What matters above all else in ballet? Legs and feet. There’s an ideal to be attained, but that fashion has changed over the years, writes Clement Crisp.
Tag: 04.24.05
Harper Collins Sees a Down Year
Publisher Harper Collins reports a 30 percent drop in profits. “The firm was hit by Sean Connery’s decision last month to scrap plans for an autobiography, and it has also been plagued by rumours of in-fighting among executives, which it strongly denies. Operating profits were down from £15.4 million to £10.7m in the year to June 2004, according to accounts published last week. Turnover was down slightly at £165.5m.”
Is Our Entertainment Becoming More Exhibitionist?
So now we have “movieoke” where people can go up and lip sync to their favorite movie scenes. “What’s interesting about movieoke from a cultural perspective is that it seems to be another example of how entertainment — and, by extension, our culture — is becoming more and more about exhibitionism and voyeurism.”
Queues For Quixote
Venezuelans are lining up in the country’s capital to get free copies of Don Quixote. The Venezuelan government is handing out a million copies to mark the 400th anniversary of its publication.
Why You Have To Be Smart To Watch Today’s TV
“For decades, we’ve worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a path declining steadily toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the ”masses” want dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies try to give the masses what they want. But the exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more cognitively demanding, not less. You have to integrate far more information than you would have a few decades ago watching a comparable show. Beneath the violence and the ethnic stereotypes, another trend appears: to keep up with entertainment like ”24,” you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships. This is what I call the Sleeper Curve: the most debased forms of mass diversion — video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms — turn out to be nutritional after all.”
Copyright – A Tax On Readers?
“Copyright law is a tax on readers for the benefit of writers, a tax that shouldn’t last a day longer than necessary. What do we do? We extend the copyright term repeatedly on both sides of the Atlantic. The US goes from fourteen years to the author’s life plus seventy years. We extend protection retrospectively to dead authors, perhaps in the hope they will write from their tombs. Since only about 4 per cent of copyrighted works more than 20 years old are commercially available, this locks up 96 per cent of 20th century culture to benefit 4 per cent. The harm to the public is huge, the benefit to authors, tiny. In any other field, the officials responsible would be fired. Not here.”
When Arts Organizations Play The Real Estate Market
The Children’s Museum in San Diego has made a number real estate trades in its history, hoping to take advantage of rising prices to leverage itself into the facility and location of its dreams. Now the museum finds itself $7 million short of its goal and is struggling to raise the amount…
Do Visiting Orchestras Scuttle The Home Team?
The San Diego area is getting some visits from some high-profile orchestras next season. “With their out-of-town cachet, they have more glamour than the San Diego Symphony, the city’s hometown musical team, which is working hard to cultivate audiences and appreciation. Do visiting ensembles provide unfair competition to the San Diego Symphony? Or are they beneficial to everyone?”
Is Video The Next Big Internet Search?
Before video really takes off on the internet there will have to be a way to find the video you want. “In recent weeks, Yahoo, Google and MSN have each rolled out services designed to make it easier to upload or locate video online. The portals’ rollouts come as a handful of startups and independent film sites are creating tools to make putting video online nearly as simple as publishing text.”
Chicago’s Dueling Art Fairs
“Chicago will be the site of not one but two big international contemporary art fairs starting their simultaneous four-day public runs on Friday. But out of sight at both will be three of this city’s more prominent, high-end contemporary art dealers.”