Today “natural” expression–in language as in art–is preferred to artifice. We unreflectively suppose that truth no less than beauty is conveyed more effectively thereby. Alexander Pope knew better.
Tag: 07.15.10
Jane Eaglen Explains How To Sing High Notes
“Squeeze your bottom That’s the key to high notes. I have a big bottom, and big high notes.”
The ‘Dancing Auschwitz’ Video: Celebration Of Triumph Over Evil Or Latter-Day ‘Springtime For Hitler’?
An angry controversy has broken out over a video by Melbourne artist Jane Korman which shows her three children and her Holocaust-survivor father dancing at Europe’s most notorious death camp to Gloria Gaynor’s disco anthem, “I Will Survive.”
FSG Lets Us Follow Books As They Get Written And Published
“Farrar, Straus and Giroux has decided to let readers peek behind the scenes at one of the most delicate parts of the publishing business: the writing of books, as they happen. … A new website (and also monthly newsletter) is called, with editorial exactitude, FSG Work in Progress.”
New Head Of BBC Radio 4 Is ‘Highest-Ranking Woman In British Radio’
“The BBC played it safe by appointing a corporation veteran of 34 years’ experience to the coveted role of controller of Radio 4”: Gwyneth Williams, who had been the director of Enlish-language programming for the BBC World Service. “The appointment of someone with vast radio production experience will please Radio 4’s core audience who are famously resistant to change.”
Pitchfork, Once The Rebel Rock Webzine, Becomes The Establishment
“[In] its early years Pitchfork was supposed to be the insurgency, pushing back against mainstream music magazines with committed and sometimes idiosyncratic coverage of independent music. Founded in 1995 by Ryan Schreiber as a small Web site, it’s now the most prominent brand in online music journalism – averaging 30 million page views a month.”
Richard Harriman, 77, Founder Of Kansas City’s ‘Most Influential and Beloved Performing-Arts Series’
“Harriman began the William Jewell Performing Arts Series 45 years ago, presenting some of the most prominent names in classical music and dance and introducing Kansas City audiences to up-and-coming performers. For example, Harriman, a notable talent scout, in 1973 brought a soon-to-be-famed Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, to Kansas City for his first recital in the United States.”
China’s First English-Language Musical To Play Edinburgh
“Reel to Real, which features a cast of 12, with more than 200 costumes and a backstage crew of 32, is also thought to be one of the biggest productions to have ever been staged at the Fringe. … The multimillion pound production uses extensive film projections to make live characters interact with classic movie musicals and features a score with songs from composers including Stephen Sondheim, Frank Loesser and Irving Berlin.”
Art And Music Critics Hash Out Christian Marclay’s Whitney Show
“‘Christian Marclay: Festival’ at the Whitney Museum is aptly titled, since some form of music, much of it live, will be audible at all times during the show’s run. In the late 1970s, Mr. Marclay, an artist-composer-performer, became one of the first musicians to use a turntable as an instrument.” NY Times art critic Roberta Smith and music critic Nate Chinen blog with each other about the show.
‘Hell Yeah. Welcome To Adulthood, Bollywood’
That was one Indian critic’s reaction to Dibakar Banerjee’s new film Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (“Love, Sex And Betrayal”), part of “an important new wave in mainstream Indian film-making … [whose] preferred subjects are sex and relationships, communal and caste turmoil, and the increasing divide between a thriving consumer class and the traditional rural poor – topics that rarely, if ever, feature in Bollywood.”