“I have learned to adore the midnight show as a moviegoing experience. It has become the one lure that draws me unhesitatingly back to the theater. It’s not just a raucous party to be endured. It’s the one way in which movie theaters can still reliably fulfill their most sacred function.”
Tag: 05.18.12
Adam & Eve + Milton + Global Warming = Jonathan Dove’s New Opera
Jonathan Dove’s new “church opera” came about because he took a trip to the Arctic – and decided to make art out of climate change. “I thought Adam and Eve could make a journey down the nave of Salisbury Cathedral that lasted 45 minutes. … It would cover the time between them being banished from the Garden of Eden and actually walking out of the gate. It would go through their different emotions, remembering how wonderful Eden was and the things they’d lost, but also offering some hope for the future.”
Machine Makes A Twitter Symphony, Or At Least A Soundtrack
“The machine is a piece of software that monitors the Twitter activity of 500 people selected from eight different fields — arts, business, education, health, politics, science, sport and technology. Whenever these people post an update, the properties of the tweet are analyzed in terms of the sound and meaning of the words, and generates music based on it.”
Haitian Dance Company Suffering After Earthquake
“What we do here has a social and economic impact,” Jeanguy Saintus says. “Now everyone is talking about tourism, about projecting a different image of Haiti overseas. This is what we’ve been doing for years. And yet all the money goes to people who are feeding children, to the [nongovernmental aid organizations], not to the arts or what we do.”
California’s Artists May Now Be Screwed On Resale Royalties,Thanks To Judge
“Under the U.S. Copyright Act (in contrast to many copyright regimes in Europe), once a piece of art is sold all rights to the physical work belong to the buyer. No matter how much the art appreciates in value, artists aren’t due a penny when the work is resold. All of the profits belong to sellers, not to creators.There is only one exception to that rule in the United States: the 1977 California Resale Royalties Act, a so-called droit de suite law that grants artists a continuing interest in their work when it changes hands.” Now a judge has said the California law is unconstitutional – sorry, artists.
Keeping The Family Together Through Storytelling – That Is, Audiobooks
“Wilson missed a step in his account of our early socialization: the moment someone first got up in front of the fire and told a story that showed the others — especially the children — the magnificence of the universe around them, and made them want to be bigger-souled than they’d been so far. Somewhat further down the evolutionary path, our family does its campfire storytelling by way of audiobooks in the car.”
With Audiobooks, What Really Matters Is The Voice
Audiobook fans know the truth: The quality of the writing matters, but what affects listeners most is the quality of the reader.
Big F*cking Surprise: Swearing Characters Are More Popular In YA Novels
“Across the 40 books studied, characters who swore were more likely to be wealthier, more attractive and more popular or socially influential, the researchers reported.”
What’s The Hot Thing At Cannes This Year? Literary Adaptations
“The Cannes festival is, famously, the keeper of the flame of the auteur tradition. … Since the turn of the millennium, only two winners of the Palme d’Or have been literary adaptations: Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, and Laurent Cantet’s The Class. … This year, however, things are different: it is a bookworm’s Cannes, with directors as likely to have had their noses buried in novels as dreaming up original ideas.”
This Will Probably Be A Trend: Tajikistan Bans Sacha Baron Cohen’s Dictator
“First it was Kazakhstan that was left unamused by Borat. Now it’s the turn of its neighbour Tajikistan. The central Asian country has decided not to screen Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest spoof blockbuster, The Dictator, after authorities concluded the movie was incompatible with the nation’s ‘mentality’.”