As brain monitoring techniques become ever more precise, researchers and clinicians are discovering surprising things about out-of-body and “temporary death” experiences.
Tag: 04.21.12
Looking Down On London From The Shard
You can’ see, in other words, the whole of London, until now an unencompassable splodge that could last have been captured in a single view perhaps 200 years ago, to its perimeter and beyond. Close to, familiar and not-small objects, such as the Gherkin and HMS Belfast, look like large toys. It is both implausible and real, something well-known seen from an unprecedented place. It’s hard to know what to do except gawp.” (And then there’s the building itself.)
Oh, Behave! (Do Performing Arts Organizations Really Want Younger Audiences?)
“Symphony orchestras, regional theatres, ballet and opera companies across North America are feeling stiff competition to lure ticket buyers who they believe are increasingly distracted by interactive entertainment and social media. But when those sought-after new audiences do show up, they don’t always behave the way that venerable institutions and veteran audiences expect.”
Carlo Ponti Jr. Leaving San Bernadino Symphony
The music director (and son of Sophia Lauren), decamping for his family in Switzerland, led the organization for 11 seasons.
Television’s Good, But Don’t Count Movies Out
“Movies end, even obliquely, while television shows are specifically designed to go on and on, giving movies a satisfying narrative compactness and resolution that television can rarely match. The emotional gut-punch of a film such as the recent British thriller Kill List gains its power in part because when it’s over, that’s it, audiences are left reeling to grasp for themselves the death blow of the film’s moral sinkhole and sort through their own feelings without the cushion of more to come.”
Afghanistan Has A Youth Orchestra, And It May Tour The U.S.
“One of the best-known facts about music in Afghanistan, at least in the West, is that it wasn’t. The Taliban banned it when they took power in 1996, beating musicians, burning instruments and destroying cassette tapes in the name of their severe and extreme vision of Islam. But with the Taliban’s fall, musical life revived, if slowly, in the shattered country.”
Legalizing Free Music Downloads: The Murder, Or Savior, Of Musicians?
The Pirate Party (of Pirate Bay fame, and yes, it’s real) in Germany has called for a law that will make free downloads of music legal. Then a pop musician and a Pirate Party politician hold a debate …
Can A New Documentary Heal Wounds From The Civil Rights Movement?
When one black waiter in Mississippi dared to tell NBC in 1966 what he thought of his white customers, he became a marked man. Now another documentary retells his story – and the story of what happened to him and his family in the years since he spoke up.
Bring Back The Double-Decker Grand Piano!
“Roberto Prosseda is a concert pianist of the old school who typically performs in white tie and tails. But for his most recent spate of concerts, he pairs them with slippers–five-fingered rubber-coated slippers that look vaguely amphibian. That’s because Mr. Prosseda plays with his feet as well as his hands. The Italian pianist is on a one-man mission to revive the music of the pedal piano, a monstrous double-decker grand piano that was popular in the late-19th century but has long since fallen out of fashion.”
Let’s End The Parade Of Sameness – And Save Classical Music
“Recordings change the performing environment. Once anyone can hear the best performers, and once those performers are conscious that they’re making recordings for the ages — not just live performances to be heard tonight and preserved only in memories — those recordings become the standard that influences all.” How can we retrain young musicians to save their individuality?