“When one of these kinds of bands sells 1000 LPs, it’s doesn’t look like much in the scheme of the entire music industry. But in terms of the personal economy of the sort of band I’m talking about, it can be significant. That’s why this sector doesn’t need to grow to 1970s levels to be a small but significant part of a healthy music business ecosystem.”
Tag: 01.20.15
Revised SAT Test Revealed (Let The Uproar Begin)
“The College Board’s decision to eliminate the vocabulary component from the reading section and redesign the essay portion has garnered lots of attention. But it’s the revision of the math section that could have particularly egregious consequences.”
Famed NY Art Gallery Vs. Government Of Qatar Over A VERY Expensive Building
“The lawsuit involves two clearly deep-pocketed parties. But while Wildenstein family members and those of the Qatari ruling family have been habitués of opulent showrooms and frequent the thoroughbred horse racing circuit, court proceedings indicate they are in different leagues.”
Broadway Has No Room Anymore For Shows That Are Merely Good
“How do you tell somebody who’s going to spend anywhere from $175 to $500 or more, per ticket, for a show, how do you tell them ‘It’s so-so, but you can’t miss this performance’? … Unless you come out of the theater saying ‘I have to tell everybody I know they must see this show,’ the show is going to die.”
This Play Isn’t Coming To Broadway Because It’s Doing So Well In Toronto
David Mirvish, lead producer of The Heart of Robin Hood: “In light of the great reception we are getting from audiences and the media in Toronto, we have decided not to rush in to New York this season.” (Think that’s all there is to it?)
New Zealand’s Maori War Dance Looks Even Cooler On Ice
Sports fans and viral video mavens have seen the haka, the traditional pre-battle dance that New Zealand’s national sports teams (most notably, rugby’s formidable All-Blacks) do on the field before a match. Now the clever Kiwis have figured out how to do the haka on skates. (video)
Painter Jane Wilson Dead At 90
“In the postwar era, Wilson marshaled the dominant Abstract Expressionist style – loose brushwork and wide swaths of color – to record real places, from the endless skies of her Midwestern childhood and the seascapes of Long Island’s East End to Tompkins Square Park in New York City.”
The Museum Of The Future Is Here (And It’s On Fifth Avenue)
“The Cooper Hewitt has transformed into an organization not unlike Wikipedia, Pinterest, or, for that matter, The Atlantic: Somewhere between a media and a tech firm, it is a Thing That Puts Stuff on the Internet. Or, more precisely, A Thing That Puts Things on the Internet. But to get to that point, the museum [and its leaders] … have ultimately had to shift their understanding of what a thing is in the first place.”
Are We All Born With Synaesthesia?
“The under-examined complexities of ordinary perception, some neuroscientists and developmental psychologists contend, suggest that, like the Nabokovs, we all inhabit the synaesthetic spectrum – we just need to look back in time, to when we were infants with developing brains.”
TV Critics Demonstrate, Embarrassingly, Why America Needs “Fresh Off The Boat”
At the Television Critics Association press conference for the new ABC series about an Asian-American family, the first question wasn’t about creating the show or issues of assimilation or any such thing. It was about chopsticks.