“Directors, writers and cinema buffs had arrived in Jeddah for what had been billed as a week-long festival of films from Saudi Arabia and neighbouring states.” Scheduled to begin Saturday, it was canceled Friday. “The only official explanation was that the event had not been sufficiently prepared. But it is widely believed the ban is the latest victory for religious conservatives, who regard cinema as a form of Western moral pollution.”
Tag: 07.20.09
Barnes & Noble To Launch 700,000-Title E-Bookstore
“Barnes & Noble, the largest bookstore chain by revenue, just became the latest company to launch its own eBook store to compete with Amazon and its increasingly popular Kindle family of electronic readers. … Barnes & Noble says its new eBook store will let users download titles to a variety of mobile devices, including Apple’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s Blackberry, pcs and Macs.”
The Dark Omen In Amazon’s Orwellian Deletion Debacle
“Now we know that Amazon can delete anything it wants from your electronic reader. That’s an awesome power, and Amazon’s justification in this instance is beside the point. As our media libraries get converted to 1’s and 0’s, we are at risk of losing what we take for granted today: full ownership of our book and music and movie collections. .. I’ve predicted the Kindle is the future of publishing. Now we know what the future of book banning looks like, too.”
Michael Kaiser: Why The Arts Need Contributed Funds
A couple of giant obstacles are built into the arts’ economic equation. One is that “arts organizations have a very difficult time achieving productivity improvements. … A Balanchine ballet that required 32 dancers in the 1950s still requires 32 dancers today.” So costs escalate faster than in other industries, a problem compounded by the fact that “one simply cannot sell more tickets than one has seats.”
Italian Filmmakers Protest Funding Cuts, Threaten Boycott
“Drastic funding cuts to the arts planned by the Silvio Berlusconi government prompted Italy’s film community to protest in front of parliament on Monday, with some industryites threatening a Venice Film Festival boycott as the next step.” Berlusconi intends to severely prune the arts fund, reducing it from $711 million to $540 million.
Hemingway Left His Moveable Feast The Way He Wanted It
Author A.E. Hotchner, who delivered Ernest Hemingway’s manuscript of “A Moveable Feast” to publisher Charles Scribner Jr., writes that Scribner’s new “bowdlerized version” of the book is the result of a “frivolous incursion,” as well as a false assertion, by a Hemingway grandson. Contrary to the grandson’s claim, at Hemingway’s death the manuscript was not in shards but ready for publication.
Valery Gergiev, Super-Conductor
“Possessing a legendary charisma that his musicians often say allows him to conduct more with his eyes than with his hands, Gergiev is a one-man musical power station. He’s not only the director of the entire Mariinsky Theatre, but also chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and a devoted guest-conductor of the New York Metropolitan Orchestra and the mighty Vienna Philharmonic.”