“Tenney was as close to experimental music royalty as a modern composer could get, having studied or worked with a host of famed American mavericks, including Harry Partch, Edgard Varese, Carl Ruggles and John Cage. He was in on the seminal musical developments of the 1960s: the founding of computer music and Minimalism, the revivals of Charles Ives’ music and of ragtime. He participated in the Cage-inspired art movement Fluxus.”
Tag: 08.31.06
The New Publishers
“Technology is rewriting the book on publishing. A number of companies help writers publish books, either on paper or online. Once upon a time, that approach was considered ‘publishing with training wheels’. But the new customers for print on demand are often savvy marketers who understand what it takes to write and sell a book and are doing it using technology whose price is falling fast.”
Why Seattle’s Musicians Are Leaving
“Over the past couple of years, significant members of Seattle’s music community have been drifting south, drawn by Portland’s inexpensive cost of living and vibrant creative community. Scott McCaughey, Michael Maker, Chris Walla, Tucker Martine, and Laura Veirs are my neighbors. That you might not have noticed can be partially attributed to our somewhat nomadic lifestyles, but it also speaks volumes about how disconnected the once-cohesive Seattle music scene has felt lately. In a lot of respects, Portland has become Seattle’s hot new neighborhood.”
Chicago Critic Defends Workshop Reviews
Chicago Sun-Times theatre critic Hedy Weiss is defending herself against criticisms from the Dramatists Guild over reviews of workshop performances she wrote. “Ms. Weiss said that she had reviewed the festival in the past without objection and no one had told her she could not review it this time. She also said the festival was a public event, with an advertising campaign and tickets. (A ticket to one performance cost $15.) ‘If you are given a press kit and if you are given pictures, what are you supposed to do with them’?”
Videos And The New Video Stars
MTV hasn’t been all about music videos for some time now. Now fans are making the videos. “So what do music fans do when they have cheap cameras and an easy way to share their work with other fans? They sing cover versions of their favorite songs, or show off their lip-synching skill, or do silly little dances. On YouTube this means that artists sometimes end up competing with their own fans.”
The Mystery Literary Hoax
A prominent British biographer is duped into using a faked letter in a new biography. Yes, there’s embarrassment to have been taken in by a clever hoax. But who perpetrated it?
Remembering Naguib Mahfouz
The Nobel-winning Egyptian writer was 94. His “city was teeming Cairo, and his characters were its most ordinary people: civil servants and bureaucrats, grocers, shopkeepers, poor retirees, petty thieves and prostitutes, peasants and women brutalized by tradition, a people caught in the upheavals of a nation struggling through the 20th century. Around their tangled lives, Mr. Mahfouz chronicled the development of modern Egypt over five decades in 33 novels, 13 anthologies of short stories, several plays and 30 screenplays.”