It’s taken Alex Ross a few months to write about the passing of mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; he couldn’t find the words. “She was the most remarkable singer I ever heard. She was incapable of giving a routine performance—I saw her twelve times, and each appearance had something explosively distinctive about it—and her career took the form of a continuous ascent.”
Tag: 09.18.06
A New York Review Of Books Without Its Founder?
“Can The New York Review of Books survive without its founders’ specific genius. political and literary journalism it practices? A typical Review piece runs to 4,000 or 5,000 words, is pitched to readers who often have several advanced degrees, and may contain footnotes. Its intellectual and physical heft—the “Fall Books” issue came in at 100 pages—requires the kind of attention that becomes harder and harder to sustain with every new technological gadget we hitch to our belts or curl around our ears.”
India’s Cultural Elite Protest Anti-Gay Law
“More than 100 leading figures of literature, film and academia in India rallied this weekend against a ‘colonial-era’ law making homosexuality a criminal offence.”
Designer Sergio Savarese, 48
“Sergio Savarese, a designer known for lyrical shapes and a founder of the furniture store Dialogica, died on Friday in a small-plane crash in Moffat County, Colo., that also took the life of his flying companion, Ivan Luini, according to their families. Mr. Savarese was 48 and lived in Manhattan and Southampton, N.Y.”
Warner Makes Landmark Deal With YouTube
The deal offers Warner content streamed over YouTube. It comes “days after Universal Music said it was considering legal action over sites such as YouTube. A royalty-tracking system has been developed by YouTube to detect when videos on the site are using copyrighted material and work out how much Warner is owed in advertising revenue.”
Swedish Pirates Get The Plank
The Swedish electorate wasn’t kind to the country’s new “Pirate” party. The party picked up less than one percent of the votes. “The Pirate Party’s single-issue platform includes a 5-year limit to commercial copyright, the abolition of patents and stronger privacy protections online.”
Tate Says How Much It Paid (For Art)
The Tate releases a list of prices it has paid for recent purchases. “If the public wants to have transparency, they have to recognize that there may be additional costs to the public purse. I still believe it’s probably the right thing to be doing.”
Ancient Petroglyphs In Danger
The largest collection of ancient art rock in the world is under threat, says a new report. “The carvings are 6,000 to 30,000 years old and chronicle the cultural heritage of ancient Aboriginal societies. The petroglyphs are under threat because of acid rain from existing petrochemical plants in the region, and projects that involve blasting to clear the way for development, the report said.”
Checking Out Orange County’s New Concert Hall
Mark Swed likes the new $200 million hall on first encounter. “I like the way it feels. The light and airy interior is hospitable, the silver organ pipes (the instrument itself is still a year away from installation) intriguing. Architect Cesar Pelli’s undulating glass exterior has a welcome, outdoorsy transparency. I like the firm, upright seats. I like the way I imagine Segerstrom will sound once it finds its bearings.”
Cleaning Up To Win The Christian Box Office
“The Dove Foundation is a Grand Rapids, Mich., nonprofit with Christian roots, and its ties to Hollywood are growing so deep these days that its opinion can send a movie back to the editing room before its release. Weeks before ‘Everyone’s Hero’ was released, the film’s production company, IDT Entertainment, hand delivered a copy to the Dove Foundation. When Dove staff told IDT that the ‘Oh, my Gods!’ in the film might offend the 1.9 million people who consult the foundation’s reviews, IDT changed each ‘Oh, my God!’ to ‘Oh, my gosh!’ “