“From her 12′ x 16′ wood cabin in the Virginia mountains, Annie Dillard spoke with Daniel Asa Rose in an exclusive phone interview. (ROSE:) So you granted Book World your only in-depth interview for this book. Was it because of that affair we had back in ’82? (DILLARD:) [Laughing] It slipped my mind. Refresh my memory.”
Tag: 06.24.07
An Unlikely Opera Singer, Embraced By The People
“A 36-year-old dentally challenged cellphone salesman wins a nationally televised talent contest in Britain, and suddenly, all sorts of questions are raised about the role of classical music in our world. That is because the winner, Paul Potts, from Wales, triumphed with a rendition of ‘Nessun dorma,’ the tenor aria from Puccini’s ‘Turandot,’ at a contest with the trappings and audience — seemingly — of the mass entertainment world.”
In Praise Of “So You Think You Can Dance” (Really!)
“Even though you may imagine that ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ is just a dippy ‘American Idol’ also-ran, even though you’d rather iron your soft pants and regrout your tub than watch dorky teenagers waltzing or, worse yet, putting on ‘funky hats’ and ‘hip-hopping’ or whatever they call it, this show really is worth watching. … Each performance, whether it’s a contemporary extravaganza of tangled limbs and faux-passionate emoting or a faux-passionate Argentine tango or a romantic, graceful faux-passionate waltz, depends on the real passion of the dancers involved.”
Has Pixar Lost Its Touch?
“Pixar had become the ultimate example of Hollywood synergy: the studio as star.The lamp’s bulb has been dimming, though. “Nemo” held its box-office crown only a year, thanks to ‘Shrek 2.’ Since then, Pixar releases have lost the almost-reflexive pop-cultural cachet they had had. At least some of that cachet has gone to Dream Works Animation, with its ‘Shrek’ franchise.”
Rock’s Long Inglorious Broadway History
“Rock music has made intermittent and sometimes dubious forays onto Broadway since Elvis and the Beatles met Ed Sullivan. And yet it has never become a staple sound — or even a frequent one — of musical theater, which has for the most part continued to descend from the early pioneers like Jerome Kern and George Gershwin, through Rodgers and Hammerstein and Hammerstein’s protégé Stephen Sondheim, to Mr. Sondheim’s many imitators or homage payers.”
Will This Save TV?
“In the last year broadcast networks, cable channels and television content providers have all set up camp in virtual communities, where they hope that viewers who have forsaken television for computer screens might rediscover their programming online. Some outlets, like Showtime and Sundance, are establishing themselves in existing worlds; others, like MTV, are creating their own. Either way, if the wildest dreams of some very excited technology developers come true, virtual reality might finally be the medium that unites the passive experience of watching television with the interactive potential of the Web.”
London’s Jaded Joyless Critics
“No aspect of the culture is as badly served by its critics as the theatre is. Many of the national press reviewers who haunt the lobbies of the West End, picking up their complimentary programmes and free glasses of screwtop wine, are a moribund, joyless, detached bunch. Where are the voices that ring out as being aesthetically intelligent, passionate, current and, most important, entertaining?”
Classical Music Makes Comeback Big In DC
“WETA’s return to classical this January after a two-year experiment with news and talk is looking like a ratings winner: The station (90.9 FM) saw its audience more than double in the first Arbitron report since the format change. And, equally important for perennially cash-strapped public radio, the size and number of listener donations to the station soared with the switch back to classical.”
Carlos Acosta’s Prescription For Dance
“It is not just new work that we need; it is work that has genius and resonance. It is up to the people who are in the positions of power to discover the new talents and bring them into a bigger scale and take risks. We need to be more daring, and OK, maybe we fail. Maybe it won’t sell. But does everything we have to put on necessarily have to sell?”
Why Clutter Up The National Mall?
New projects are breaking ground on Washington DC’s National Mall. “Not all of these changes are necessarily destructive, though some of them have preservationists, advocates for the Mall and even some government officials groaning. But they are profound changes, and strangely enough, they all have something to do with this city’s landscape of War and Peace.”