“An Argentine tango themed on the Tale of Genji, a Japanese novel written 1,000 years ago, will be performed this month in Tokyo and Nagoya.” (The tangueros are Argentine and Polish, with a Noh dancer playing the Buddha; the instruments include both bandoneon and shamisen.)
Author: Matthew Westphal
London’s New Venue Sounds Terrific (So Far)
“What is immediately obvious about Hall One at Kings Place, however, is that the acoustic is warm, clear and absolutely merciless. Classical music sounds terrific in here, with every note, texture and colour perfectly audible over an extreme dynamic range. Yet the acoustic is also capable of exposing the slightest slip in technique or intonation. And it picks up every bit of extraneous noise.”
Financial Crisis Becomes Online Mini-Series
Crisis in the Credit System is “a 40-minute online drama described by its makers as ‘bizarre scenarios reflecting the strangeness of our situation today: life governed increasingly by abstract exchange and the accumulation of profit’. Confused? You will be, almost certainly.”
Is the Real David Sedaris the One We See in His Books?
“It’s me, that guy, but it’s a question of editing out parts of myself… I wouldn’t write about doing something decent. I think the real me is in my diary and that’s under lock and key… I don’t think what I write is fiction, I really don’t. But there’s a reason I’m not a reporter – I couldn’t trust myself with facts.”
Arts Audiences Are Aging – And Always Have Been
“But like any other panic-inducing assumption, the “graying audience” theory bears examining, much as did the widely quoted – and since disproved – ‘fact’ from a 1986 Newsweek article that a single woman over 35 is less likely to get married than to be attacked by terrorists. (Well, at least the poor thing has tickets to the symphony.)”
Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri Lévy Just Hate Being Famous
“In a surprise joint venture, they have produced a book [Public Enemies] of confessional letters to each other, raging at the vitriol heaped on them as the ‘whipping boys of our era in France’.” (BHL: “Why so much hatred?” MH: “If there is anyone in France right now with excuses for being paranoid, it is me.”)
iTunes Lives!
“Royalties paid to publishers and songwriters for the sale of digital downloads remained unchanged at 9.1 cents per download Thursday. Apple had threatened to pull the iTunes plug if the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board increased the fees paid to publishers and songwriters.”
Entire Staff of Canadian Oxford Dictionary Cut
“The entire staff of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary has been laid off because of declining sales, which the book’s publisher attributes to the proliferation of free online dictionaries … [Oxford University Press] will publish future editions of the [dictionary] with the assistance of freelancers and the lexicography department in Oxford, England.”
James Earl Jones to Get SAG Lifetime Achievement Award
SAG President: “James Earl Jones’ distinguished career on stage, in film, on television, in commercials and as a vocal presence without peer commands our admiration and respect. His long and quiet devotion to advancing literacy, the arts and humanities on a national and local scale deserves our appreciation.”
So This Means George Bush Is Ulysses S. Grant?
One historian suggests that the real antecedent of the current financial crisis isn’t the crash of 1929. “In fact, the current economic woes look a lot like what my 96-year-old grandmother still calls ‘the real Great Depression'” – the Panic of 1873.