The Sony Walkman turns 25 this month, and if that doesn’t sound like a big deal to you, you’re probably too young to remember life without portable music. But Daniel Rubin isn’t: “For a mix-tape obsessive, this was like sprouting wings. Countless new soundtracks beckoned. I made running tapes, sunning tapes, sauntering tapes, strutting tapes. It provided groove for the quotidian, put joy in waiting. I was no longer prisoner of Donna Summer or Molly Hatchet on the radio.”
Blog
Gardeners Can’t Like Beethoven?
This August, just like every year, the BBC will devote a sizable chunk of its schedule to presenting the BBC Proms, the world’s largest classical music festival. But its choice of host this year has some devotees in a snit: Alan Titchmarsh, host of a popular gardening program. But Titchmarsh is firing back at the highbrow crowd: “I was rather amused that people thought it was all right for a newsreader to present the Proms, not a mere gardener, as though gardeners, by definition, know nothing about music, which is very insulting to gardeners. I have loved classical music for 45 years… I come to the Proms from the perspective of a shared passion, not as a musicologist.”
Please Hand Cancel
“A small London gallery has been told by Royal Mail to destroy prints showing postage stamps of the Queen in a gas mask – and tell them of anyone who owns copies. The series, Black Smoke, Stamps of Mass Destruction, was created last year in protest at the Iraq war by James Cauty, a former member of the art-world pranksters and rock musicians known variously as KLF and the K Foundation.” The UK’s postal service is claiming that the works violate its copyright.
Is Sotheby’s Trading In Forgeries?
This year, Sotheby’s came within hours of auctioning off what it claimed was an authentic painting by the Russian artist Ivan Shishkin. The asking price was £700,000, a huge number, especially when it turned out that the painting was actually a forgery created on a £5,000 work by an obscure Dutchman. The backstage fallout from the near-auction has been swift and cutting. “Behind the scenes there are growing recriminations in the secretive world of Bond Street dealers. One accuses Sotheby’s, which dominates the market, of lack of competence.” Others are alleging that this is hardly the first time the auction house has been duped.
The Intellectual Musician
Pianist and author Charles Rosen may well be classical music’s most important intellectual of the last hundred years. But his devotion to the inner workings of musical style may have led to his reputation as an ultra-intellectual performer who sometimes doesn’t see the forest for the trees. “The fact that he has chosen to write about the physical experience of making music… may indeed be a reaction not just to some critics’ views of his performances but to the fact that his brilliant reputation as a writer and intellectual has distracted public attention from his considerable career as a concert virtuoso and recording artist.”
Why Do They Hate Us? Well, We Gave Them The Idea.
Since 9/11, the mainstream media can’t get enough of the question: ‘Why do the terrorists hate us?’ The answers tend to divide along political lines, but there is very little question that many in the Muslim world view the West as decadent, materialistic, imperialist, and dangerously secular. “But how did such ideas develop? One surprising source turns out to be a little-known group of 20th-century European intellectuals. They passed these ideas on to small groups of ardent followers, but their books and pamphlets gradually shaped a worldwide subculture of belief and devotion.”
NY Phil Cancels Tour
The New York Philharmonic, battling deficits and deep into contract negotiations with its musicians, has canceled a tour of Europe scheduled for September, saying that the Spanish presenters couldn’t guarantee the necessary fees to keep the tour in the black. This is the third time in the last calendar year that the orchestra has canceled a tour, but Philharmonic officials insist that a fall 2004 tour to Japan and South Korea is not in danger.
A Bloody Awful Comedy
Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio is supposed to be a comedy. Comedies, as a rule, do not include “scenes of copulation, fellatio, rape, torture and mutilation.” Comedies do not end with the protagonists littering the stage as corpses. And yet, this is the much-criticized approach being taken to Seraglio by Berlin’s Komische Oper. People are walking out of the production in droves, and newspapers are braying about misuse of public funds. So why even attempt such a bloody and controversial production? Well, every show thus far has sold out. “It could also be that shock treatment is just what’s needed to jolt some outmoded art forms back to life.”
Got The Picture?
“The number of illustrated books for older children and adults seems mysteriously to have dwindled in recent years. Publishers argue, very reasonably, that it makes books more expensive. Readers of fantasy fiction have their imagery packaged for them in the all-powerful special effects of the big screen. But there are signs now that the illustrated novel, which aims to elicit a more leisurely, intimate response, is due for a comeback.”
Is Pulling Rank A Social Injustice?
When a power-hungry boss, an overzealous coach, or a powerful politician uses his perceived authority to slap down an underling, most people would label the guy a jerk, a bully, or worse. But Robert Fuller is taking it one step further, accusing such types of “rankism,” a serious social injustice which points up the need for society to begin tearing down traditional structures of rank, or at least to demand better treatment from those in authority. Fuller, a prominent physicist and past president of Oberlin College, is proposing some controversial societal changes to combat rankism, including the abolition of university tenure.