So we’re learning more and more about how the brain works. And new technology might soon allow us to peer into the workings of the head. But there might be some downsides. “The more that breakthroughs like the recent one in brain-scanning open up the mind to scientific scrutiny, the more we may be pressed to give up comforting metaphysical ideas like interiority, subjectivity and the soul. Let’s enjoy them while we can.”
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Rock Looks For Alternatives To Radio
Rock music is fading from the radio airwaves. So “record companies are attempting to adapt to modern rock’s recent marginalization on the airways in major markets like Philadelphia, Miami, New York and Washington, D.C. by emphasizing other options for building buzz. In lieu of airplay, touring, blogs, ringtones, downloads, Internet and satellite radio, videogame tie-ins, alliances with brand marketers, film and TV exposure, sponsorships and placements in commercials all are growing in value.”
The Flamenco Problem
“The so-called “new” flamenco that has been developing over the last decade is mired in a crisis born of its success. As audiences have gotten bigger, a kind of artistic inflation has set in, with shows becoming more ambitious and more pretentious.”
How The Movie Theatre Biz Works
“On opening weekend – and perhaps the second weekend of a big picture – the split is 70 percent to the distributor and 30 percent to the exhibitor. The studio’s share declines by 10 percent each week: first to 60 percent, then to 50 and 40, until it levels out at 30 to 35 percent for as long as the theater keeps the film. The studio wants a film to open huge, even if it doesn’t last long. Theaters, which earn much of their revenue from concession sales, prefer movies that will run all summer to full houses, with the theater ultimately taking 65 percent of ticket sales.”
Superheros Take The Movies
Comic book superheros are everywhere in the movies today. “The cachet of comics – and I mean the old, cheap, pulpy kind, not “comix” or “graphic novels” – is all the more remarkable given that for most of their history, they could count on provoking the disdain of literary intellectuals, the panic of moralists and the condescension of mainstream show business, which saw them as fodder for cartoons and campy kid shows. The days when a film critic could wish that comic books would just go away – as Robert Warshow did in a brilliantly ambivalent 1954 essay on his young son’s fandom – are long gone. The superheroes demand to be taken as seriously as they have always taken themselves.”
The Art Of Routine
Routine is the foundation for many things in life. “The myth is that artists are somehow different. That they leap from one peak of inspiration to another. That they reject limits – that this is precisely what makes them artists. But of course that’s not true. Most artists work as the rest of us do, incrementally, day by day, according to their own habits. That most art does not rise above the level of routine has nothing necessarily to do with the value of having a ritual.”
The High School Musical Gets Big
High school musicals have become big business, with schools buying advanced stage equiment and spending tens- and even hundreds- of thousands of dollars on their productions. “Because they are pouring more into their musicals – and thus having to sell more tickets, at higher prices – schools are becoming big business for licensing companies like Music Theater International and R&H Theatricals, which in the past made nearly all of their money from professional productions. Freddie Gershon, chairman of M.T.I., estimates that licensing for the school market is now a $75 million to $100 million annual business.”
Inventing The New NPR
“Over the past decade, as media conglomerates dumped public-affairs programming in favor of “infotainment” and tabloid trash, NPR recognized the void and moved to fill it with high-quality news reporting. That news-oriented model, by drawing in listeners hungry for substantial coverage of politics and public affairs, has enabled NPR to thrive: Today, it continues to add correspondents and bureaus at a time when most other major news organizations are trimming them. A fair-minded evaluation must conclude that if NPR has turned its back on some of the values enshrined in its original mission statement, it has also, in other ways and despite enormous political pressure from its detractors, remained true to them as well. But a price was paid on the road to respectability.”
In Praise Of Elitism
“The elitism question is a complicated matter, not least because of the widely-observed paradox that claims of anti-elitism emanate from academics who write a language of deliberately clotted opaque jargon and make a parade of not particularly relevant erudition. It’s also complicated because the word elitism is thrown around with wild abandon with no particular definition being stipulated, as if its meaning were entirely transparent and self-evident and generally agreed on. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Elitism means a great many things, some of them perfectly incompatible with one another, with the result that the word does more to obfuscate discussion than to clarify it.”
The Selling Of Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons turned 50 this year. Though hye disappeared for a while in the 90s due to some personal problems, in recent years his work has been selling for millions of dollars. “How did an artist who sold his works for relatively modest prices two decades ago reach such peaks? Collectors, dealers, curators, and auction specialists who spoke with ARTnews say that Koons has masterminded his fame and fortune through a combination of charm, guile, and a talent for creating expensive art that inspires critical debate.”