Are today’s teenagers totally at the mercy of the corporate messages that everywhere lie in wait for them? “By sheer virtue of their population numbers, buying power and savvy, teens are not merely in vogue. Entire carpeted auditoriums of middle-age movie, TV, retail and Internet executives devote themselves to tracking the spending habits of these juniors, decoding their preferences, catering to their every mass hiccup.” A new book suggests that today’s teens are a “sad, hollow, cheated generation, thoroughly saturated by artful product placement, co-opted by viral marketing, oppressed by the trickle-down effect of the (now rather pockmarked) “contemporary luxury economy.”
Tag: 02.19.03
Blake Paintings Fetch Five-Spot
A small collection of watercolors by William Blake has fetched £5 million at auction in the UK, the most money ever paid for a work by the British poet and artist. The paintings were commissioned to accompany Robert Blair’s poem “The Grave,” and while the fact of their existence was known to scholars, they had been missing since 1836. Two Yorkshire dealers discovered the paintings in a Glasgow bookshop last year, and acquired them without telling the bookstore of their significance. A bit of legal wrangling followed, and the upshot is that this week’s auction will leave both the dealers and the shop quite a bit richer.
Can Salon Survive?
Can Salon magazine survive past the end of February? “The company has already been through several rounds of layoffs and cut everyone’s pay by 15 per cent. It now employs fewer than two dozen staffers.” But its remaining employees are loyal: “Our impending non-existence has been predicted in the press for so long and with such conviction that we considered adopting ‘die another day’ as a marketing slogan until the Bond franchise beat us to it.”
Giving Russian Musicians A Reason To Stay
The Russian government hs established a set of grants designed to provide incentive for the nation’s top musicians to keep their talents in country, rather than seeking out higher-paying positions in Europe and America. The average Russian orchestra musician currently makes around US$120 a month. The grants, which will be doled out to seven musical organizations in Moscow and St. Petersburg, will be used principally to increase those salaries to as much as $1400 a month. The money is a welcome relief for cash-strapped orchestras and conservatories, but many fear the fix may be temporary.
Hollywood Offers Money For Piracy Snitches
The Motion Picture Association of America is offering rewards to informats on DVD piracy in Asia. The “MPA estimates that pirated DVDs cost Hollywood $3 billion in lost revenue in 2002, and $646 million in Asia.” The MPA declines to say how much informants will be offered, that “rewards would be significant and dependent on the quality of information provided. ‘If we need more money we’ll get it. Money isn’t the issue’.”
Missing Diva Still Missing
It’s been a week since soprano Sumi Jo abruptly up and left Australia, abandoning a performance of “Lucia” for Opera Australia without a word. No one at the company has yet heard from her. “Even Jo’s manager, Tony Russo, hasn’t had a phone call explaining her actions. ‘I haven’t spoken to her yet. She took everyone by surprise. I still don’t know what came to pass but she’s not a canceller’.”
New Mexico Legislature Votes To Restore Arts Education
The New Mexico House of Representatives has voted unanimously to restore arts education in public schools. “Arts education has been shown to enhance many aspects of a child’s intellect, including critical thinking and creative problem solving,” said the bill’s sponsor. “The bill was supported by members of both parties.”
Houston Symphony Standoff
The Houston Symphony and its musicians are locked in a contract dispute that threatens the future of the orchestra. The orchestra is carrying a big deficit, and management proposes cuts in musicians and musician salaries. The musicians, not surprisingly, have a different idea. How did the situation deteriorate to the point of work stoppages and accusations?
Ted Perry: Music With A Conscience
Ted Perry was a singular voice in the music business. He founded and ran Hyperion as a small recording label and “modest as it was, Hyperion became a marque of musical conscience, a reproach at the preposterous Classical Brits to the fixed smiles of the bottom-liners and their forgettable novelties. ‘When I first knew him, he was driving a minicab at nights to pay the musicians he recorded by day. The gleam in his eye was an urge to share good music with anyone who might love it – chaps like himself, without social pretensions or academic qualifications, whose grey horizons could be tinted by an exposure to aural glories.”
Blockbuster ‘Ratings’ Policy Under Fire
Blockbuster Video has a policy of not carrying any movie rated NC-17, or any unrated film which violates the chain’s vaguely defined decency standards. But when an edited copy of the critically lauded film Y Tu Mamá También appeared on Blockbuster shelves recently, missing a key scene in which two gay men share a passionate kiss, critics of the Blockbuster policy, and of the MPAA’s ratings standards, were furious. “Regardless of who made the decision and why, the kiss that dare not show itself reflects another Hollywood trend: Lesbian sex scenes between buxom beauties… are acceptable, even fashionable, while a smooch between male buddies is forced to hit the road.”