Mark Haddon is best known as a children’s author, so it’s no surprise that he would choose to write his first novel with a teenager as the central character. To hear Haddon tell it, in fact, he wasn’t entirely sure, at first, whether he was writing for adults at all. Regardless, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has become a major hit with adults and teens alike, and a movie deal is already in the works.
Tag: 01.07.04
Symphony Orchestras – A Refuge From Mundane Reality
The symphony orchestra is a remarkable thing, writes Norman Lebrecht. But “economically, it makes no sense at all. A sold-out symphony concert at the Royal Festival Hall yields an average loss of £48,000. It costs £1.9m a year in state subsidy and as much again in private fundraising to keep a London orchestra afloat. And yet, against all rational prognostications, five symphony orchestras and a dozen chamber ensembles flourish in this city of 12 million inhabitants, reaching (at an informed estimate) no more than 30,000 active concertgoers. The noose is getting tighter.”
Iraq’s Street Of Ideas
“As Iraq considers its future after Saddam Hussein, Mutanabi Street in Baghdad is resuming its role as one of the capital’s main marketplaces of ideas. If the daily violence in much of Baghdad, Fallujah, Tikrit and other areas illustrates ways in which the U.S. occupation is failing to improve Iraqis’ lives, Mutanabi Street’s Friday morning book market is an exhibit of the political and intellectual revival under American rule.”
How Indy Films Got Sold Out
A new book about Miramax studios and Harvey Weinstein chronicles the commercialization of independent film. The book “shows how Mr. Weinstein led greedy studio execs down a path paved with profits, promising and doling out Oscars with the help of megabucks publicity campaigns—and in the process, independent films became as commercialized as studio films.”
The Rebirth Of Mutanabi Street
Baghdad’s Mutanabi Street has, for centuries, been one of the centers of Iraqi intellectual life, as reflected in the avenue’s bookshops. Dissidents, professors, religious clerics, and ordinary Iraqis gathered together at Mutanabi’s open-air book marts to trade ideas and debate philosophy. “In the 1970s, Saddam Hussein crushed intellectual life, forcing Mutanabi Street’s alternative ideas and books underground. Secret police informants infested the cafe tables, ready to overhear whispers of dissent. But six months after the U.S. occupation, Mutanabi is again in ferment.”
US Visa Tangles Make Booking Foreign Artists Increasingly Impractical
It’s getting impractical to book Foreign artists to perform in the United States. “According to many involved, the new security checks are downright Orwellian – delays last up to six months, applicants must appeal to a congressman to get an update during the process and there are no avenues of appeal. Moreover, administrators are overwhelmed by some 70,000 to 200,000 applications per year, with most of the backlog occurring at the FBI. The sweeping reorganisation of government branches under the Department of Homeland Security has also meant bureaucratic growing pains.”
Hip-Hopping To Survive
“Clearly the most powerful dance movement to affect the market in the last 10 years is hip-hop. Its mainstream popularity–which, over the last decade, has cut into the livelihoods of technical jazz dancers seeking film, TV, and other commercial work–shows no signs of abating, but, according to some of the dance professionals we spoke to, the future looks more inclusive.”
Movie Piracy – An Ego Trip
Some groups of digital movie pirates aren’t in it for the money. “Insiders and piracy experts say the groups are motivated mainly by ego. Instead of cash, the online underground is powered by bartering — admission to these elite circles is granted only to those with something valuable to offer, such as computer parts or a pre-release copy of a DVD.”
The iPod Of Movies?
“Archos’s device, which costs about $500 to $900 depending on the model, ignores an anticopying code found on a majority of prerecorded DVDs. That means consumers can plug the Archos device into a DVD player and transfer a movie to it. Users also can transfer recorded TV programs and digital music files to the Archos device. The Archos uses a video compression standard called MPEG-4 to cram as many as 320 hours of video at near-DVD quality onto its hard drive, the company says — the equivalent of 160 two-hour movies.”
Tate Considers Selling Art To Trade Up
The Tate is considering selling some of its art to upgrade its collection. “Works by living artists, such as David Hockney, could be sold to allow the Tate to buy better or more appropriate items by the same person. Despite Hockney’s stature, the most recent of his pieces in the Tate’s collection dates back to 1977.”