After a day of rehearsals, the orchestra’s concertmaster called the new space “one of the greatest halls I’ve ever played in.” Another violinist says the acoustic “has a warm colour to it, not metallic, not harsh.” A veteran clarinetist exclaimed, “People were on Cloud Nine.”
Tag: 08.29.11
Tenor Salvatore Licitra In Critical Condition Following Accident
“Licitra lost control of his scooter while out late on Saturday near the [Sicilian] city of Ragusa, fell and struck his head … He was not wearing a helmet.” Hospital officials describe his condition as “stable, but extremely grave.”
Steve Jobs’s (Few But Big?) Mistakes In Product Design
“Design is his wheelhouse. Where … either in terms of aesthetics or usability … has he whiffed?” Christopher Shea offers a few suggestions (like the single-button mouse), and puts the question to readers.
Fiction Writers Imagine The Final Days Of Qaddafi
“A fall so sudden and dramatic is perhaps best told in fiction. So we asked eight top novelists to imagine this moment from [the Libyan dictator’s] perspective. What is the ‘King of Kings’ thinking as he fights for his life?”
Is This Hollywood Producer, After Major Brain Damage, Better Off Than Before?
In the early 1990s, Simon Lewis was on his way up in Hollywood. Then, in an auto accident, he “broke everything you could break and lost a third of one of his brain hemispheres.” After 15 years of surgeries and recovery, he now “reads articles on quantum mechanics for fun” and his “brain damage has made him literally incapable of making movies that are either silly or disposable.”
Reinventing The Paper Clip As Mass-Market Art Object (Or Toy)
ACCO Brands, the no. 1 paper clip manufacturer in the US, is introducing Klix, small hair-barrette-shaped stainless steel clips in bright colors that snap when closed. “It’s very fun,” says an ACCO executive, “It’s this clickiness.” It’s also 16 times the price of a regular paper clip.
Are European Film Festivals On The Wane?
“So has Toronto become the most important film festival in the world, thus cementing the American factor as more important than winning a prize at some arty, old European shindig?”
China Bans Pop Music Online
Fearful of the spread of Middle East-style protests against authoritarian rule, and of any destabilizing influences ahead of a change of leadership next year, Beijing has been laying down the law online.
Can London’s Institute Of Contemporary Arts Escape Its Crises?
“Institutions like the ICA are always under crisis. Certain crises are useful. It’s good to be at the edge. And then again certain crises aren’t useful, just time-consuming. We are trying to push it towards some useful crises,” says artist Roger Hiorns.