Chinese researchers are setting up databases of traditional Peking opera, hoping to save it before it goes extinct. “The rapid globalization and the influence of foreign cultures in China have caused unprecedented challenges to the survival of Chinese traditional opera, which has been evidenced by more and more traditional operas vanishing. Statistics show there were 367 types of traditional operas in China at the end of 1950s, but the number has dropped dramatically to 267, and some of them are now extinct.”
Tag: 01.24.05
Springer: Opera Springer Is Offensive
And what does Jerry Springer the man think of Jerry Springer, The Opera? Evidently not much. He finds it offensive. “I wouldn’t have written it. I don’t believe in making fun of other religions or in saying things that could be insensitive to other people’s religions. You would have to talk to the people that wrote it. I don’t make religious jokes so I wouldn’t have done it. But it’s not up to me.”
How Snow Changes An Orchestra Audience’s Demographics
What happens to an audeince when snow shuts down a major American city? Well, in Philadelphia, “the orchestra put $10 snow tickets on sale starting Friday, and so at least an audience of about 750 showed up. Not surprisingly, they seemed to come mostly from Center City, and perhaps through weather-induced natural selection, they were overwhelmingly younger. On this single night, the median age of the orchestra audience shed at least 35 years.”
Amazon Reviews V. Book Sales
Is there any kind of correlation between the kinds of reader reviews a book gets on Amazon and how well it sells? Turns out yes. A researcher analyzed Amazon’s star system and found that “books high on what he called the “controversiality index” are given almost as many one-star as five-star ratings, creating a horseshoe-shaped curve. As it turns out, these books also tend to have high sales.”
Powell’s Failed FCC Reign
How will Michael Powell’s term heading the FCC be remembered? “As chairman of the F.C.C., one of the government’s most important regulatory bodies, Mr. Powell should have been an advocate for reasonable regulations that protect consumers and promote competition. Instead, he brought to his position an extreme commitment to deregulation that seemed to serve big business’s interests most of all.”
Ode To A Library
A London Library lover waxes eloquent about the power and personality of the library. “There are moments when a library becomes itself. The rest of the time is potential. The book collection, arranged by subject and author, latent with pleasures and instruction, is a library in Clark Kent mode. The crux where the book, the reader and the need collide like particles in an accelerator is its apotheosis, the library as Superword.”
Add Moscow To the Biennale Circuit
The first Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art is about to open. “The main venue of the biennial is at the Lenin Museum, off Red Square, and it is titled “Dialectics of hope”, an ironic play on the theme of the utopia never found by Communism and now lost to the pressures of capitalism, and the expectations of improvement as Russia re-enters the Western orbit.”
French Art Sales Fall Behind
Art-selling in France continues to be tough going. “The art market in France shrank slightly in 2004 as Drouot, the umbrella organisation for Parisian auction houses, reported turnover of €365 million ($480 million). In addition, the gap is gradually widening between the two leading international auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s and their larger French competitors, whose sales are stagnating or declining.”