The show “XXX,” currently playing in London, is said to be shocking and sexually explicit to a degree not seen in the London theatre. “At a time when there’s no shortage of dildos and bare butts (even bare butts that you might know) on TV, it seems that flesh on the stage is still peculiarly ‘real’. Which is, you might think, an argument for the power of the theatre. But not for this show. Of course, it shouldn’t be banned: all you have to do to avoid it is not to go. But it is a con: it’s commerce mas querading as taboo-breaking creativity.”
Tag: 04.27.03
In Praise Of The B-Movie
“As a cultural phenomenon the B-movie lasted for less than 40 years. Its life was extended for a while by the post-war popularity of the drive-in cinema, but it finally succumbed to television and the inexorable disappearance of locally owned independent movie houses.
Fairly rapidly ‘B-picture’ became a pejorative term. ‘B-movie dialogue’ meant a string of clichés. ‘B-movie plots’ were predictable dramas retreading familiar stories. There is some justice to this. Most B-movies are bad and forgotten. But at their worst they have an unpretentious, sometimes camp, charm. At their best they are as different from smooth A-movies as the great pulp writers like David Goodis and Horace McCoy were from the respectable best-selling novelists of the day.”
London Book Review Opens Small Bookstore – But Will It Succeed?
The London Review of Books is opening a small bookstore in London. The venture “poses a large question about the way we buy books in this country. Are we ready to break the chains of corporate bookselling, which have strangled so many independents? The shop, on Bury Place, will stock the kinds of books that the LRB reviews – political polemics, biographies, philosophical tracts, slim volumes of poetry and literary novels. Whereas most big stores now carry 60-70,000 titles, the LRB shop has only 20,000. And while chains like Borders and Waterstone’s stock multiple copies of most books, the LRB shop has only one of each.”
Course Correction – Are We Making Music Too Perfect?
According to industry insiders, many successful mainstream artists in most genres of music – perhaps a majority of artists – are using pitch correction. Now some in the music industry think the focus on perfection has gone too far. “Vocal tuning is contributing to the Milli Vanilli-fication of modern music. What a singer sounds like has always been manipulated and massaged by producers: The difference nowadays is that it is so easy to do – maybe too easy. ‘Pro Tools is the industry Frankenstein that’s taken over. Everything has to be exact, and I blame engineers and producers. It’s been overdone’.”
Mesopotamian Studies – A Changed Landscape
Clearly, after the looting of the Iraq National Museum, Mesopotamian studies will never be the same again. In Chicago “at one of the leading global centers for the study of ancient Mesopotamia, the personalities vary but the mood is a mix of anger and mourning, seasoned by the bitterness of personal betrayal. And it’s clear that the recent events in Baghdad already have provoked both internal and external soul-searching about the role of this composite museum-research institute in a harsh new world for near-Eastern scholarship.”
What Means Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia isn’t just some long-ago land that doesn’t have resonance today. “Mesopotamia was the ‘cradle of civilization’ that gave us the wheel, the 60-minute hour and, probably, the earliest system of writing. And then, too, it is a place in human consciousness – the land of the Garden of Eden and the birthplace of Abraham from which descended such biblical stories as those of Noah, the Tower of Babel and Moses.”
Unions Protest Non-Union Music Man
A non-union production of “The Music Man” now touring America is upsetting theatrical unions. Unlike most shows, this production never was on Broadway. But its ticket prices are cheaper than the typical touring show. “The AFL-CIO and Actors’ Equity announced a boycott when the show first hit the road, in Des Moines. Since then, actors union representatives have organized small public protests, garnering media attention at most stops. The only problem: the protests haven’t dissuaded many ticket buyers from seeing the show.”
Beijing Closes Theatres
Beijing has closed all of its theatres, cinemas and Internet cafes in an attempt to contain the outbreak of SARS.
Super-Scalpers – Buying And Bidding Up Concert Tickets
Having trouble getting tickets to that pop concert you’ve wanted to attend? Even if you call TicketMaster the day tickets go on sale, it often seems impossible to score seats. Why? It’s the super-scalpers. They buy up as many tickets as they can, then scalp them for sale on EBay. The concert might be in Winnipeg, but the seller is in San Diego. Or Maine. And scalping laws don’t seem to slow things down.
Rowling Richer Than Queen
Author JK Rowling has leapfrogged the Queen on a list of wealthies Britons. “Rowling, who retained her crown as the richest woman in the showbusiness section of the annual Sunday Times rich list, has more than quadrupled her personal fortune in the past two years. The author has now amassed a fortune of £280m – putting her 11 places higher than the Queen overall.”