Month: April 2005

The Copyright Debate, Part DCCCLXXVII

Too often, the debate over copyrights, file sharing, and new media seems intractable, with those for and against expanded consumer rights dug in and disinclined to even listen to the other side. But there are real thinkers participating in the debate, from musicians to lawyers and everyone in between. And as the issue of downloadable media slowly begins to sort itself out, more and more musicians are coming to the conclusion that the only people hurt by currently illegal file-trading practices are “people who are so rich they never deserve to be paid again.”

Boston, Philly, New York, Cleveland, Chicago… & San Diego?

Three years ago, the San Diego Symphony received a $120 million gift from a local couple, and instantly, the ensemble was vaulted from the lower ranks of full-time American orchestras to… well, where the vault ends is still unknown. The SDS is fiscally secure for the future, to be sure, and salaries have risen, as have budgets. But can money – even that unbelievable amount of money – really catapult an orchestra into the upper ranks? San Diego’s CEO thinks so, and is even speculating about a future in which the SDS is mentioned alongside America’s fabled Big Five orchestras.

For That Price, Could We Get Some Decent Speakers?

Most attendees at rock concerts in the U.S. probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about audio quality – after all, you just plug in the mics and guitars and crank the amps up to eleven, right? Actually, there’s a lot more to it than that, and George Varga writes that some of his most recent experiences suffering through concerts that “sounded as if they were either being performed from inside trash compactors in overdrive or through a giant car stereo with busted woofers… are symptomatic of a troubling decline in audio quality at concerts across the nation – a trend made more annoying by the concurrent rise in ticket prices.”

US Poet Laureate Gets A Second Term

Ted Kooser – who last week won a Pulitzer Prize – has been appointed to a second term as US Poet Laureate. “Kooser’s idea was to offer a free weekly poem to U.S. newspapers. The second poem, Jonathan Greene’s “At the Grave”, was posted Thursday. The Library of Congress said 24 newspapers signed up within the first few days of the project. The library gives the poet an office and expects a few readings and lectures in return. Kooser is due to lecture at the library on May 5. He receives a stipend of $35,000 for each term.”

Rare Jazz Great Recordings Never Heard In US Found In Library Of Congress

“The U.S. Library of Congress says it has uncovered long-forgotten recordings by some of the superstars of American jazz -Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Ray Charles and the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra. Recorded in 1957, the tapes have never before been heard in the United States. The Voice of America recorded the music at a Carnegie Hall concert in New York City for broadcast to the rest of the world.”

Hide! The Art Cows May Be Coming To Edinburgh

The art cows could be coming to Edinburgh, home to some pretty great art of its own. “There is no question that they [the cows] have been popular, attracting tourists and generating a buzz. So I’m sure you are wondering what grumpy cow would dismiss a herd that brightens up our streets and gives money to good causes. My problem with this exhibit is that it is one of many banal but inoffensive displays littering our public spaces.”

Saul Bellow On Getting Close To Art:

The “trained sensibility,” he says, is unavailable “unless you take certain masterpieces into yourself as if they were communion wafers…. If you don’t give literature a decisive part to play in your existence, then you haven’t got anything but a show of culture. It has no reality whatever. It’s an acceptable challenge to internalize all of these great things, all of this marvelous poetry. When you’ve done that, you’ve been shaped from within by these books and these writers.”

Tomorrow’s TV Writers? From Today’s Theatre

“Back in the golden days of Hollywood, studio executives would often scour the theatres of New York and Chicago, searching relentlessly for talented new playwrights to bring out West to join their studio’s creative staff of writers. In that spirit Fox has teamed up with New York’s Naked Angels Theatre Company to produce Naked TV, an innovative project that mirrors those historic days in its attempts to discover and develop new writers for television.”

Report: Thousands Of Small Publishers Add Up

A new report says that there are thousands of small publishers in America “earning between $1 million and $50 million on their own, but adding up to an estimated $11 billion market. Traditional studies released by the study group, the Association of American Publishers and others assume that the solid majority of book sales comes from the larger organizations, with the top 50 making at least $20 billion out of a $28 billion market. Wednesday’s report, titled “Under the Radar,” asserts that the industry is both larger and less concentrated than previously believed.”