“The deadly rampage in Colorado shattered a fundamental appeal of moviegoing: a chance to escape the humdrum for a world of fantasy. Now, theater owners and theWarner Bros.studio must figure out whether The Dark Knight Rises can still be an entertaining diversion, not a reminder of a tragic mass shooting.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Pinterest, Tumblr, And A Lot Of Wasted ‘Curation’ Time
“Like other forms of pastiche — the mix tape, the playlist, the mash-up — these sites force you to engage and derive meaning or at least significance or at the very least pleasure from a random grouping of pictures. Why not dive into an alternative world full of beauty and novelty and emotion and the hard-to-put-your-finger-on feeling that there’s something more, somewhere, where you’re not chained to your laptop, half dead from monotony, frustration and boredom?”
Hunting For The New Fifty Shades
Mainstream publishers are trolling the internet to find the next hot thing. After all, Fifty Shades of Grey started as fan fiction. But “there is still no easy ride into print as, John Makinson, Penguin’s chief executive, has pointed out. Titles that sell well as ebooks are not always appropriate for putting between hard covers.”
Jeffrey Deitch Finally Speaks About MOCA
“Deitch vigorously defended his two-year record of exhibitions and programming. He also rejected suggestions recently made by some board members, including in an open letter published in The Times, that the museum has lost its artistic bearings under Deitch and is increasingly under the control of Eli Broad, the billionaire art collector and philanthropist who is MOCA’s top funder.”
Don’t Even Try That Handwritten Manuscript Thing With Modern Musicians; Engraving’s Where It’s At
“It is now completely within any composer’s grasp to control the look and feel of their music to the nth degree and as more of us become fluent in truly professional engraving techniques, the more attention we can give towards the actual content of the music itself.”
Vaults Of Art (And Other Treasure) Growing In Swiss Freeport
“How much art is stockpiled in the 435,000 square feet of the Geneva Freeport? That’s a tough one. The canton of Geneva, which owns an 86 percent share of the Freeport, does not know, nor does Geneva Free Ports and Warehouses, the company that pays the canton for the right to serve as the Freeport’s landlord. Swiss customs officials presumably know, but they aren’t talking. Suffice it to say, there is wide belief among art dealers, advisers and insurers that there is enough art tucked away here to create one of the world’s great museums.”
Russian Baritone Leaves Bayreuth Over Nazi Tattoos
“A German television program broadcast Friday showed old footage of a bare-chested Evgeny Nikitin playing drums in a rock band, in which a swastika tattoo partly covered by another symbol could be seen. The festival said Nikitin made his decision amid questions from a German newspaper about the significance of some of his tattoos.”
A Stand-Up Violinist, Leading The L.A. Phil
L.A. Phil concertmaster Martin Chalifour likes to make jokes, but not about performing. Chalifour “is the portrait of moderation and restraint. He’s serious about keeping in shape for the physical demands of performing (‘Our pulse rate is sometimes comparable to a really fast run’) and carefully monitors diet, rest and even caffeine intake to be in optimum condition to perform. Everything is controlled and in balance.”
London Research In The Spotlight – With Cool Graphics
“Britain’s capital is, and always has been, a place that ferments cultural and scientific change.” Some research from and about the Olympics host: home-field advantage (boosts of testosterone might explain it), global warming threats to the city (the Thames Barrier, let’s say, is a little busy), and a lot more.
Want To Be A Jazz Apprentice? Look Hard (In And Out Of School)
“Why are jazz apprenticeships so vital in the first place? For one thing the music essentially models a community, with every ensemble thriving on communication, a code of ethics and an implicit grasp of roles. Jazz is also still a young music, with about a century of precedent, imperfectly captured on record and poorly served by written notation. Its lifeblood is the direct transmission of a vast, intangible body of knowledge.”