“It is likewise nearly impossible, today, to pick up Proust without preconceptions, without already knowing that you are holding a ‘great work of literature’ in your hands. Knowing that you are reading a work of genius, it is difficult to recognize that Swann’s Way is strange.”
Tag: 06.05.13
Venice Is Dying. Here’s How
“As the British economist John Kay has said, Venice would be a great deal better run if it were being managed by the Walt Disney Company; unfortunately, the Italian media failed to get the irony.”
So How Big A Problem Is Smartphone Recording Of Concerts?
“It’s hard to catch culprits, because smart phones are so small they can quickly disappear back into bags and it’s hard to pick people out in the dark. Clearly some people think buying a concert ticket entitles them to the film rights as well.”
How My Laptop Killed Music For Me
“Listening on my laptop wasn’t so much making me think music shouldn’t take up physical space – it was making me forget the aural space that music was supposed to take up. My ears stopped expecting so much from the sound. The songs were compressed; the quality decreased; the speakers just two little discreet areas on either side of my typing hands.”
Remembering Ada Louise Huxtable
“Ada Louise did not want a memorial service,” Robert N. Shapiro, her lawyer and co-executor, told more than 200 listeners as he opened the gathering in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at the Met. “So we’re not having one.” Instead, he said, the event was simply a “memorial tribute,” composed of a “coalition of the disobedient” — friends, subjects, colleagues and readers — who couldn’t imagine not saying farewell.