Stores That Play Up Their Role As Cultural Spaces Survive

“Surprisingly, as many music and book retailers have shuttered in recent years, a number of stores … haven’t seen their sales fall at all. How have they managed to do that? The book and record stores that have survived are playing up their roles as community centers that serve as unique cultural spaces rather than just a place to buy a quick CD or magazine.”

Physicists Chart The Acousti-Science Of Richard Wagner

A physicist “went through Götterdämmerung note-by-note, lyric-by-lyric, recording which notes were paired with which vowel sounds. In the early hours of the next morning he wrote a computer program to determine with statistical certainty whether Wagner had in fact used a vowel-pitch matching technique. Looking at the program’s first results, he was amazed. There was a clear relationship.”

Can Bach Elevate A Stage Full Of The Most Mundane Daily Actions?

“A child bounces a ball; a family sits down for a meal; a parcel is delivered; a woman tries on her wedding dress … welcome to Herbert Wernicke’s vision of Bach as kitchen-sink drama.” In his music-theatre program “Actus Tragicus” (now being revived in Edinburgh), the late director presents a giant doll’s house in which “both chorus members and soloists go about their lovingly detailed, humdrum existence” as they perform half a dozen Bach cantatas.

In Spain, An Intellectual Property Battle Over Magic Tricks

“Spain’s magicians are up in arms over a television show hosted by a rebel prestidigitator who reveals many of the secrets behind their tricks. The magicians have asked Spanish lawyers to come up with ways of challenging the Masked Magician and his programme Magic Without Secrets in court, claiming that their favourite tricks should be protected by intellectual property laws.”

India Art Summit Opens Without Country’s Top Painter Due To Fears Of Violence

“India’s biggest contemporary art show opened in New Delhi on Thursday, but without works from the country’s most acclaimed painter because of fears of attacks by Hindu extremist groups. Painter M.F. Husain, 94, who has been called the ‘Picasso of India,’ has angered hardline Hindus by portraying Hindu deities in the nude or in a sexually suggestive manner.”

Persepolis 2.0: Graphic Novel Reworked To Cover Iranian Election Drama

“Two Shanghai-based young Iranians are defying the Tehran regime with a reworked version of [Marjane Satrapi’s] award-winning graphic novel Persepolis, telling the story of Iran’s bloody post-election uprising. … In Persepolis 2.0, Satrapi’s black-and-white drawings are reshuffled – with her blessing – to tell of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed victory, the mass protests that shook the country and the crackdown by Tehran.”

British Equity Seeks Pay For ‘Exploited’ Reality Contestants

“The union claims that TV talent programmes are ‘exploiting and humiliating’ contestants desperate to break into the entertainment industry by making them work without pay. The shows, meanwhile, turn large profits. Equity wants contestants who make it to the final rounds of talent shows, including The X Factor, … paid and given legal status as workers and the accompanying employment rights.”