“Security around the Globe to Globe Festival escalated last night, to put it mildly, when Habima, the National Theatre of Israel, presented The Merchant of Venice. These precautions are hardly surprising, given the controversy aroused by the decision to invite Habima to participate in the international Bard-binge. Nor were the peaceful, heavily policed protests outside.”
Month: May 2012
Broadcasters Sue Satellite TV Provider Over Service That Skips Commercials
If the courts don’t block the service, it “will ultimately destroy the advertising-supported ecosystem that provides consumers with the choice to enjoy free over-the-air, varied, high-quality primetime broadcast programming,” the broadcasters told the court.
American Composers Orchestra: More Than Just The Concerts
“For us the concerts are the public face of what we do. But there really has to be some strategic, intellectual and artistic rigor in how we present that public face. I don’t think anybody, from the start of the A.C.O., ever thought that presenting a good concert was the ultimate end.”
Ai Wei-Wei: Why I Continue To Speak Out
“I tried to explain to them that I’m artist and expressing myself is my job, my duty. That communicating is very important for me.” It wasn’t an argument that impressed the security men. “They kept telling me that I’m part of a Western strategy to change China.”
How Music And Video Games Are Integrating Their Creative Processes
“We’re now entering an era of close co-operation; game developers are employing musicians who love games and understand them. And in return, music is becoming part of the design process.”
Florida Libraries Un-Ban “Fifty Shades Of Grey”
Yesterday Brevard County announced that “in response to public demand, but also … after considerable review and consideration by the library system”, its 19 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey would be made available again.
Why English? (What A Mess)
“How did this unsystematic system come about? And is it really that bad? Some say that there are only a few hundred deeply irregular words, but the trouble is that most of them are common.”
Would Anyone Pay Attention To Stolen Art If Its Cash Value Wasn’t High?
Mark Stryker ponders the question after last week’s art heist in Detroit. “The FBI didn’t release details of all 19 pieces, and it’s possible they’re keeping mum about more expensive works as a gumshoe tactic. But it’s also true that if they didn’t float a value of at least $1 million, it’s doubtful anyone would have paid attention.”
Actors’ Equity London Realises That It Has An Image Problem
“Equity has agreed to engage with its critics after warnings that the union is seen as ‘stuffy, ineffective, disconnected, impotent’ by some parts of the industry. The West End Deputies’ Committee… said that the hostility derived partly from ‘perceived weaknesses’ of the union’s dealings with the Society of London Theatre.”
What Philip Larkin And W.H. Auden Wished They Hadn’t Written About Love
“These two lines – Larkin’s ‘What will survive of us is love’ and Auden’s ‘We must love one another or die’ – may be the most well-known lines of poetry about love written in the past century. But what’s remarkable about them both is that the poets who wrote them agonized over them, were conflicted and critical of their own lines. Both Larkin and Auden eventually tried to distance themselves from their original unmediated utterances.”