Tag: 06.14.17

What German And Austrian Orchestras Were Willing To Do Under The Third Reich

“What the two orchestras had in common was a nationalistic ethos, a belief in the superiority of Austro-German musical culture that approached triumphalism. One of the darkest manifestations of this ethos was their shared reluctance to hire Jews. The Berlin Philharmonic employed only four Jewish players in 1933, while the Vienna Philharmonic contained only 11 Jews at the time of the Anschluss, none of whom was hired after 1920.”

The Word ‘Interesting’ Has Lost Most Of Its Interest

Chris Townsend: “If we really believe that something is interesting, then surely its interestingness should be self-evident. Must it really be flagged up, in a flagrantly unsophisticated way? I wouldn’t write that I merely liked something, nor that a thing holds intellectual appeal to me, at least not without validating that statement. Yet, ‘interesting’ often sneaks by without making a case for itself. And once you start seeing it in your own work, you notice it everywhere. Interesting, despite its insufficiency as an autonomous unit, has a tenacious hold on writing and on everyday speech.”

Have Superhero Blockbuster Movie Franchises Run Their Course?

“Studios will not be able to point to their international grosses forever, though. The days when only U.S. production companies could mount giant-scale productions with sophisticated special effects are rapidly receding. Major markets like China, Japan, and India have their own thriving film industries churning out big hits, and Hollywood is sorely lacking in younger stars with the kind of generational pull that Cruise or Depp still possess with viewers worldwide.”

Chicago Theater Accountability Coalition Protests Longtime Sun-Times Theatre Critic

“Hedy Weiss has been with the newspaper since 1984 covering theater and dance, reporting on national and international productions outside of Chicago as well. She also contributes theater reviews to PBS’s program WTTW Chicago Tonight. The petition does not call for a ban on Weiss attending performances but rather asks that she is no longer given free press tickets due to accusations that she writes insensitive reviews.”

The Eames Didn’t Just Design Furniture, They Made Movies

Their films – they made more than 125 – “were unconnected to nearby Hollywood. Short, experimental, nontheatrical, and nonnarrative, they belong more to an avant-garde or independent tradition – and sometimes a commercial one. Charles said himself, ‘They’re not experimental films, they’re not really films. They’re just attempts to get across an idea.'”

The Self-Playing Violin And Pianos – They Were A Sensation In 1910

“During the machine’s heyday, the Hupfeld Company developed around 900 different music rolls for it. They sold thousands of the Phonoliszt-Violin, mostly to opulent hotels and restaurants that used them for background entertainment. But by the mid 1920s, the popularity of automatic instruments cratered as phonographs and radios spread throughout the world.”

What Critics Are For – And How Artists (And Politicians) Can Learn To Live With Them

“The contempt of artists for critics is, of course, understandable. To create an artwork is to give the world a kind of gift, and no one likes having a gift rejected, or even inspected too carefully. … [Yet] once a work of art emerges from its creator’s study or studio, it becomes the possession of anyone who interacts with it, and therefore it is open to judgment: Do I actually derive pleasure and enlightenment from it? … Every reader or viewer or listener asks it, whether they want to or not. A critic is just a reader or viewer or listener who makes the question explicit and tries to answer it publicly, for the benefit of other potential readers or viewers or listeners. In doing so, she operates on the assumption that the audience for a work, the recipient of a gift, is entitled to make a judgment on its worth.”