“Imagine the future actress, who is told there’s no time to play in the dress-up area because she has to learn all her letters and memorize 25 sight words at the age of five. Imagine the up-and-coming Picasso who is chastised for turning in a picture of a blue cat eating a potato when the assignment had been to draw a self-portrait. Not realistic enough! Follow directions!”
Tag: 03.11.10
New Way To Spread Box-Office Risk: Movie Derivatives
“Two trading firms … are each about to premiere a sophisticated new financial tool: a box-office futures exchange that would allow Hollywood studios and others to hedge against the box-office performance of movies, similar to the way farmers swap corn or wheat futures to protect themselves from crop failures.”
Exhibit Of Salinger Letters Is First Leak In ‘Dam Of Silence’
“The paper (Salinger had a fondness for goldenrod-colored sheets) and the typeface, ordinary in themselves, are the same ones with which the writer, in between letters, must have been producing hundreds of pages of extraordinary, unpublished fiction. Even the envelopes tell a story of growing fame and isolation.”
Shaw Festival Locks Out IATSE; Other Workers To Strike
“At first, 16 workers represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 461 were affected. They provide maintenance, ground crew and housekeeping services. But other union members representing production and sales, which make up about 160 members, also went on strike.”
Europe Experiments With Book Scanning
“On Wednesday, Google announced that it will scan ancient Italian texts … as part of the Internet company’s first publishing partnership with a national government.” Norway’s “national library last year signed a deal with a group representing all of the Scandinavian country’s publishers and authors to put 50,000 copyrighted books online that can be read for free.”
How Do You Win That Orchestra Spot? Get In The Minivan
Facing a 26-hour drive from Winnipeg to his D.C. audition with the National Symphony Orchestra, timpanist Jauvon Gilliam “called up timpanists in major American orchestras along the way and asked if he could play for them. He wanted to get used to playing nervous, in unfamiliar situations. … [B]y the time he got to Washington, he was in great form.”
What Critics Talk About When They Talk About The Nose
Kentridge, Gogol, Shostakovich: It only made sense to round up classical music critic Anthony Tommasini, art critic Roberta Smith and book critic Dwight Garner to talk with classical music reporter Daniel J. Wakin about “the music, the art and the literary threads” running through Kentridge’s Metropolitan Opera production of “The Nose.”
The Surprising Success Of Spain’s New Classical Ballet Company
Angel Corella: “I thought the company was very necessary for Spanish dancers who wanted to have their career in their country. So it’s been many years of work and, now, a few years of double the work, but also the double the success. It’s amazing. We had five days of Swan Lake and all the tickets were sold out in less than two hours. It was a little bit scary.”
In Vancouver, The Cultural Paralympics
“The Paralympic Games begin tomorrow, and art exploring the disability experience is very much in evidence in Vancouver’s continuing Cultural Olympiad. But the people behind these shows say it is essential that the physical challenges of the protagonists, stars and/or creators do not overwhelm the subject matter of the works.”
Fearing Digital Future, Publishing Fails To See Possibilities
“With the earth trembling beneath them, it is no wonder that publishers with one foot in the crumbling past and the other seeking solid ground in an uncertain future hesitate to seize the opportunity that digitization offers them…. New technologies, however, do not await permission.”