87-year-old folk singer Pete Seeger is not what you would call a musical superstar these days, when popular music is defined by a karaoke TV show and round after round of sultry teenage pop stars, but Seeger is enjoying something of a surge in popularity following the release of a Bruce Springsteen album made up entirely of Seeger songs. And if the album’s popularity says anything about music, it might be an echo of Seeger’s longheld belief that good music never goes out of style.
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Chasing Harper
Writing a biography of a living subject is always a challenge, but when the subject is Harper Lee, the famously reclusive author of To Kill A Mockingbird, the challenging becomes nearly impossible. A new volume examines the history of Harper Lee, the author and reluctant celebrity, but capturing the human being is something that may never be done.
Cleveland Set To Try Again For “Arts Tax”
Two years after a ballot initiative which would have raised millions for the arts through a property-tax increase went down to defeat, Cleveland-area cultural leaders are preparing to try again. “[Cuyahoga] County’s three commissioners have expressed varying degrees of support for a proposed 30-cent-per-pack hike in the cigarette tax. The additional tax would create a pool of about $20 million annually. The money would be used to provide matching funds to Cuyahoga County-based, not-for-profit arts and cultural organizations for operating expenses.” The plan would still need to gain voter approval in November.
Nothing Lost In Translation
An off-Broadway play about two HIV-positive women – one in Los Angeles, one in Africa – has become an unexpected hit in Zimbabwe. AIDS is still a taboo subject throughout much of Africa, despite the devastation the disease has wreaked on the continent, and the characters in the play are plenty explicit about the events that got them infected, so no one was sure how the production would be received in Harare. But the playwrights and their work have been embraced by the Zimbabwean theatre community.
As The Globe Turns…
When American actor Sam Wanamaker first conceived of the idea of rebuilding Shakespeare’s famous Globe Theatre on the banks of the Thames, many scholars, actors, and theatre folk sneered. But nearly a decade into the new Globe’s existence, it has carved out an important niche for itself. And this spring, a symbolic milestone was reached, as one of the initial naysayers took over as the theatre’s new artistic director.
Amazon To Sell New Copies Of Out-Of-Print Books
“Amazon.com Inc. has started a program with publishers that allows out-of-print titles and lower-volume books to be printed and shipped on demand when consumers place orders… Amazon.com is helping publishers cut costs by eliminating the need for inventory. The Internet retailer acquired BookSurge in April 2005 to enter the print-on-demand book business. BookSurge has more than 10,000 titles, many of them out of print.”
America Long On Faith, Short On Knowledge
Americans are supposed to be devout, even over-the-top, religious devotees. But we’re also buying the supposedly sacrilegious DaVinci Code as fast as the copies can be printed. What gives? “The attitudes that make Americans so ‘religious’ are the same ones that have made them such a ready market for the Da Vinci flimflam.”
Looking Beneath The Despair And Finding Hopelessness
It’s a big year for Beckett fans, and critic Ian Brown was looking forward to celebrating the author’s centenary by rereading all the master’s plays, and then writing about the experience. The problem, of course, is that reading Beckett is frequently as difficult and mind-numbing as the writing process apparently was for Beckett himself. By the time he reached literary maturity, “Beckett [was] content to simply slam your head repeatedly into the thick planks of linguistic hopelessness, proving again and again how meaningless meaning can be.”
There Are Other Movies, You Know. And They’re Good.
Yes, yes, all of Cannes is abuzz over the whole DaVinci Code thing. But of course, DaVinci will hardly be the only film to make a splash at the fest this season, and to judge from some of the independent films being launched at Cannes, it could be a very interesting year at the multiplex. Whether it’s the latest opus from Spanish legend Pedro Almodovar, or a film-based attack on the fast food industry that has the Mickey D’s crowd so worried that they’re already preparing a counterassault, the indies are still the kings of quality at Cannes, says Simon Houpt.
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Go Around ‘Em
From the day that iTunes burst upon the scene, it’s been extremely difficult for any other online music service to compete, considering iTunes’ easy compatibility with the iPod, and Apple’s aggressive push to make it the industry standard for downloadable audio. But there are millions of digital music listeners using platforms other than the iPod, and Urge, the online music service launched this week and backed by MTV and Microsoft, is aiming to circumvent the iPodders and Mac users entirely, and embrace… well, everyone else.