“Expert opinion in the media used to drive culture. Now, it’s peer recommendations. Already, consumers can sample a broader range of critical opinion on the Internet — some of it relevant and thoughtful, covering products that wouldn’t ordinarily be reviewed by the mainstream media, and some of it biased or one-dimensional. And marketers, such as movie studios and book publishers, are trying to figure out how Internet tastemakers figure into their relationship with their customers.”
Tag: 05.01.06
Dromgoole Takes On The Globe
Dominic Dromgoole hasn’t distinguished himself as a producer of the Bard’s works. And yet here he is running London’s Globe Theatre. “For all his excitement, the idea of Dromgoole, 42, running the Globe is going to take some getting used to – and he’s got a lot to prove. The role was previously filled by the sensitive actor Mark Rylance, who bashfully attributed the Globe’s unexpected box-office success – generating an annual pre-tax profit of £1.5 million – to the ensemble effort rather than his own stellar contribution.”
What Does It mean When Wrong Is Used More Than Right?
Ancient English cliches and expressions are being mangled by the culture of cut and paste and the spread of unchecked writing on the internet. According to the Oxford English Corpus, a database of a billion words, dozens of traditional phrases are now more commonly misspelled than rendered correctly in written English.”
N’Orleans – Rebirth Or Atlantis?
New Orleans’ JazzFest is being touted as the rebirth of a great American city. “Yet as the tourists tuck in to crawfish Monica and fried turkey po’boys, you can’t help wondering what this joyous celebration at the city’s race track — largely unscathed in the storm — really means. Is it about the rebirth of a community through the power of music — or could it just be the last hurrah of an environmental basket-case which the pessimists are tipping as ‘America’ s Atlantis’, the first city to be drowned by global warming?”
Rap – Just About The Money?
“Many of the performers at the three-day Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival in Hartford, Connecticut, were critical of the way that US rap – which is by far the best-selling – appears concerned mostly with money, drugs and sex, and has little to do with its roots in the angry political expression of groups like Public Enemy or KRS One.”
Tate Modern Does A Rehang To Tell A Different Story
“I don’t envy the curators at Tate Modern, whose job it is to present art from 80 or 100 years ago next to the art of today. It’s hard to juxtapose the very new with the overfamiliar – hard to set the violent originality of Léger alongside the tired formulae of Gary Hume or Fiona Rae. And yet that is what the museum does.”
Metal Detectors And Archaeologists Make Truce
“While amateur users of metal detectors have made some of the most spectacular archaeological finds of recent years, many archaeologists have regarded them as little better than hobby looters. Now, after months of negotiation, the two sides are set to announce a code of conduct. The code, which will be launched at the British Museum today, has been agreed by all the main metal detector clubs, landowners, archaeologists, museums, archaeological societies and English Heritage.”
Time To Bash “Last Night Of The Proms” Again
“The Last Night has never been just about the music; in fact, it’s mostly about everything but the pieces the BBC Symphony Orchestra gamely tries to play through a chorus of klaxons, whistles, and toe-curling audience participation. The first half of the Last Night is traditionally a conventional concert in miniature, a minor inconvenience tolerated by the audience in the hall before the bombastic beanfeast of the second half. It’s the rituals of that second half that have defined a sense of British – or rather, English – patriotism that often curdles into jingoism, with tub-thumping renditions of Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory, and Rule, Britannia.”