.”
Whatever Happened to the Political Novel?
Is the socially conscious novel a dead genre? Whatever happened to the idea that a book can change the world? Are authors so intent on their own characters that they can’t be bothered to make their plots politically relevant to our increasingly dangerous world? Ray Conlogue is only asking, but modern authors seem increasingly hostile to the notion that they could actually advance political ideas or social agendas with their works of fiction. These days, novelists are perfectly within their rights to spend hours working on behalf of whatever causes they support, but to put the crusade to paper would apparently cross some invisible line of decorum.
Should FCC Be Allowed To Police Cable?
FCC Chairman Michael Powell is hoping that he can convince Congress to give his commission authority over cable TV networks, as part of an ongoing effort to wipe everything that Powell finds indecent or obscene from the national media landscape. At the moment, the FCC has no power over cable, since such networks do not use the public airwaves and are a subscription-based service available only to those viewers who choose to pay for it. Joanne Ostrow finds Powell’s attempted power-grab alarming: “An activist FCC must not trample the free-speech provisions of the Constitution, even if Powell thinks he is a hero, saving America from itself.”