Recent European jazz albums suggest that the innovation in jazz is coming from the Old World and not from America. “Almost without anybody noticing, European jazz, regarded for years by the Americans with the same kind of tolerant smile they reserve for Japanese baseball, seems poised to step to the forefront.” – The Times (UK)
Author: Douglas McLennan
DEATH OF INDEPENDENCE
In recent years, the entertainment business has been all about consolidation. “Zero score and seven years ago, in fact, the Federal Communications Commission brought forth a new TV business, one dedicated to the pursuit of bigness and consolidation at any price” Now, a few independents are beginning to strike back. – Los Angeles Times 07/04/00
THE REALITY OR REALITY
Just why are so many millions of people fascinated with the reality shows “Survivor” and “Big Brother”? Daniel Boorstin may have predicted the reason some 40 years ago. “Attributing the blurring of news and pseudo news to a combination of technical virtuosity and audience democratization, he wrote: ‘The image, more interesting than its original, has become the original. The shadow has become the substance.’ Images, synthetic and simplistic yet vivid and believable, have become the nation’s measure of what is real. – New York Times 07/04/00
FILM AID
“Founded last year by Caroline Baron, a film producer, Filmaid’s mission is to bring feature films, children’s cartoons and other screen entertainment to refugee camps, where the horrors of war are often succeeded by bad memories, isolation and tedium.” – New York Times 07/04/00
THE ART OF CHITCHAT
In Ireland, a gathering devoted to the art of gossip and idle talk. “At what is apparently the first festival of its kind in the world, an international cast of contributors will spend their time in the land of blarney talking about chatting.” – The Independent (UK)
STREET-SIDE BOOKS
Contrary to popular opinion, those street-side booksellers set up on card tables in Manhattan aren’t vagrants or low-lifes. “While many street booksellers resemble refugees from the Beat era, they’re generally savvy and erudite – and they know their books. They have to, in order to survive” A new movie puts them in the spotlight. – Publishers Weekly
BRITAIN’S OPERA HOPE
The hip new opera in London last season was – of all things – a piece about soccer. Mark-Anthony Turnage, the “Silver Tassie’s” composer, “has emerged as one of the great hopes of English classical music – a natural extension of an extraordinary line that runs through such fertile counties as Elgar, Walton, Bridge, Britten and Tippett.” – Sequenza 21
WILD ABOUT HARRY
The Harry Potter books have sold 21 million copies. But the hoopla over the latest book – even before it has been released, is formidable. “At least 9,000 Federal Express trucks will be deployed around the nation on that morning by the Internet retail giant Amazon.com to help deliver 250,000 presold copies of the fantasy novel.” – New York Times
INDIA’S NEW GENERATION OF WRITERS
“Although their voices are being heard much more loudly in the West than in India, they are ushering in a new era for Indian literature in English. They are often called Midnight’s Grandchildren in homage to another seminal Indian novel, Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children,” the dark parable of Indian history since independence that won the Booker Prize in 1981 and in 1993 won a special Booker Prize as the best British novel of the previous quarter century. Now the new generation of writers have in many ways broken away from the magic realism that characterizes much of Mr. Rushdie’s work. – New York Times
BETTER HISTORY THROUGH THE INTERNET
Academic publishing is in dismal shape. Squeezed by the rising cost of science journals, libraries have been buying fewer academic monographs. In the early 1990s, in response to dwindling library demand, the number of new titles began to decline. So Princeton professor Robert Darnton has decided to do something about it. He has become a true believer in the Internet’s potential to transform academic publishing – by helping university presses publish more monographs and maybe even by enabling scholars to produce better history. – Lingua Franca