“Libraries on Nova Scotia’s South Shore are boycotting Random House, one of the world’s largest book publishers, over what they call unfair e-book pricing. The company began charging public libraries up to three times the retail price for downloadable books last month.”
Month: April 2012
Injury And The Dancer
“An injury steals from the body and gives to the soul. The net gain for one component of the self should be in direct proportion to the other’s loss: The more arduous the physical ordeal, the greater the spiritual strengthening. That’s what I like to tell myself, at any rate.”
Counting Up Ballet Jobs In Britain
“How many classical ballet dancing jobs, full-time, are there in Great Britain? I make it just 289. That’s the Royal Ballet 94, English National Ballet 67, Birmingham Royal Ballet 57, Scottish Ballet 36, Northern Ballet 35. Rambert does sometimes take classically trained dancers: another 23. So, at a stretch, 312 full-time jobs for Britain’s classical ballet graduates to be searching for a vacancy in.”
In Case You Missed It, SAG and AFTRA Have Actually Merged
“After two failed attempts and 80 years of on-and-off efforts, the members of SAG and AFTRA have voted to merge. The new organization, called SAG-AFTRA, was born Friday afternoon.”
What Do We Want From A Theatre Review? (Well, Who’s This ‘We’?)
“What do we actually want from a theater review? Here’s a catalogue of desires from a few sides.” (Add your own in the comments.)
Want To Learn More About Literature? Put Those Earbuds In, And Start Walking
“Billed as an East Village poetry walk, the project, ‘Passing Stranger,’ is a site-specific audio tour that guides listeners through the history of the neighborhood’s interconnected writers and shakers, with interviews, archival recordings and recitations of poems. Narrated by the filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, with music by John Zorn, it is a literary and geographic keepsake, a portrait of a bohemian community that still resounds.”
British Actors Call For Withdrawal Of Israeli Theatre From Festival
British actors, including Emma Thompson, have asked the Globe Theatre to remove an Israeli theatre troupe from an upcoming Shakespeare festival because of issues around Palestinians and Israeli settlers.
There’s A Mind-Body Gap – Or Rather A Mind-Brain Gap
A new London exhibit on the brain “confronts its visitors with the gulf between our hard-won knowledge about the form of the brain and our as-yet-meagre understanding of its function.”
Artists Withdraw From New Orleans Gallery Over Movie Shoot
At the Contemporary Arts Center, several New Orleans artists withdraw from a group show after the executive director agrees to close the exhibit for a week for a film shoot. It “seems that visual art gets bumped aside really quickly,” one artist said.
A European Opera Star Makes Her Way To New York – Finally (And Briefly)
“Operatic careers work in mysterious ways, particularly for performers with strong, idiosyncratic ideas. The repertory that was long [Anna Caterina] Antonacci’s specialty — Rossini’s serious operas and the declamatory Baroque of Monteverdi and Gluck — has never been popular in America. And though she is well represented on DVD, Ms. Antonacci has never had the support and publicity muscle of a major record label.” But at least she’s finally on tour in the U.S.