“When you walk into the shop, the books appear to reach impossible heights and stretch clear into the distance, an effect created by the perfect symmetry of the dark wooden shelves and the clever use of mirrors on the ceilings and walls. In an amphitheater-like room for readings and lectures, the impression is amplified by the reflection of the curved wall in the mirrored ceiling; it feels as if you are completely surrounded by a rainbow of book spines. In yet another room, the books are arranged on thin columns placed randomly around the room like trees in a forest, with benches interspersed for reading. Again, a mirrored ceiling makes the shelves appear as if they are not just trees, but towering redwoods.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
London’s Gloomy Theatre Offerings Reflect A Deeply Unsettled World
“The present fears about climate change, terrorism and globalization’s political and economic fallout have exacerbated our horrible imaginings of the future. It would be unnatural if the theater didn’t register the collective consternation. But an overindulgence of London theater in the dying light of 2016 might persuade you to cash in your 401(k).”
Clash Of The Titans: When Nabokov Debated Wilson
As we enter into the era of Trumped-down literacy, when “the life of the mind” seems almost like a quaint idea, it’s somehow thrilling to imagine a world where great intellects clashed, taking language seriously, meaning what they said, and being able to back their assertions with genuine knowledge.
Information Overload? New Survey Finds Most People Don’t Feel Overwhelmed
“A new Pew Research Center survey finds that, for the most part, the large majority of Americans do not feel that information overload is a problem for them. Some 20% say they feel overloaded by information, a decline from the 27% figure from a decade ago, while 77% say they like having so much information at their fingertips. Two-thirds (67%) say that having more information at their disposals actually helps to simplify their lives.”
The Irrepressible Jerry Saltz And The Future Of The Critic/Artist
There was a perfect storm: Saltz’s TV notoriety coincided with the advent of social media and the explosion of the art market onto a global stage stoked by the boogeymen of big bucks, glamour and lack of attractive alternatives in the financial markets.
How Did Ads For Canadian Arts Organizations Show Up On Breitbart News?
“The ads’ appearance illuminates a vexing consequence of a growing method of ad buying on the Internet, in which companies often have no idea where their commercial messages are showing up or which publishers they are financially supporting.”
Finally – A Law Against Ticket Bots. But Will It Do Much Good?
Ticket bots are the scourge of the live performance business. For popular shows, automated ticket purchasing programs buy up all the tickets within moments of them becoming available, then scalp them for a profit. For really popular shows, the scalping prices (er…secondary market prices) can be several multiples higher than the face value. This all but ensures that only the wealthy can afford to buy. Since the shows themselves don’t make any extra from the scalper sales, the scalpers take the profits. The only ones who benefit are rich ticket-buyers who can afford the higher prices. Lin Manuel-Miranda says the bots will ruin Broadway and has been campaigning for legislation to outlaw bots.
Now he’s got it, as the US Congress has passed legislation to ban bots from circumventing
…the security measures of ticketing websites, which bots often do, and would give enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission… Ticketmaster has estimated that bots have been used to buy 60 percent of the most desirable tickets to many shows.
But in a fight between legislation and technology, you can usually bet on technology finding ways around the rules.
The world of bots is shadowy and little understood, with much of the software being developed and even operated overseas, complicating enforcement. And there is an enormous incentive for scalping, which is legal and now largely integrated into the mainstream concert business through sites like StubHub and even Ticketmaster.
So what’s the solution? Aside from banning scalping altogether, there will be abuses, and that’s not likely.
While few spoke against the BOTS Act — the National Association of Ticket Brokers, which bars bots among its members, welcomed the bill — ticket scalping has become a standard part of the entertainment economy, and services like StubHub are often welcomed by fans for their convenience. Economists frequently endorse secondary markets as a true demonstration of supply and demand.
Today’s AJBlog Highlights
- Amateur work On Facebook and Twitter I’ve been talking about bad graphic design in classical music. Why does bad design matter? Because we need a new audience. Our new audience comes — will come — from the … read more
- Looking for love in Bodunk In the online edition of today’s Wall Street Journal, I review a new off-Broadway musical, the stage version of The Band’s Visit. Here’s an excerpt. * * * As delightful as well-done big-budget musicals can … read more
Where Risk Lives – Increasingly Not In Big Institutions But In The Small Nimble Startups
Just as Hollywood studios have abandoned making movies that don’t promise blockbuster potential, so have major publishers narrowed their interests to “big” books. Increasingly, risks in new authors are taken by small, nimble presses with small staffs. They invest in these writers, and, when they become successful, bigger publishers snap them up.
Increasingly, “risky” authors, those who’ve been rejected over and over again by traditional publishers or dozens of agents, are being picked up by small presses whose modus operandi is to take risks on literature that is exciting, innovative, or that they deem important either stylistically or politically. Then the big publishers swoop in and profit from the hard work and risk-taking of the small presses.
That is a good thing, in a way, because it means everyone makes more money from the art and a wider audience is reached. But it does seem like big publishers are hedging their bets more and more often, operating as if they are not too big to fail. It is a shame that the heavy lifting is being left to those who are only big in ambition.
As our creative industries are being de-institutionalized, large institutions are less and less able to be nimble and experiment than are smaller startups without legacy costs.
Remembering Pauline Oliveros And Her Radical Vision Of Listening
Considered as a healing practice—or a “tuning of mind and body”—Oliveros’s “Sonic Meditations” are, to an extent, unique in the history of musical experimentalism. In these works, experiments were not conducted on the music; the music was an experiment on the self. Anyone searching today for the complete box set of “Sonic Meditations” won’t find it, because, as the composer wrote, “music is a welcome by-product” of this composition. The experiments remain in each listener. Oliveros’s aims were clear: these works were intended to be transformational, even therapeutic, enacting lasting changes on the body and mind.