A libel trial in London over a controversial book on the Holocaust has Europe buzzing. But what is at stake is not the truth about the Holocaust, which has been well-documented, but that alarms about the trial “may give the verdict more weight than it deserves, so that if the plaintiff wins, the alarmists will have created the very sort of damage they are trying to prevent: doubt among the ill-informed about whether the Holocaust happened. And because of trial technicalities or the nature of British libel law, the plaintiff could conceivably win.” – New York Times
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WHITE HOUSE DRUG CONTROL OFFICE, —
— responding to pressure, says it won’t advance-screen TV shows for anti-drug messages. – Variety
PRIVATE INTEREST
The British government is selling off public buildings all over London to private developers. The law requires getting the highest prices possible on the open market, never mind that there are public-interest groups that could actually use the digs. And then there is the issue of public property built and maintained at public expense for sometimes 100 years, being handed over to private interests in return for a one-time quick cash fix. – The Times (UK)
WHY DOESN’T OPERA WORK ON TV?
Ed Sullivan tried putting on the Met in the early days of television and his ratings bombed. Writes one critic of a more recent small-screen encounter: “I’m in favor of real writers’ getting television money for something other than sitcoms about pimples, and real composers’ getting television money for something other than jingles about deodorants, and public television’s investing in more than three tenors. It can’t be that spectacle doesn’t work on a smaller scale — what else is pro football, not to mention pro wrestling? Isn’t opera just premature music video?” – New York Magazine
SEND A PIANA TO HAVANA
A New Yorker campaigns to gather up boatloads of pianos and ship them to Cuba. In 1993 he was having a drink at the Tropicoco Resort in Havana and heard a hotel pianist try to tinkle out “Strangers in the Night.” He found out how awful all the pianos in Cuba, the most musical of islands, were—ravaged by the salty air and the comegen, the deadly tropical termite that “likes to mate inside piano wood from cold climates like Germany.” From that moment on, Benjamin Treuhaft vowed he would improve the piano situation, and formed his not-for-profit group. – Village Voice
OF CONCERT HALLS AND ORCHESTRAS
Cleveland’s redo of Severance Hall has one critic reflecting on a concert hall’s contribution to the success of an orchestra. – New York Observer
REVISIONIST SHOSTAKOVICH
Dismissing the famous dissident memoir supposedly dictated by Dmitri Shostakovich, and discounting testimony of friends and family, American musicologist Laurel Fay’s new biography of the composer claims he was an obedient Soviet citizen. Why? Because, she claims, no document signed by Shostakovich exists confirming his dissent from the Communist regime. – London Telegraph
I-DON’T-GET-IT ART
“I often think the art we don’t understand falls into three loose categories. First, there’s the art we don’t understand and hate, secretly wishing it would disappear.The other two categories are more complicated. First there’s the art you don’t understand and like, maybe even love. Finally there’s art you don’t understand or are ambivalent about, while being somewhat intrigued by or passably interested in it—at least enough to make you not dismiss it outright, though sometimes you wish you could.” – Village Voice
REDESIGNING BOSTON’S MFA —
— with London’s defining architect. – Boston Globe
JORY LEAVES LOUISVILLE
Jon Jory, for 31 years the head of Actors Theatre of Louisville and one of America’s most veteran directors, will leave Louisville to join the faculty of Seattle’s University of Washington School of Drama. – Seattle Times