Critic Dominic Pappatola finds himself uncomfortable about descriptions of Mel Gussow in obituaries last week. “If my obituary happens to focus on my career as a critic, I guess I’d much rather be known as a Champion of Audiences than a Champion of Playwrights. As a journalist, if you begin writing for your sources instead of your readers, you enter an echo chamber. Inside of that chamber, your voice might be resonant. Outside, it’s irrelevant.”
Tag: 05.08.05
Akron Symphony Says Goodbye To Music Director
The Akron Symphony Orchestra says goodbye to music director Ya-Hui Wang, who has led the orchestra for five years. “If the conclusion of the concert was subdued, that was appropriate, given Wang’s history. She has been earnest in her efforts, but concerts under her direction have often been below the orchestra’s standard. It was to the credit of everyone on stage that they did so well by Saturday’s challenging program.”
Pakistan’s Massive Indian Film Piracy Business
Piracy of Indian films in Pakistan is woven deeply into the country’s culture. “To crack down on pirated Indian DVDs now would be a massive undertaking. Pakistani cinema houses lost their clientele years ago. The decade of the 1980s saw the video rental business mushroom into one of the largest retail businesses in the country, employing an estimated half-a-million people. Not just that: Pakistan’s fashion and modelling industry has come to be deeply dependent on the Indian film culture.”
£400 Film Chosen For Cannes
The Cannes Festival has chosen a film made by a British civil servant with no formal training and cost only £400 for this year’s competition. It is the only British film included in this year’s festival. “This is just a fairytale for us. None of us have ever been to film school. We just decided to make it when Ben sold his mandolin to raise money to buy his camera. It’s about the doppelganger myth, what happens when a person comes across their own doppelganger.”
The Assimilating Of Public Art
There was a time when public art in American cities stood out, trying to make a statement. Those days seem long gone. These days public art is so woven into the landscape that you sometimes don’t even realize it’s there.
Another Death-Of-Publishing Scenario
“Both Amazon and Google are negotiating with American publishers to develop ‘search within the book’ programmes. Google already has a deal with several top libraries from around the world, including the Bodleian, to digitise out of copyright texts. Inevitably, some publishers and the Society of Authors are getting quite excited about this innovation.” But one publisher says ” ‘it may result in no sales’, the publishing equivalent of Armageddon. Collaborate with this ‘Napsterisation’ process, he told the Publishers Association, and the book industry risked ‘undermining the cultural and intellectual tradition of the past 600 years’.”
Is Your iPod Making You Deaf?
“Audiologists believe tens of thousands of young people are causing serious damage to themselves, and are likely to suffer tinnitus and loss of hearing in later life. The experts say MP3 players should be designed to prevent people playing music above 90 decibels, about two-thirds of the maximum volume of a typical device.”
Diana’s Memorial Fountain Reopens (Again)
“For the third time in just 10 months, it was being opened to the public. There was no royal presence this time, and no speeches, just a cluster of anxious park officials keeping an eye open for downpours, the wrong kind of leaves, paddling infants, tourists dropping litter and roaming stray dogs. They were desperate that this time it was all going to work and that there would not have to be yet another unscheduled closure.”
More Piling On To Maazel’s “1984”
“The real irony about the 75-year-old Maazel’s return to the Covent Garden pit, as conductor of his own work, is that he hasn’t been there since 1978, six years before the title of the piece that has cost a million quid for six performances. Even as a conductor, he is ‘past his sell-by date’, to quote myself here six months ago, after hearing him re-open La Fenice in Venice with the most vulgar of Traviatas.”
Are Google’s Digitization Plans A Threat To World Culture?
Google’s plans to digitize books from important libraries has many cheering. But in some European countries, there are big concerns. “For Europeans, the fear is that the continent’s contribution to the pillars of recorded knowledge will be crushed by the profit-oriented California company — and may end up presenting a U.S.-centric version of the world’s literary legacy.”