“In a world where fans and the remaining performers are almost invariably in their 60s and 70s, or older, … whether because of an absence of charismatic individual stars, musical shortcomings or the way it has been relegated to Happy Days nostalgia, doo-wop has been marginalized as tacky music stuck in time.”
Month: February 2012
Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Lesbian Pentecostal
“When Jeanette Winterson was a child – a redheaded scrap of a thing, as fierce and self-willed as Jane Eyre but readier with her fists – she … was adopted, raised by evangelical Pentecostals in a working-class town in northern England in the 1960s and ’70s. … To the dismay of her mother, Winterson turned out to be brilliant, literary, defiant and gay.”
Tales Of Ferocious Literary Heirs
The passing of Dmitri Nabokov last week inspires Laura Miller to recall the zeal (if that’s the right word) with which he and some of his more notorious counterparts – Stephen Joyce, Ted and Olwyn Hughes (the widower and sister-in-law of Sylvia Plath), Sonia Orwell – defended their territory.
Playing The Buddha Onstage
Reaching 40 with too much money and too much booze, Evan Brenner went through a midlife crisis not unlike that of Siddhartha Gautama himself. After poring through the Buddhist sutras and finding a “whirlwind” story of the prince’s life buried under all the religious teaching, Brenner decided to incarnate (as it were) Siddhartha in a solo theater piece.
Trumpeter Maurice Andre, 78
“Not only was he largely responsible for establishing the trumpet as a popular solo instrument, but he also dominated the scene in the 1960s and 70s with a punishing schedule of concerts (an average of 180 a year) and more than 300 recordings, many made on his trademark piccolo trumpet.”
Sotheby’s Caught Up In Dispute Over Cambodian Warrior Statue
“Cambodia has asked the United States government for help in recovering a thousand-year-old statue of a mythic warrior that sits in limbo at Sotheby’s in New York and that some experts believe was looted amid the convulsions of the Vietnam War and the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge.”
Occupy Wall Street Demands End To Whitney Biennial
“We object to the biennial in its current form because it upholds a system that benefits collectors, trustees, and corporations at the expense of art workers,” the letter states. The correspondence is signed by the Arts & Labor group of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Should Oscar-Winning Movies Charge Higher Ticket Prices?
“There’s an argument that filmgoers are willing to pay more for new bells and whistles. Ticket prices for 3-D films, for instance, average 8% higher than their 2-D counterparts. Since winning an Oscar differentiates a film, there’s rationale to charge more.”
Technology – Will It Save Us Or Kill Us?
“Are our devices going to be markers of our rise to glory, or instruments of our eventual demise? “
Are Really Good “Bad” Movies Dying Out?
“After all, some films are so terrible that they gain a cult of devoted followers. It’s those films that fans say can enhance our understanding and enjoyment of all movies, and provide some much-needed relief from the predictability of the film industry. They’re also, aficionados worry, a dying breed.”