An Iraq war will hurt the book industry in a big way. “Book publishing is almost entirely dependent on the free publicity that authors receive in newspapers and on television and radio. On important programs, the time devoted to entertainment features will shrink considerably if a war occurs,” as time is given to covering the war.
Tag: 03.10.03
Community Concerts On The Rocks
Since 1927, Community Concerts brought classical music to the corners of America, to communities that never would have been able to afford to stage concerts. But the organization is in disarray – performances have been cancelled, artists haven’t been paid, and Community’s network of local presenters is falling away…
Booker Prize Judges Chosen
Judges for this year’s Booker prize have been chosen, and jurors include a mountaineer and a philosopher. “The judging panel should reflect the widest possible range of experience and taste, compatible with wanting to read 150 books very fast. I think we meet those requirements pretty well – better than last time I was in the chair, when we lacked both a philosopher and mountaineer.”
Nice Nice Nice – The Failure Of Architecture
“For centuries, the task of the architect was to build the ideal city, whether the city state of 15th-century Italy, or a Modernist backdrop for car-driving, welfare-state citizens. Naturally, they all failed.” In the 60s, a group of Italians called Superstudio “had the audacity to say that after 400 years of failure we should give it a rest. Utopia? It ain’t coming.” The problem is, they couldn’t come up with an alternative. So “three decades after the Italians exited stage left, architecture, and especially British architecture, has fulfilled all their prophesies. It’s cursed with niceness. It’s dull. Unquestioning. Terminally polite.”
Biography: A Creative Life
“Biography is the least naturalistic of literary genres. Poetry and fiction, in comparison, are pure documentary. Think about it: the experience of living a life is nothing at all like writing or reading a Life. In real life, memory is patchy, with some scenes and events standing out in neon and large blanks of time about which you can not remember a thing. There does not seem to be any pattern to it. We live in the evershifting present, and the future is uncontrollable. The whole thing is chronically unstable.”
Tearing Down An Eyesore (Or Is It?)
Birmingham, England’s central library is only 30 years old. It has been controversial – seen either as part of an axis of architectural evil, along with the city’s Rotunda and New Street station, or as a bold brutalist design. Prince Charles described it as “looking like a place where books are incinerated”. Now it is to be torn down for a new library. But some worry that “although fashions of the 1970s have been reassessed and mined for information several times over, buildings of this period are still very little understood; if the library is demolished, Birmingham will lose a great building before its importance has been recognised.”
Why’d They Forget About Bix?
Bix Beiderbecke was a seminal figure in jazz. This week is the 100th anniversary of his birthday. So “where are the sort of commemorative CD reissue series that celebrated Armstrong’s 100th birthday in 2001, or Duke Ellington’s in 1999? The major labels, which rarely miss an opportunity to make a quick buck off sentimentality (not to mention recordings paid for nearly 80 years ago), have apparently missed this one.”
Adding Words – New This Year…
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the “most widely circulated of all word books”, has “added a dozen or so new words this year, including blunt (a cigar hollowed out and filled with marijuana), booty (buttocks) and gearhead (a computer guru).”
The Poetic Politics Of Poet Protest
As thousands of poets protest a war with Iraq, some wonder why poets have taken a lead on the issue and what effect their art might have on the issue. Robert Pinsky: “What poetry does have is the ability to speak memorably in the breath of each reader. Poetry’s strength was the inner universe. The power of poetry has to do with its intimacy and human scale. The poems that were presented to the President were an idiosyncratic mix: wildly various in content, point of view, cogency, literary distinction… That variety represents a certain power, more than a weakness. It reflects something profound about both American culture and the art of poetry”.
Hickox Promises Diversity For Opera Australia
Opera Australia’s new director, Richard Hickox, says he’s committed to presenting diverse work in Melbourne and building the company’s stature internationally. “There is not an opera company in the world that is not under some sort of pressure and, believe me, the turmoil here is nothing like as great as most.”