“I know of numerous composers who suffer from tinnitus — that ringing or other sound in the ears which never shuts off. And even violinists tend to end up with hearing damage in the left ear, since that is the one closest to the sound of the instrument. It is, of course, the sounds we don’t make ourselves that we are most disturbed by. Noise from neighbours can be fatal. It is not unknown for disputes to end in murder or suicide.” – Irish Times
Blog
Digital Entertainment Surpasses Box Office For First Time
Consumer spending on digital home entertainment surged to $48.7 billion last year, up 24% from 2018, according to a new report from the Motion Picture Assn. Worldwide theatrical ticket sales were $42.2 billion, up 1% from the prior year, said the MPA, the Washington-based lobbying group that represents the major Hollywood studios and Netflix. – Los Angeles Times
Robots Will Change Everything
The day is coming when practically anything that a human can do—at least anything that the labor market is willing to pay a human being a decent wage to do—will soon be doable more efficiently and cost effectively by some AI-driven automated device. If and when that day does arrive, those who own the means of production will feel ever increasing pressure to discard human workers in favor of an artificially intelligent work force. They are likely to do so as unhesitatingly as they have always set aside outmoded technology in the past. – Boston Review
Clarinetist Bill Smith, 93
Known as Bill Smith to the jazz world and William O. Smith in classical circles, Mr. Smith served on the University of Washington faculty from 1966-1997. He was a founding member of the Dave Brubeck Octet, which in 1947 pioneered a blend of classical music and jazz later known as Third Stream and had a profound influence on the development of West Coast, or “cool,” jazz. – Seattle Times
Gov’t Of Catalonia Paid For Documentaries Saying That Cervantes, Shakespeare, Columbus, And Leonardo Were Catalan
The government of the independence-minded Spanish region gave €3 million in subsidies to media companies connected to the New History Institute (INH) and paid €184,000 for the rights to six INH documentaries — films arguing that Cervantes and Shakespeare were a single individual who wrote in Catalan (and that the Spanish Inquisition suppressed his true identity), that Leonardo da Vinci was Catalan, and that not only was Christopher Columbus Catalan but Erasmus of Rotterdam was his illegitimate son. – The Guardian
‘Merce Cunningham Redux’
James Klosty’s book is big in several ways. (Try lugging it to a sunny spot; it weighs about six pounds.) I’m in love with it. – Deborah Jowitt
Why The Novel Is Being Superceded
The novel represented a maturation of storytelling—the adulthood of fiction, taking the reader into the interior of the human person. Now, the form is on its deathbed. Lingering readers are seeking in it something other—diversion, entertainment—than what the readers of Jane Austen or the Brontes, Dickens or Kafka, were seeking back in the day. – First Things
‘The Infectious Pestilence Did Reign’: Shakespeare And The Plague
“‘Plague was the single most powerful force shaping his life and those of his contemporaries,’ wrote Jonathan Bate, one of his many biographers. … But the plague was also Shakespeare’s secret weapon. He didn’t ignore it. He took advantage of it.” – Slate
Broadway Producers Cuts Ticket Prices For Hit Shows To $50
Starting at noon Thursday, remaining seats for five of the hottest tickets on Broadway will be going for a fraction of their normal price, selling for just $50 apiece at all performances through March 29. Producer Scott Rudin today announced the extraordinary measure of establishing the deep-discount flat rate for all five of his shows, all of which have been playing to sold-out houses or close to it. – The Hollywood Reporter
Trey McIntyre Comes Back To The Company Where He Learned To Choreograph
“During his time at Houston Ballet as choreographic apprentice in 1989, and later as choreographic associate from 1995 to 2008, he created seven ballets … Although the company has returned to his popular full-length Peter Pan several times over the years, and In Dreams in the 2017/18 season, [Pretty Things] is McIntyre’s first new work for the company in nearly two decades.” – Dance Magazine