“I can’t stand second-hand books. For me, as a literary experience, they are akin to sloppy seconds, a salad bar in a staff canteen at the end of a hot weekday, or a recently-vacated cubicle in a public toilet. Let’s be clear: I don’t merely have a mild preference for buying brand-new. No, I’m digestively squeamish about used books.”
Tag: 06.19.08
Broadway’s Cry-Baby To Close
Cry-Baby,” a musical based on the John Waters movie of the same name, will close Sunday after 113 performances at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre. It probably will have lost its entire $10-million-plus capitalization.
A New Kind Of Arts Center?
“The Public was supposed to be a new kind of arts centre, a civic landmark that would leapfrog its home, West Bromwich, into a new cultural league and regenerate the entire region. And who better to design it than Will Alsop, the London-based architect who doesn’t so much think outside the box as paint the box a crazy colour and put it on wonky stilts several storeys above the street?”
TKTS Sets Up Shop In Brooklyn
“The non-profit Theatre Development Fund runs two TKTS Booths in Manhattan offering tickets up to 50% off regular price. More than 50 million tickets have been sold since TKTS first opened in 1973. TKTS doesn’t offer any tickets to Brooklyn events, but that too is about to change.”
How The US Military Uses Music To Torture
Ultimately, though, the most overused torture song is I Love You by Barney the Purple Dinosaur. On the face of it, the lyrics may seem deeply inappropriate: “I love you, you love me – we’re a happy family./With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you,/Won’t you say you love me too?”, but anyone whose child watches the television programme will know how grating
it is. In the torture trade, this is called “futility music”, designed to convince the prisoner of the futility of maintaining his position.
Who Owns Music
“In the music world, recording technology has greatly complicated the issues of ownership, authorship, and proprietary rights by simplifying the acquisition of creative property. Since the rise of sampling and downloading, digital technology has transferred many of the privileges of authorship from what was once an elite of professional musicians to the iPod-ed masses.”
US Government Eyes Non-Profit Endowments (Warning!)
“There is a mindset that believes that the granting of a tax exemption entitles the government to control how the resources of the nonprofit sector are to be spent. This raises questions about the compact made with the American people when the income tax was first imposed. There were understandings at the time, one of which was that nonprofit institutions carrying out charitable functions would be exempted from the income tax.”
iTunes: Five Billion Songs Sold
Apple’s iTunes “has sold over five billion songs since its 2003 debut, while the iTunes music catalog has ballooned to over eight million tracks. Customers can also choose between over twenty thousand television episodes or over two thousand films, 350 or so of which are available in high definition.”
Screen Actors’ Strike Looking More Likely
“Jitters over renewed labor unrest have mounted in recent days as contract talks between the Screen Actors Guild and the major film and TV studios have grown increasingly rancorous with little or no sign that a settlement is near.”
Mark Rylance: UK Theatre Should Emulate Broadway’s Emmys
“The thing that struck me was the incredible marketing machine that made the most of the evening to raise awareness of what was happening on Broadway. It’s a shame there isn’t that kind of support around the awards in England. I also really loved the ensemble awards that the drama desk gave out to two companies. I wish there were more of those, like a Best Chorus Award, perhaps.”