Tag: 05.23.06

Living And Dying By The Book Superstore

Book superstore chains have been putting small bookshops out of business. “Ultimately, though, the greatest vulnerability of chains may be their muscle-bound nature. If print-on-demand technology, though still poky and faintly disreputable, ever achieves the availability and quality of traditional books, the need for overstock returns, remainders, and huge retail spaces may evaporate. Strange to say, someday superstores may be the historical curiosity that indies are now in danger of becoming.”

Public Lines Up To Play New Kimmel Organ

As part of the inauguration of its new organ, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center offered the public an opportunity to pay to play it. “Fifty-four people put down $25 a minute or $75 for a five-minute block for the afternoon event. A student from New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School in Boston drove six hours for a minute. An organist from New York City bought 10 minutes.”

Anti-Poverty Activists To Protest Stratford Opening

Protesters are planning to demonstrate at the opening of this year’s Stratford Festival. “The protesters are demanding the Ontario government raise welfare rates by 40 per cent. The groups have said they are targetting Stratford’s black tie event because the opening night gala usually draws both prominent government officials and business and community leaders, ‘a Who’s Who of the rich and vile,’ says a notice on the OCAP website.”

Book Expo Panel On Publishing Conservatives

“Saturday afternoon at the huge new Convention Center here, filled to capacity this past weekend by that massive annual trade show of the book biz called BEA (BookExpo America), a group of conservative editors and sales execs took a chance. They gathered in their chosen venue, Room 203AB, for a panel on ‘Selling and Promoting Right of Center Books Via Left of Center Channels’.”

The Lou Harrison Legacy

A festival celebrates the ultimate outside. “Harrison’s music does not stand apart from so much as, like a giant sponge, absorb all around it. A feisty individualist, he was an outsider artist who happened to be the ultimate musical insider. He was an expert geneticist-composer who made musical hybrids no one had ever heard before, particularly in his pioneering grafting of Asian musical instruments and genres onto Western ones. And he wrote melodies — gorgeous, unpredictable, brain-sticking melodies — with the best of them.”

Two New Manhattan Towers Are A (Brilliant) Throwback

“The condo market that helped propel the change has begun to cool in many American downtowns. But the shift in skyscraper architecture from commercial to residential has been so sharp and widespread that it’s difficult not to think of Norman Foster and David Childs as an anachronistic pair: as, say, a couple of contemporary composers who have produced dueling string quartets or two television network executives deciding to launch competing half-hour, laugh-track sitcoms that also happen to be very well-made.”

Has Rattle Lost His Charm In Berlin?

“After four years, the Simon Rattle System is quite familiar. The British conductor and the 120 members of the Berliner Philharmoniker are no longer madly in love, but instead preoccupied with delivering top-notch musicianship, maintaining their reputations. In the meantime, we have learned that the fellow with the sunny disposition is human just like the rest of us.”

Indigo’s Fat Sales Gains

Canadian book giant Indigo had a terrific year, with big gains in sales. “Revenue growth was led by its superstores, where comparable store sales increased 10.2% and at its online arm, chapters.indigo.ca, which had a 22.8% sales increase to C$79.5 million. Same store sales even rose at Indigo’s smaller store, rising 4.3%.”

Hirst’s Giant Virgin Mary Goes Up In London

A new 35-foot high statue by Damien Hirst was erected in London Tuesday. “The Virgin Mother has layers removed on one side to reveal the foetus and the woman’s skull, muscles and tissue. The bronze statue, recalling Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer, dominates the courtyard in front of the gallery, and is visible from Piccadilly where passers by stopped to look as a crane hoisted it into place on Monday.”