Tag: 01.05.06

The Wind-Tunnel Tuba Concerto

“James Crowder was a Boeing engineer whose primary work concerned flow visualization — making it possible to see the movement of air over solid surfaces — that required the use of the 1939 wind tunnel. For this, he achieved international recognition. He was also a tuba player and interested, not surprisingly, in the air flow inside the instrument. After his death in 2002, his widow, Sandra, an ardent connoisseur of music, wanted a vehicle to commemorate her husband.” So she commissioned Samuel Jones…

The Second Book Problem

“Is there really anything to it, or is Second Novel Syndrome a myth? Reviewers who fall for the schematic over the actual will lament the ‘disappointing second novel’ just as they will damn a debut with the faint praise of ‘an author to watch in the future’. But, as with much in reviewing, this can be based on a preconceived idea rather than reality.”

Cultivating The Nightclub Set

Fresh off the high of the inevitable crowds that greet a newly expanded and renovated museum, Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center has launched a new initiative designed to draw in a more diverse crowd than would normally spend its free time at a modern art museum. “To put it plainly, the Walker doesn’t feel like any other museum. It feels, for lack of a better word, alive. Every Thursday, [when the museum scraps its admission charge and stays open late,] the Walker’s contorted, dreamlike corridors bustle with activity. People are on dates; some are even dressed up, though not in the suit-and-tie sense. It’s more like they’re going to a nightclub — you’re likely to see miniskirts, fur boots, and overpriced vintage T-shirts. But remember, you’re supposed to be looking at the art.”

Wait For It! Second Chord In World’s Longest Piece

We’re now two years into the performance. The abandoned Buchardi church in Halberstadt, eastern Germany, is the venue for a mind-boggling 639-year-long performance of a piece of music by US experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992). Entitled “organ2/ASLSP” (or “As SLow aS Possible”), the performance began on September 5, 2001 and is scheduled to last until 2639.

Difficult Word – Writing About Music

It’s a tough time for music critics. “Along with the usual horrors that print pubs endure now, the music press has its own particular headaches. Not only are publications reigning in their use of freelancers (Rolling Stone, Red Flag), others are cutting their word count (Washington Post, Village Voice) or cutting their pay rates (the Voice again, which is also dealing with a recent takeover). And while ‘zines are generally more open about accepting material, they’re also feeling the crunch of ad dollars and the pressure from record companies to include more–and thus, shorter–reviews to make up for the space.”

Authors Phone It In

Want your favorite author to talk to your book club. These days they might just do it. “Book clubs are a growing force in the publishing industry, and publishers and authors view the call-ins as a way to show their appreciation, build loyalty and market their books. ‘This is the next step in the evolution of the relationship between book clubs and publishers’.”

Legal Life As Lit

Okay, so maybe it’s a stretch to consider the literary merits of legal filings. And yet… “Has there ever been such a deluge of mass-consumed legalese in a condensed period? Indeed, this is a golden age for the turgid and stultifying, a wave of indictments, plea bargains and “informations” interspersed with three Supreme Court justice nominations in a five-month period, with all of the poetic briefs, memos and opinion-writing those can yield.”

The Turner From The Inside

Louisa Buck was a judge for this year’s Turner Prize. “Critics of the prize, such as the tedious Stuckists, say that it is an inside job. Well you wouldn’t ask someone who knows nothing about dogs to judge Crufts, would you? All I can say is that I had my eyes opened and my mind changed on several occasions.”

Canada’s First Great Poet Dies

“Irving Layton, one of the first Canadian poets to gain international stature and a controversial presence on the national scene for decades, died in Montreal yesterday at the age of 93. Before Layton, Canadian poets tended to be regarded as tweedy romantics, celebrating nature in the Victorian tradition. Layton changed all that. His poetry owed more to his childhood experience of his acid-tongued mother and the verbal combativeness of the Jewish immigrant community in Montreal than it did to Longfellow or Wordsworth.”