Tag: 05.30.05

Lesson Learned: Take Crappier Pictures

With the increasing popularity of digital cameras, more and more retailers are offering top-quality printing services for those who want a hard copy of their photos. But your snapshots better not look too professional, or many retailers might refuse to print them. “There are a growing number of stories of amateur photographers being turned away by photofinishers for having photos that looked, at least in the eyes of a store clerk, too good to have been taken by anyone other than a professional. Their photos have become collateral damage in the war on digital copyright infringement.”

Theatre For A New Century (But How?)

“The closure of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s controversial play Behzti at the Birmingham Rep last December exposed a troubling conflict in British theatre. So how does the theatre industry progress into the 21st century, ticking all the right multicultural and ethnicity boxes while reserving the right to be offensive, or at least critical, in its discussion of our increasingly fragmented society and its faiths?”

Sound Of Music At 40

“Forty years ago this Memorial Day weekend, “The Sound of Music” was not just the summer movie of 1965. It was the spring, fall and winter one, too, and in inflation-adjusted dollars, it remains the third-biggest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office, according to Box Office Mojo. It hit the Billboard Top 40 video sales chart shortly after it became one of the first movies ever released on home video in 1979, and still holds the chart’s longevity record, of more than 300 weeks and counting.”

How Recordings Have Changed Music

“For music to remain vital, recordings have to exist in balance with live performance, and, these days, live performance is by far the smaller part of the equation. Perhaps we tell ourselves that we listen to CDs in order to get to know the music better, or to supplement what we get from concerts and shows. But, honestly, a lot of us don’t go to hear live music that often. Work leaves us depleted. Tickets are too expensive. Concert halls are stultifying. Rock clubs are full of kids who make us feel ancient. It’s just so much easier to curl up in the comfy chair with a Beethoven quartet or Billie Holiday. But would Beethoven or Billie ever have existed if people had always listened to music the way we listen now?”