“Consider that what all of these – performance, writing, teaching, etc. – have in common is the structure of detachment. Pupils sit and listen to a teacher. Audiences pay to watch and scrutinize, but they must keep quiet and sit in the dark. Visitors to the gallery can look, and think, but not touch. These events are structured by detachment. That’s where they begin. And so, from the very start, they are always on the verge of boredom.”
Tag: 03.16.12
There Is No Such Thing As The ‘Literary Establishment’
Author Geoff Dyer: “It’s one of those expressions and concepts whose rhetorical potency and convenience derive, imprecisely, from the fact that no one stops to think whether it means anything at all – any more than a squash player pauses to consider why there’s a wall at the back of the court. … [And] like a squash court wall again, [it] exists in order to have stuff hurled against it.”
‘An Agent’s Manifesto To All Those In The Business Of Publishing Books On Behalf Of The Author’
Item 1: “The author is the expert. Why assume that the one person who has spent the past 12-18 months on the subject, the story and the world of their work, knows least about how they should be represented to the trade and to the reader?”
You Can’t Copyright Pi, Says US Federal Judge
“On 14 March, which commemorates the constant that begins 3.14, US district court judge Michael H. Simon dismissed a claim of copyright infringement brought by one mathematical musician against another, who had also created music based on the digits of pi.”
Berlin Museum Must Return Nazi-Looted Posters To Family Heir
After a 7-year legal battle, the German Historical Museum has accepted a ruling that it must return thousands of rare posters to the collector’s son. “Peter Sachs said, ‘It feels like vindication for my father, a final recognition of the life he lost and never got back.'”
Canadian Indie Bookstore Closes Two Of Three Shops
Rising rents, says owner Nicholas Hoare, are forcing him to close his namesake bookstores in Ottawa and Montreal. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Hoare. “Not Amazon, nothing else.”
Did Rodarte Make A Mockery Of Australian Aboriginal Art?
Turns out the sisters in charge of the fashion house handled the whole thing better than a U.N. expert on indigenous art thought they did. Probably.
Miramax CEO Performs Well, And Gets The Boot Anyway
Miramax announced on Friday that CEO Mike Lang was leaving. “The news came as a surprise because Lang has spearheaded a number of deals that Miramax’s owners have boasted led to financial success. They included a DVD distribution agreement with Lionsgate and Studiocanal and digital partnerships with Netflix, Hulu and Facebook.”
A Handy Dandy List For Music Directors Who Just Can’t Think Of Any Women Composers
Rob Deemer: “The need for greater programming of women composers is, of course, strong and obvious enough that nothing I could say could add to the argument. What little I can do to help the issue along I have done in the hopes that with information comes progress.”
You’ve Got A Phone-Hacking Scandal; We’ve Got Theatre
The National Theatre of Scotland is hard at work on a production about the phone-hacking scandals in the U.K. – and the play’s to be called Enquirer, of course.