“Like some lumbering Frankenstein monster, the recording industry rose from the dead this summer, thanks to the very technology that’s credited with killing it. As so often before, the jolt came from Michael Jackson …”
Tag: 09.10.09
There’s Hope: Grown-Ups Can Improve Our God-Awful Handwriting
And, as Slate “Human Guinea Pig” Emily Yoffe found, it requires some effort, but less than one might imagine. The secret: italic script, as opposed to the loopy, never-pick-your-pen-up cursive most of us learned in primary school.
Single-Use Devices Like The Kindle And The iPod? They’re Doomed.
Farhad Manjoo: “I don’t mean the name won’t stick around or that people will stop buying Apple’s devices. Rather, the sun is setting on what the iPod once was – a device you bought to play digital music. Nobody knows when Apple will add Internet connectivity to the Nano, but you’d be a fool to bet against it happening in the next three years. And with that, the floodgates.”
Remixing Handel At The Barbican
On Sept. 19, star countertenor David Daniels and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the Fields take the London stage to perform re-imaginings of Handel works by Michael Nyman, Nico Muhly, John Tavener, Craig Armstrong and Jocelyn Pook. Says Muhly of his contribution, “What I always want is for [the original Handel aria] to last for ever. To live in the music. So that’s what I did.”
Texas Senator Warns Obama About Politicized NEA
John Cornyn “cautioned that NEA involvement in recruiting artists for a presidential initiative could suggest that “NEA grant opportunities … may be tied to artists’ willingness to use their creative talents to advance your administration’s policies.” He added: “this episode appears to merit congressional hearings and sustained oversight.”
WQXR Sale Approved. Switch Of Frequencies To Be Made Live At Carnegie
“The classical radio station will move to a new spot on the dial, 105.9 FM, precisely at 8 pm on October 8. The switchover from Univision, which currently broadcasts at that frequency, will occur live on stage at Carnegie Hall and will be simulcast on WNYC 93.9 FM.”
Where’s The Diversity At the Top In American Orchestras?
The ranks of conductors at America’s top orchestras is getting more diverse… well, at least a little…
The Problem With Trying To Rate Cities And Their Culture
“I keep returning to the question, leaving statistics and their damn lies (as the saying goes) aside, why is Minneapolis more respected as a cultural city than Denver?”
Arts Council England’s 150 Assessors: Is This Really A Good Idea?
Lyn Gardner: “The assessors – a mixture of artists, critics, journalists and academics – are being described by the Arts Council as a form of peer review. This is not what I and many others had in mind during the debates about peer review that took place last year.”
Is the Internet Killing Arts Criticism? (The Answer Is No.)
Michael Billington: “Only a fool would deny that criticism has been affected by the rise of new technology. But I’ve spent my life arguing that a review is simply a way of starting a debate. … What has changed is the technology: any opinion is now open to instant, rapid rebuttal online.”