A Play A Day (Until The Doubts Creep In)

Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365-plays project has launched. “But in spite of the group-hug dynamic, doubts about the artistic coherence of the whole project have crept in. With low or non-existent production budgets and truncated rehearsal times, there’s no guarantee that every production will be as good as the next, or that it will be what Parks intended. Then there’s the issue of how audiences will perceive the playwright’s work.”

GenX After The Fact

“Generation X has come to mean more than just a specific group of post-boomers, more even than a marketing demographic—people who will go see Last Days one evening and drop $5 on a pumpkin-spice latte the next morning. It has also come to serve as a marketing model, in this post–Reality Bites world, for how all young Americans should live out their 20’s. Now we are all Generation X.”

VHS, R.I.P.

“After a long illness, the groundbreaking home-entertainment format VHS has died of natural causes in the United States. The format was 30 years old. No services are planned. The format had been expected to survive until January, but high-def formats and next-generation vidgame consoles hastened its final decline.”

John Rockwell To Leave New York Times

“An across-genre journalist if ever there was one, Rockwell started at the Times as classical music critic in 1972, served as chief rock critic simultaneously from 1974-80, went back to strictly classical (1980-1992), then to European cultural correspondent* (1992-1994), editor of the Arts and Leisure section (1998-2002), arts columnist (2002-2004), and finally chief dance critic, his current post. The Times is currently in search mode for his successor in that post.”