“The outcome of negotiations on a new three-year labor pact covering 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America is expected to hinge on issues related to how the Internet has altered the economics of show business.”
Tag: 09.19.07
World’s Languages Dying
“Linguists believe half the languages in the world will be extinct by the end of the century. The 80 major languages such as English, Russian and Mandarin are spoken by about 80 per cent of the global population, while the 3,500 linguistic minnows have just 0.2 per cent of the world keeping them alive. The pace of language extinction we’re seeing, it’s really unprecedented in human history.”
Book Reviews – Was It Always Thus?
Book luminaries gather at Columbia University to discuss the state of book reviews. “There was never a Golden Age of Book Reviewing…. It was always a sideshow, even at the newspapers that chose to support it.”
Why Fashion Is Art
“While artists often spend long periods in the doldrums, producing nothing new or prodding listlessly over the same tired ground, the fashion industry just gets on with its job. Season after season, year after year, designers, photographers and models churn out clothes, images, looks. We may not like everything they do, and what most of us wear may only be very distantly related to the dresses, coats, suits and often quite clearly idiotic assemblages of random fabrics that whiz purposefully down the catwalks, but the effect is a continual refreshing of our collective visual field with new images of aspiration and desire.”
Randolph Collection May Hit The Block
Virginia’s Randolph College is the proud owner of an impressive collection of American art valued at $100 million or more. But money is tight at Randolph these days, and the administration is considering selling all or part of the collection, much to the dismay of many alumni.
Indian Museum Trustees Unhappy With New Director
“A group of trustees of the National Museum of the American Indian have complained to the Smithsonian Institution that they were excluded from the selection of Kevin Gover as the new director of the museum.” The museum is standing by its search process, and the Gover appointment.
Hollywood Taking Serious Anti-War Stand
“Over the next few weeks, the war will land at many more local multiplexes, thanks to prominent feature films starring Robert Redford, John Cusack, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones – and co-starring the war either in the background or in your face. It is unprecedented for so many Hollywood films to depict a war in anything but flattering terms while the country is still fighting it… Why now? Filmmakers feel many Americans are seeing a sanitized, bloodless view of the war in the mainstream media.”
Musical Chairs
“Ladies and gentlemen of the orchestra, be seated. Not so fast, says the conductor. Violins, you may take your places to my left, for the moment. Violas, let’s see. Should you be on my right, or should the cellos go there? Basses, let me think. Winds, brasses and percussion, you know where you need to be. (Or do you?)” These days, there seem to be as many orchestral seating configurations as there are conductors. But how do they decide where they want everyone to sit, and why does it matter?
Pittsburgh GM Jumping To Ontario
The general manager of the Pittsburgh Symphony has resigned to take a job as executive director of the much smaller Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony in Ontario. Genevieve Twomey, an Australian native, has been with the PSO since 2000.
The Backstage Show’s Always More Entertaining
A Broadway-bound musical starring Randy Quaid and the Red Clay Ramblers has apparently run into some backstage trouble. Quaid’s wife/manager is publicly clashing with producer Ed Burke, complaining that he is “relentless in trying to force his vision of the show on her husband.” Meanwhile, “Quaid is under fire herself – she’s the target of backstage snipers who call her an “out-of-control maniac” who has “bulldozed” her way into every aspect of the production.”