Phone Film Festival

It’s the first wireless phone film festival. “To be sure, it’s not very likely that the wireless device in your pocket will be showing something along the lines of Gone With the Wind anytime soon. But there’s a good chance participating artists will turn in some sophisticated work, especially those who understand how to think small.”

Big Entertainment: Block That Tech!

Feeling they’ve been burned by technology, the entertainment industry is moving aggressively to block new technologies that could potentially impact their business. “The U.S. movie industry generated $41.2 billion in revenue last year, but estimated it lost $3.5 billion in potential revenue due to piracy of DVDs and videos. The industry has not been able to estimate revenue lost from Internet piracy. The recording industry has blamed online file-sharing as a major reason for a decline in sales from $14.3 billion in 2000 to $11.8 billion in 2003.”

Did Mozart Have Tourette’s?

A new British documentary suggests that Mozart may have suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome. “Tourette’s is a constant battle between chaos and control, having a compulsion and trying to control it, and that translates into music. Mozart let his music run off in chaotic directions but then always brought it back under control.”

Demonstrators Protest Republican Broadway Theatre-goers

In New York, protesters clashed with police outside Broadway shows. “As convention delegates emerged from theaters last night, they were greeted by hundreds of protesters booing and chanting ‘RNC go home!’ In front of the New Amsterdam Theater, where delegates attended “The Lion King,” and at the Ford Center, where they watched ’42nd Street,’ police cleared paths for the visitors to rush to waiting buses.”

The Shostakovich Question

For 25 years Solomon Volkov’s purported memoir of Shostakovich has been debated by critics. Some are tired of the debate, and look for the book to convey greater truths. But this isn’t right, writes Alex Ross: “It isn’t enough for the memoirs of a major artist to have an ambience of authenticity. A book that subjected Picasso or Joyce to such manipulations would never have made it to publication. For some reason, though, music is treated as a childish realm in which fables serve as well as facts.”