As CD sales fall and the recording business seems to fall apart, legislators in New York and California are considering tough new laws to help ensure artists get the money owed to them.
Tag: 04.13.03
Destroying Iraq’s Museum – One Tank Could Have Saved It
The looting of the Iraq Museum is a loss for the world. “The losses will be felt worldwide, but its greatest impact will be on the Iraqi people themselves when it comes to rebuilding their sense of national identity. International cultural organisations had urged before the war that the cultural heritage of Iraq, which has more than 10,000 archaeological sites, be spared. US forces are making a belated attempt to protect the National Museum, calling on Iraqi policemen to turn up for duty. There is no pay, but 80 have given their services. ‘The Americans were supposed to protect the museum. If they had just one tank and two soldiers nothing like this would have happened. I hold the American troops responsible. They know that this is a museum. They protect oil ministries but not the cultural heritage’.”
Cliche Central
There’s a central list of words that have become cliched and ought not to be used in good writing. “This year’s list consists almost entirely of pat phrases associated with ‘9/11’ and the ‘war on terror’, all of which are so far beyond mockery and have been so ruthlessly dissected in the (British) press that the list seems sadly unimaginative (it’s become clichéd to remark on the clichéness of the clichés). But isn’t there an unforgivable fundamentalism in proscribing certain words as ‘bad’ English and promoting others as ‘right’, even when done in jest – one that is, at best, pompously pedantic and, at worst, pernicious, given that many ‘wrong’ words originate with ethnic or cultural groups for whom they are perfectly ‘correct’?”
Charlotte Church’s Rebellion
Charlotte Church’s holiday in Hawaii has been ruined by a terrible telephone row with her mother. Heading abroad with her ‘disreputable’ boyfriend, Steven, Charlotte was photographed at the airport in a pink T-shirt which read: ‘My Barbie is a Crack Whore’. This didn’t play too well with Mum back home.”
Daniel Libeskind, Salesman
Daniel Libeskind is a brilliant architect. But he has one other skill that is almost as developed. He’s a salesman. “Sales is the right word, because we live in the marketplace, not only in terms of selling and buying but in the marketplace of ideas. It’s a democratic city, democratic country, and that’s how civic projects get developed. They’re certainly not going to be done in an ivory tower somewhere – take it or leave it. Either you interact and communicate what you’re doing or you’re really cynical and should not be involved in civic art.”
New Look For Radio Pay-For-Play?
Last week radio giant Clear Channel Communications announced it would discontinue what many consider the pay-for-play system of choosing which music radio stations play. “But it’s likely that the Clear Channel decision won’t overturn the pay-for-play system so much as reconfigure it. Instead of funneling money through independent promoters to radio stations, record companies will now have to deal directly with Clear Channel programmers in seeking access to the airwaves. And, as in all things radio, money will talk. The radio giant said as much in a statement announcing the move, in which it promised a ‘new, restructured relationship with the recording industry . . . on specific group-wide contesting, promotions and marketing opportunities.’ Those words sent a shudder through many industry observers.”
Power Women In The Orchestra World
The appointment of Deborah Card as new president of the Chicago Symphony is notable. But then again, it’s not notable that she’s a woman taking the job. “Women may still be scarce on conductors’ podiums, and gains still have to be made among the ranks of orchestral players, in brass sections especially. But more and more women are emerging in the top administrative ranks of America’s most important orchestras and opera companies.”
Card Widely Admired
“In a field where jealousies and rivalries abound, it’s rare to find an orchestra manager as widely admired as the savvy, experienced executive director of the Seattle Symphony (since 1992). Technically speaking, Deborah Card isn’t the first woman ever to manage the CSO. That honor falls to the long-forgotten Anna Millar, who served in that capacity from 1895 to 1899 during founder Theodore Thomas’ tenure. And there are numerous women running smaller U.S. orchestras.”
Scrutinizing The Worth Of National Poetry Month
“The designation of April as ‘National Poetry Month’ suggests special pleading and a strategy of containment-as if all other months were thereby declared poetry-free zones. For poets, readers, and even inadvertent overhearers of poetry, however, there is a constant stream of poetic activity, private and public, involving poets both new and old.” But “if National Poetry Month can offer something other than hype, let’s make it an opportunity to give our national discourse the scrutiny our best poets have always given to language.”
Are “Talented” Kids Exploited?
Are kids on talent shows really the “most talented?” “The success of ‘American Idol’ last year has spawned imitators like ‘America’s Most Talented Kid,’ but the exploitation of child performers as a form of mass entertainment has existed as long as mass entertainment has. Most childhood careers are the product of adult fantasies; they are as much about the parents as they are about the child. A parent appears with each performer on ‘America’s Most Talented Kid’; the idea may be to deflect criticism about exploitation, but instead it reinforces it.”