Discounting the old saw that the moment a newspaper writes an article about something being cool, it is no longer cool, it does seem as if vinyl records are making a serious comeback among young music fans. “Big-box stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart, online suppliers like MusicDirect and Needle Doctor, and even the pop-culture retailer Urban Outfitters stock turntables, many with built-in USB ports.”
Author: sbergman
The New Bayreuth? Looks Like The Old Bayreuth
“Swastika banners unfurl over the stage, Nazi SS officers goose step in formation. It has been awhile since Bayreuth looked like this. Scattered boos from the audience augment the score of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal. A new era is dawning at Bayreuth’s annual Wagner festival. And parts of it look unnervingly like the old one.”
The Upside Of Down Times
“It’s no surprise pop singers, artists and storytellers chronicle economic downturns. Happy feet only carry you so far even in boom years–trouble is interesting, goes an old fiction-writing saw… Various artists through the years, right up to recent days, have left a record of hard times, through various decades.”
Lightning Strikes Tanglewood Patron
A man was struck by lightning at the Boston Symphony’s summer home in the Berkshire mountains this weekend as he waited to see the Orchestra of St. Luke’s perform. “Officials closed the grounds to newcomers and asked patrons to wait out the storm in the shelter of the Shed.”
Online Literacy: Just As Important As The Old Kind?
The debate over online reading, and whether it actually represents a step away from overall literacy, may be missing the point, says Paul Wallis. “You may have to become an expert at filtering out garbage. Intellectual development, however, is far more complex, particularly for younger people whose brains are still wiring themselves up.”
Is Oregon Symphony On The Brink Of Disaster?
“Top leaders at the Oregon Symphony are struggling to shore up losses, which totaled $5.1 million between 2002 and 2008, plus pay off a $7 million bank loan that has saddled the nonprofit with $400,000 in yearly interest payments.” Efforts are well underway to cut losses, but the orchestra’s board chair worries that “we might have already lost the symphony.”
Restoring Some Of The World’s Great Stonework
The tiny northern Italian village of Canova has had a rough haul the last few decades, as residents left for larger cities and better jobs elsewhere. But a new focus on the town’s historic stone architecture has attracted preservationists, and a new civic association “hosts field schools and exhibitions in the village and offers restoration consultations throughout the valley.”
Writers’ Trust Prizes Get Bigger
“The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize will now award each winner $25,000 and finalists $3,500 (up from $15,000 and $2,000).” The Canadian-based literary awards were already among the richest in North America.
Breillat, Reinvented
“Catherine Breillat is probably better known in mainstream media for the controversies that surround her often sexually explicit films, as opposed to the more subtle, cerebral details of her work celebrated by serious critics and cineastes.” But her latest film represents a departure from the norm, and reflects the tumult that has been the filmmaker’s life in recent years.
Dark Knight Keeps On Rolling
The new Batman movie is set to shatter multiple box office records this week. “The Dark Knight, which opened last weekend to a record $158.4 million and piled up big numbers all week, could add on $75 million or more this weekend.”