Jürgen Flimm has been appointed as new artistic director of the Salzburg Festival. “Flimm, who is head of the festival’s theater section and an internationally known opera and theater director, will succeed the composer Peter Ruzicka, who earlier this year said he did not want a second five-year term.”
Blog
Why Video Games Rule
Video games are hugely popular – it’s not difficult to see a day coming when they’ll be our most popular form of entertainment. Why? “I submit that it’s more fun to do stuff than to watch stuff. It’s one of the reasons movies about hot video games rarely do much at the box office: I’d rather help Lara Croft outwit enemies and cheat death in the “Tomb Raider” series than watch Angelina Jolie dodge special effects onscreen — even an augmented Angelina Jolie. Video gaming is to moviegoing as writing a book is to reading one: You are in control.”
Is James MacMillian Spreading Himself Too Thin?
James MacMillan is one of Scotland’s most successful composers. But in recent years, besides his busy composing schedule, he has developed a whole other career conducting. This leads some critics to wondering if “all this conducting – he’s also lined up with orchestras in Japan and Europe – is diluting his compositional output, or if it might even be a way for him to deliberately lighten the compositional load.” There is some evidence…
The Secret Of My Prolificacy
How is it that some writers are so amazingly prolific? Every time you turn around, they’re popping out another book. Has anyone tested these people for steroids (or, I suppose, the literary equivalent)? Has Stephen King submitted to a blood test lately?
An Artist Collective In Beijing
In Beijing, a group of artists (as artists do) clustered together, fixed up some space and set up 74 galleries and private art studios in a refurbished 1950’s-era weapons factory. Some critics feel that an artist complex is not a good idea, but “the artists were supported by officials who said that a flourishing art scene would help Beijing become a vibrant city. Long Xingmin, the assistant party secretary of development and planning ministry for Beijing, visited the galleries in April, and the vice mayor of Beijing has weighed in to support the artists. Visiting dignitaries, including the president of Switzerland, have also stopped by the complex to offer support.”
American Readers – And Never The Twain Shall Meet…
American readers have become so polartized in their reading. Conservatives buy conservative books, liberals buy liberal books. And what do we learn from such incestuous behavior?…
Pumping Up Latin American Art
“For decades Latin American art has been the poor cousin in the house of academic art history departments. Few universities offer an introduction to Latin American art on a regular basis. Asia and Africa have always received more attention, in part because of the ways their art was absorbed by European and American artists in the 19th and 20th centuries. What would Picasso and Matisse be without tribal masks, Oceanic sculpture and Japanese prints? Like American art and literature before World War II, Latin American culture has received less respect than it deserves.” Now an attempt to change that…
Hitchens: Czeslaw Milosz’s Extraordinary Accomplishment
Christopher Hitchens takes a close read of poet Czeslaw Milosz’s understanding of politics: “The long-term achievement of Milosz was to have scrutinized, not just in between but clean through, and well beyond, the party “lines” that claim for themselves exclusive truth. In doing so he shamed the so-called intellectuals who managed the ugly trick of denying freedom to their own minds, the better to visit the same deprivation upon others.”
Israeli Court Overturns Film Ban
“Israel’s film board banned Jenin, Jenin from being shown in the Jewish state last year, saying it presented a distorted version of events in Jenin. But on Monday Israel’s High Court reinstated a ruling which overturned the ban, saying the film board did not have ‘a monopoly over truth’.”
Paid Thesis: Canadian Students Complain
More than 50 Canadian colleges require graduate students who wish to see their thesis published in a national, standardized way to submit the work to an American company “which then gets non-exclusive publishing rights.” Some students protest that the American company ought not to be able to make money off their research.