During the mid-20th century, using grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Louisville Orchestra commissioned more than 150 scores. What happened to all that music?, asks Andrew Adler. “[The] broader issue of sustaining and renewing interest in this exceptional project brings up an undeniable reality: First performances come easily; second performances don’t.”
Tag: 05.30.10
New York Vs. LA, Round Three Billion And Twelve
“New Yorkers envy Angeleno artists their free-form flamboyance. We’ve imported the extroverted architecture of Southern Californians like Frank Gehry” et al, while “for years, critics here used the L.A. Phil’s venturesome spirit to attack the New York Philharmonic’s oppressive sense of dignity.” But look which city is edging ahead.
J.M. Coetzee On Writing Under Apartheid-Era Surveillance
“The intellectual community was not large,” he told an audience in Paris. “The fact remains that I was rubbing shoulders in daily life with people who in secret were making judgments about whether or not I was going to be allowed to be published and read in South Africa.”
How E-Readers Violate The Social Contract
“The entire impulse behind Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBooks assumes that you cannot read a book unless you own it first — and only you can read it unless you want to pass on your device. That goes against the social value of reading, the collective knowledge and collaborative discourse that comes from access to shared libraries.”
Karen Finley On Why Individual Artist Grants Matter
“Although President Obama’s NEA chairman, Rocco Landesman, has made noises about reinstating individual artist grants, the NEA no longer gives them, and Finley worries about the harm that does to the next generation. … ‘The difference is, unless you come from a family with means, and I didn’t, you’re going to not be an artist.'”
Is The iPad Going To Revolutionize Reading?
“In the week the iPad is launched in the UK, it’s clear that several decisive recent cultural engagements have also torn up the map by which, for at least a century, writers and publishers have fought the battle of the books.”
Remembering The Revolutionary Polaroid Camera
Edwin Land “touted his invention as a democratic amenity, like Edison’s bulbs or Ford’s Model-T: now the American Everyman could set himself up as an artist. The SX-70, Land’s most popular camera, was as convenient as a mobile phone, folding flat so it could be stuffed in a pocket.”
How A Word Quickly Becomes A Word In The Digital Age
“True, for many English speakers, use in a Web comic and inclusion in a couple of online dictionaries are not enough to establish malamanteau as a “real” word. But whether you consider malamanteau to be a real word or an elaborate joke, it is a classic example of the kind of word that people argue about when they argue about what makes a word real.”
The Agony Of The Toe Shoes
“The mechanics of balancing an adult female body on tiptoe for long periods requires a daunting combination of strength, balance, control and alignment. The satin-covered toe shoes are tough taskmasters. Girls are warned that they will get blisters until calluses develop and their skin toughens up. The shoes work foot and ankle muscles differently, too, and soreness is the expected result.”
Explaining The French Passion For Film
“In France, cinema is widely referred to as “the seventh art”, along with architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, music and poetry. “Seventh art” is not a phrase one hears often in Britain, or America for that matter. But, in France, they view cinema as a form of artistic expression, worthy of study and discussion.”