The New Yorker‘s Peter Schjeldahl: “A high-school diploma is my highest academic achievement – actually I’ve got a couple of honorary degrees to go with it – but I think the distinction is people have to want to read me. Academic writing is written for people who have to read it and if the academic writer shows any kind of style or flair then people are just going to resent it.”
Tag: 08.24.12
Opera Tampa Compresses Its Season Into Nine-Week Festival
Company CEO Judy Lisi: “Rather than having the season from fall to spring, we thought we’d take advantage of the high season, when there are a lot of Canadians here and a lot of Europeans.”
Recommendation To Take Drama Off UK School Curriculum
“If we remove drama from the curriculum as a statutory feature then, although teachers could still choose to put drama into the curriculum, it is likely that only those who are passionate about it will want to provide it.”
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Asks Musicians For 67 Percent Pay Cuts
“In recent negotiations to sign a new contract (our current agreement expires Sept. 30) the SPCO management and board have proposed wage cuts of 57 percent and 67 percent, as well as reducing drastically the number of concerts involving our full ensemble.”
Time To Get Rid Of Book Acknowledgments?
“The acknowledgments are now the last words a reader encounters. Is it really worth clouding a novel’s actual finale for what is, in effect, an advertisement for a book the reader has already finished?”
Seattle Opera Contemplates A Major Transition (And Its Future)
“Alas, looked at long term, one finds that Seattle Opera has not just one shortfall year to weather this year but chronic, structural problems that began seven years ago and extend, according to board chair John Nesholm, ‘a couple years’ into the future.”
Movie Industry Experiments With Timing Of Releases Online And In Theatres
“Digital sales, including video on demand and sales of downloads, increased 51% in 2011 from the prior year, to $3.4 billion, according Digital Entertainment Group, a trade organization. At the same time total U.S. home entertainment spending, including sales and rentals of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, dropped 2% to $18 billion.”
Facebook And Frank Gehry Team Up For A Building
“In the building design, work benches line up in curving arcs like swarms of fish. They are organized into work-group “neighborhoods” dotted with meeting rooms that might be painted with graffiti and ad hoc lounges furnished with arcade- game consoles.”
Study: A Correlation Between Google Hits And Auction Prices
“Among the preliminary findings, a single percentage point increase in Google hits on the artist–the assigned indicator of popularity–corresponded to a chunky price increase of 38 percent.”
Mexico’s Top Danseur Wants To Jumpstart Ballet At Home
“Just 22, Isaac Hernandez already had performed from Havana to Moscow to Jackson, Mississippi, not to mention four years as a professional with the San Francisco Ballet. The experience left Mexico’s most internationally acclaimed male ballet dancer with one question: ‘Why is it that I can dance anywhere in the world, except in Mexico?'”