The release of the Booker shortlist is always an occasion for debate among critics and readers alike, and for good reason. “As the status of the Booker becomes ever more lofty, so the pressure on the jury grows to select the definitive book of the year… It is startling to note how many epoch-making novels never crossed the threshold of the Booker shortlist.”
Tag: 09.14.08
The Rothko Wars
Mark Rothko “was one of America’s most successful and famous artists when, in 1970, he killed himself. His tragic death sparked a bitter legal battle between his daughter, aged 19, and her father’s estate.” During the fight, Kate Rothko turned down several lucrative settlement offers, insisting that she wasn’t out for cash, but for the return of her father’s artistic legacy.
TIFF In Transition?
This seemed to be the year that the critics turned on the Toronto International Film Festival, hitting it from left and right, high and low. Peter Howell says that while some of the criticism was the result of pampered writers whining unnecessarily, “a discernable amount of energy was missing from the fest this year… TIFF is still a superb event, but it’s clearly a festival in transition.”
David Foster Wallace Commits Suicide At 46
“David Foster Wallace, the author best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, was found dead in his home, according to police. He was 46. Wallace’s wife found her husband had hanged himself when she returned home about 9:30 p.m. Friday.”
Wallace Leaves Behind An Impressive Legacy
“A prose magician, [David Foster] Wallace was capable of writing about everything from tennis to politics to lobsters, from the horrors of drug withdrawal to the small terrors of life aboard a luxury cruise ship, with humor and fervor and verve… He once wrote that irony and ridicule had become ‘agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture’ and mourned the loss of engagement with deep moral issues that animated the work of the great 19th-century novelists.”
TIFF Audience Fave Has A Game Show Flavor
“Slumdog Millionaire, an inspirational comedy about a poor Mumbai orphan who unexpectedly knows all the answers to the Indian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?, was the audience favourite at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival, which came to a close on Saturday.”
Applauding The Proms…
Criticizing the BBC Proms is practically a cottage industry in the UK, but Paul Driver says that this year’s installment served as a reminder of how precious the two-month festival really is. “Though most of the concerts I attended had a teeming audience… there was always the sense, created by the concentric layout of the seats and the presence of standees in the arena, of being at a soirée in which people cluster round a piano to hear a marvellous player.”
…But Booing The Beeb
“Classical music lovers have complained about BBC presenters who they claim are ruining the Proms by ‘spouting drivel’ at inappropriate moments… There have also been complaints about the reliance on special guests who know very little about classical music.” The BBC has also been accused of using televised concerts to promote their more lowbrow TV offerings.
Applause vs. Silence: It’s All About Context
When it’s appropriate to applaud is an old debate in concert halls and theaters, and the rules seem to be different for every artistic setting. Is the answer to the question of when it’s okay to applaud to be found in good old common sense, or have our traditions and biases twisted applause into an impenetrable rulebook guarded by the cognoscenti?
Pittsburgh’s New MD Introduces Himself
“Manfred Honeck’s appointment as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has the appearance of an overnight success because he is not well-known in North America. But his rise to this role has been a long journey…”