Willa Cather said, “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” But veteran TV producer John Yorke, who’s worked at both popular BBC (EastEnders) and brainy Channel Four, argues that even those two or three narratives boil down to one structure – one that lies deep in the human psyche.
Tag: 01.01.16
What’s The Most Interesting News? Here’s What Some Of The World’s Best Thinkers Say
“Science is the only news. When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness, and even the technology is predictable if you know the science. Human nature doesn’t change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly.” We now live in a world in which the rate of change is the biggest change.” Science has thus become a big story, if not the big story: news that will stay news.
John Williams’s ‘Star Wars’ Scores Are Far More Sophisticated Than They Get Credit For, Says Alex Ross
With a sharp ear and a sharp pen, er, keyboard, Ross makes his case – and points out Williams’s biggest problem: “After Star Wars, he became a sound, a brand. … He’s been boxed in by the billions that his music has helped to earn. He has become integral to a populist economy on which thousands of careers depend.”
The Dude Who Became The Go-To Librettist For New Operas
Royce Vavrek: “‘I don’t know how I made this career,’ he acknowledges to us during our talk with him in his Bushwick apartment. ‘I’m legitimately only writing libretti. Aside from doing a couple of classes at different universities and one-offs, I’m not working in any other capacity. I’m making no money besides from writing libretti and lyrics.'”
Broadway – And ‘Transparent’ – Actress Cherry Jones On Her Banner Year
“I was shooting ‘Transparent’ at the same time I was shooting ’11/22/63.’ I would play Leslie Mackinaw and then get on a plane to Toronto and play Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother. The characters were as divergent as they could be. It was like I was in my own little rep company.”
Ivory-Tipped Bows Are Becoming An International Legal Problem For Traveling Symphonies
“A musician who wants to go abroad and whose instrument contains ivory needs to obtain a CITES musical-instrument certificate, or ‘passport.’ To do that, the musician must provide proof that the African elephant that yielded the ivory used in the instrument was “removed from the wild” before Feb. 26, 1976, the date African elephants were listed in one of the three CITES appendixes. Depending on the pedigree of the musical instrument, it may be possible to obtain a date of manufacture from the maker. But often, it is not.”
Has Cord-Cutting Actually Become Real? And What’s Next?
“Although Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime kicked off the streaming revolution, the field is getting more crowded with new entrants serving up niche programming including wrestling, Japanese anime and South Korean soap operas. The new TV landscape is forcing traditional media companies to join the fray.”
To Succeed After Life With A Company, Dancers Must Now Be Entrepreneurs
“It isn’t uncommon for dancers to generate gigs outside of their main company’s season: Ballet Theatre dancers work on a 36-week contract, leaving 16 unpaid weeks when it is easy to fall out of shape.”
Singer Natalie Cole Dead At 65
“Cole is perhaps best known for her 1991 multiple Grammy-winning album Unforgettable: With Love, which became the biggest hit of her career … [She] wowed audiences with a seamless duet with her late father’s voice on the title tune, one of the elder Cole’s signature numbers. Other hits included ‘This Will Be,’ ‘Our Love’ and a cover of ‘Pink Cadillac.'”
Gilbert Kaplan, 74, Financial Publisher Turned Mahler Scholar
He made his name and fortune as the founder of the magazine Institutional Investor (“Vanity Fair for bankers”), and devoted much of his life to his obsession with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. He purchased the autograph score and went on to correct numerous errors in the then-published edition; he conducted the work (and only that work) more than 100 times and recorded it with no less than the Vienna Philharmonic.