“British theatre continues to buck the recession, according to a new report revealing the resilience of the performing arts sector compared with restaurants, pubs and clubs. … The report states: ‘The performing arts benefit from the same prevailing trends as cinema, in that they are perceived as a way of escaping from the tyranny of value, cutting back and saving’.”
Tag: 01.13.10
The Orwell Diaries
They “confirm, if any confirmation were needed, his ineradicable grounding in the Edwardian world of his boyhood. … Cold weather is ‘beastly’, while ‘monstrous’ can be applied to anything from a slag heap to the remnant of a pie left in a lodging house pantry. From his upbringing, too, comes that infallible habit of trying to ‘place’ people … and – for all the instinctive fair-mindedness – arriving at a judgement based on class or gender divides.”
The Great Flowering Of The Great Depression
“The Depression, for all the misery it spread, ‘also left us with the most buoyant, most effervescent popular culture of the twentieth century’.”
How Best To Marry Technology To Music?
“It is deceptively challenging these days to apply technology to music in ways that explode our imaginations, deepen our personal insights, shake us out of boring routine and accepted belief, and pull us ever closer to one another.”
Baby Einstein Founder Goes After Unfavorable Research In Court
“A co-founder of the company that created the ‘Baby Einstein’ videos has asked a judge to order the University of Washington to release records relating to two studies that linked television viewing by young children to attention problems and delayed language development.”
Did Avatar Rip Off Soviet Science Fiction?
“Cinema audiences in Russia have been quick to point out that Avatar has elements in common with The World of Noon, or Noon Universe, a cycle of 10 bestselling science fiction novels written by [brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky] in the mid-1960s.”
Can Edward Hall Turn Around The Hampstead Theatre?
“Hall is inheriting a company that has filled an average of only 61% of its seats since its new venue opened in 2003, suffers from a hefty financial deficit and has been on the end of some pretty scathing notices from the critics. It has also become saddled with a reputation as a failing theatre, stuck in a rut.”
Was Barthes’s ‘Death Of The Author’ A Sort Of Deicide?
“In France, perhaps more than anywhere else, the secularisation of society (compounded by the Republic’s struggle against the Roman Catholic Church) had led to the adoption of art and literature as substitute religions. Nietzsche had announced the death of God only to see Him replaced by the ‘Author-God’. Enter Roland Barthes.”
Why We Should Read Arabic Novels
“What we see of the Arab world comes from news reports of war and other madness. Literature would be a much more profound contact … [that would] unveil elements of life across the Arab world that you won’t see in the newspaper or on TV.” Matt Rees recommends ten novels in English translation.
Eli Broad Keeps His Museum-Building Options Open
“In an interview Tuesday,” Eli “Broad unexpectedly revealed the third site” he’s considering for his museum: “a 10-acre parcel on the campus of West L.A. College in Culver City.” But “West L.A. College President Mark Rocha says neither Broad nor any of his associates ever replied to a letter he wrote to them last November about the property.”