Tag: 06.18.03

South Bank Blues

“Artists shudder when they mention South Bank’s Royal Festival Hall; there is no concert hall like it in the rest of the civilised world.” Indeed, London’s South Bank has been a major cultural failure that has bedeviled generations of administrators. What’s the problem? “The arts centre is a 1950s conceit, based on new-town shopping malls where one stop covers all needs. It does not fit the specialised tastes of the 21st century.”

Fan Fiction – Is It Stealing?

“In the past few years, a curious literary genre known as ‘fan fiction’ has been flourishing. The term refers to all manner of vignettes, short stories and novels based on the universes described in popular books, TV shows and movies. Similarly derived works are appearing in music, where fans are using their computers to mix songs from popular artists into new works that they call ‘mashups.’ Movie fans are taking digital copies of films such as the ‘Star Wars’ epics and creating alternate endings or deleting characters such as the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks. The explosion of these part-original, part-borrowed works has set authors of fan fiction against some media companies in a battle to redefine the line between consumers’ right to ‘fair use’ and copyright holders’ rights to control their intellectual property.”

A Prince Of A Filmmaker

Prince Chatri Chalerm Yukol is one of Thailand’s best filmmakers. He’s also royalty. “A link between moviemaking and royalty isn’t a novelty in Thailand, it’s a tradition. Prince Chatri’s father, Prince Anusorn Mongkolgala, was a Thai cinema pioneer who apprenticed under ‘King Kong’ directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack when they filmed the silent docudrama ‘Chang’ in Thailand in 1927. His son studied geology and film at UCLA in the 1960s, and became friendly with classmate Francis Ford Coppola. Almost 40 years later, Coppola’s company, American Zoetrope, is presenting Chatri’s lavish battle epic to U.S. moviegoers.”

American Ballet Theatre – In Need Of A Makeover

American Ballet Theatre has a problem. “The median age of the ABT audience hovers around 55. These guys got hooked during the ballet craze of the 70s, and they will keep showing up into their dotage. But then what?” So ABT commissioned a media campaign to jazz up its image. But, writes Apollinaire Scherr, “ballet shouldn’t have to compete in the same market as inspirational seminars and Adam Sandler movies. ABT has everything it needs to draw an audience of its own: a large, well-trained corps, excellent coaches, a smartly conducted orchestra, brilliant, ardent principal dancers and a palpable group pleasure in exuberant performance. So what’s the problem? Why isn’t the Met bubbling over with new life? Why hasn’t ballet maintained its popular appeal?”

Ossuary Is A Fake

An ossuary thought to have been the resting place of the Biblical James is a modern fake, not an ancient relic, says a commission of antiquities experts. “A media frenzy followed last October’s announcement that André Lemaire of the Sorbonne University in Paris had found an inscription – James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus – on a light brown limestone box of the type commonly used for burials in first-century A.D. in Jerusalem. It seemed that this box, or ossuary, had once held the bones of James, brother of the biblical Jesus, who was stoned to death in A.D. 62 according to the historian Flavius Josephus. Publicized in the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review, the ossuary was hailed by Time magazine as possibly ‘the most important discovery in the history of New Testament archaeology’.”

Stop Giving Us Those Made-up Stars

Album sales in the UK fell by 4% in 2002 and music sales dropped by 13% in the first quarter of 2003. What’s the cause? Some blame music downloading. But others blame recording companies who manufacture stars rather than creating artists. “Economically it’s much easier for a record company to sign one pretty young male or female, give them some songs, put them out there, and get a very fast return on their investment.”