“But raging ignorance and deep ambivalence didn’t stop me from doing a day’s lobbying work last week, in actual Senate and House office buildings, concerning an actual bill that’s actually before the first session of the actual 111th Congress and that actually affects me and most musicians I know. And of course, by ‘affects me’ I mean ‘promises to earn me more money.'”
Tag: 03.10.09
Veteran Country Singer Hank Locklin, 91
“Country singer Hank Locklin, whose smooth tenor voice on hits including ‘Send Me the Pillow You Dream On’ and ‘Please Help Me I’m Falling’ marked a career that spanned half a century, has died. He was 91. […] A performer on the Grand Ole Opry for 47 years, Locklin helped usher in ‘the Nashville Sound’ that gave country music a more lush feel.”
Test For Early Computer: Can It Write Cheesy Love Poems?
“Back in 1952 a team of scientists was desperate to test the capabilities of Mark One ‘Baby’, the computer built at Manchester University. One of them, Christopher Strachey, devised a quirky software programme by entering hundreds of romantic verbs and nouns into the new machine. He then sat back as Mark One ‘Baby’ trawled the literary database to create a stream of light-hearted verse.”
Is Television Sketch Comedy Finished?
James Kettle: “What I am worried about is that sitting down and engaging in the ritual of watching a 30-minute sketch show seems at odds with the way we consume comedy these days. […] And the basic unit of comedy on YouTube, whether it’s a revoiced advert, surreal spoof journalism or yet another bloody take-off of Downfall, is a sketch – a self-contained burst of comedy that lasts no more than a couple of minutes.”
Ailing José Carreras Ends Florida Recital Mid-Song
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the respect you have shown us tonight,” the 62-year-old tenor, who was audibly struggling with a chest cold, told his audience in West Palm Beach this week as he stopped the music. “But I don’t think you are going to enjoy this. I’m certainly not enjoying myself. I promise to come back as soon as I can to sing for you.”
A Rand Rebellion? Atlas Shrugged Enjoys A Resurgence.
“[O]ne surprise bestseller of the economic Armageddon is a decades-old science fiction novel about an imaginary economic Armageddon – popular now, its fans insist, because the collapse of civilisation it describes is on the verge of coming true. Sales of Ayn Rand’s 1957 book Atlas Shrugged – a hymn in praise of radical individualism, extreme self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism – are surging as the crisis deepens, according to TitleZ, a service that tracks sales trends on Amazon.”
The Rose Isn’t Crowded, And, No, That’s Not A Bad Thing
When the literary symposium about Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum takes place March 16, participants might consider the museum’s modest attendance figures. “We have become so accustomed to using pop-culture yardsticks — profitability, celebrity, fashion — to measure the success or failure of art and art museums that it’s easy to lose sight of what matters. In fact, a degree of obscurity, relatively speaking, is one of the great charms of the Rose’s collection.”
Monsters Vs. Aliens Vs. Cinemas: Digital, 3D Revamps Lag
“DreamWorks’ big-budget bet, ‘Monsters vs. Aliens,’ has faced one hurdle after another — including a whipping from the blogosphere over its extravagant Superbowl ad in January. But now comes the worst news yet: Fewer than half of the theaters that were supposed to be ready for digital 3D projection will be ready by the movie’s release on March 27. … [T]he economic recession has further delayed the already-long-delayed conversion of movie theaters to digital projection.”
Lincoln Center Fest 2009 Concentrates On World Theatre, Music, Dance
Singers from Morocco, Algeria, Mali and New Orleans; dancers from Israel and China-via-New-York; stage companies from Poland, Hungary, Italy, France (Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil) and Russia (the Maly Theatre and Declan Donellan’s staging of the original Pushkin Boris Godunov) – all of these converge on Manhattan’s Upper West Side this July.
Pittsburgh Symphony Lays Off Nine Staff Members
By letting these administrative workers go and “eliminating two staff vacancies, the PSO expects to save approximately $150,000 this fiscal year and around $400,000 annually. Its budget is $30 million.” Orchestra CEO Lawrence Tamburri says, “This is our reaction to the economy, but it is not a traditional layoff.”