While music, plays and visual art has taken on the task of depicting stories about 9/11, the movies have generally stayed away so far. “Part of it is sensitivity. Cinema is so powerful that maybe those images on a 50-foot screen or talk of 9/11 in a theatrical film isn’t perceived to have entertainment value.”
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MetManiac Back On The Web
In November the Metropolitan Opera tried to shut down John Patterson’s website devoted to all things Metropolitan Opera. The opera company accused the fan site (www.metmaniac.com) of violating its copyrights and trademarks. An uproar of protest caused the Met to rethink its position, and the site is back in business. The deal: “Mr. Patterson would have the name of his site back for a dollar a year. No video clips, except with permission. And no indication of trading or even any indication that he has a broadcast collection at all. According to Mr. Patterson: ‘I told them, ‘That’s OK. I already have everything I can get. My collection’s more comprehensive than yours!’ He has long stated that he intends to donate his collection to the Met upon his demise.
Radiohead Fanatic
Pianist Christopher O’Riley has a passion for the guitar band Radiohead. He’s been arranging about a dozen of the band’s songs and performing them in his otherwise classical concerts and playing them during the intermission of “From the Top,” his public radio music show. “Both classical musicians and Radiohead enthusiasts have taken note of O’Riley’s obsession; his work is drawing notice from concert promoters and it’s won him a following via the Internet among rock fans who normally would never set foot in a recital hall.”
Don’t Read Books? Maybe It’s Because We Want Better Stories
Why is it that many educated people aren’t reading books anymore? Is it because our brains have forgotten to function in longform? Not really, writes one critic. Today’s literary writers – at least those in Canada, anyway – want to write about states of being, rather than action in the real world. “I think this disconnect, more than the slow and inexorable frittering away of our collective intelligence, explains why we don’t read much any more. It’s not our brains that have turned to mush, it’s the books.”
Children’s Theatre Grows Up
Some theatre people believe that some of the most adventurous plays these days are coming out of children’s theatre. And some of the best children’s theatre in North America is coming out of Canada (“although we still lag behind Europe”). “Unfortunately in Canada, the public perception about plays for young people places it in a state of awkward adolescence.”
Scottish Opera Could Be Reduced To Part-Time
Despite numerous bailouts over the years, the critically acclaimed Scottish Opera is in another crisis. Without a big increase in public subsidies, the company will have to slash its season next year. Doing that would “inevitably” mean that the company would become a part-time operation…
Potter Clue Sells For Heavy Price
A 93-word teaser describing the next installment of the Harry Potter series and written on a notecard by JK Rowling was sold at auction for £28,680 in London this week. “The fan site www.the.leaky.cauldron.org managed to raise £15,240 to buy the card, but were outbid by an anonymous US bidder.”
Not In Vogue
Conde Nast, the giant magazine publisher and owner of Vogue, has blocked British artist Graham Dolphin from showing a piece based on Vogue covers in a show at the Barbican Centre in London. The company said that “the reputation and goodwill built up in this title over many years as the world’s leading fashion authority, is the most valuable asset this company owns, and we are not prepared to allow anyone to exploit it in an unauthorised way…. It is our policy to follow up on every case of unauthorised usage whether it be commercial or artistic, with the assistance of our lawyers whenever necessary.”
Elgin Marbles Explained
The Parthenon Marbles have been attacked and degraded over 1600 years. But one has only to compare the pieces left at the Acropolis with those preserved in the British Museum to appreciate that Lord Elgin’s removal of the marbles to London has helped preserve them. In this context, the claim that the removal of the Elgin Marbles are is an “object lesson of greed, xenophobia and intransigence” is “in part incomprehensible and in part deeply offensive.”
Wouldn’t You Like To Be A Philosopher Too?
Not so difficult. Here are 12 easy tips to get you started… “Think of a matter of great importance to life. Reduce it unequivocally to three concepts. Enumerate them. Analyze each concept by distinguishing two independent notions in each. Continue with further analysis (preferably speculative) until you have developed a maze of distinctions that bear no resemblance to any topic of any importance to life at all.”