Tag: 10.23.13

Some Goodreads Users Rebel At Changes Made By New Owner Amazon

“If, at a casual glance, the two companies … seem to be made for each other, look again. A small but growing faction of longtime, deeply involved Goodreads members are up in arms about recent changes to the site’s enforcement of its policies on what members are permitted to say when reviewing books.” And the rebels are using guerrilla tactics.

America’s Problems With Slave Narratives

“Guilt, denial, shame, anger, and fear are just a few of the emotions that permeate discussions of the topic,” whether it’s treated in histories or works of fiction. “Then there is history’s cruel irony … the vast majority [of slaves] could neither read nor write. … The voices that we would most like to hear – the voices that we most need to hear – are [largely] silent.”

La Scala’s Next Music Director Is Chail- — No, Wait, It’s Luisi (Maybe)

Last week the opera house’s incoming superintendent leaked to Corriere della sera that Riccardo Chailly would become music director there when the incumbent, Daniel Bareboim, departs in 2017. Chailly then responded that nothing was settled at all. Now someone else (evidently an orchestra member) has told La Repubblica that Fabio Luisi is the preferred candidate.

You Never Know What’s Going To Come Out Of His Mouth: Ned Rorem At 90

“Other people turn 90. I still think of myself as the youngest person at the party,” says the notoriously candid composer who was the beau of gay Paree 60 years ago. Other Ned-rageous bons mots: “Why would we live in the first place if we’re going to die?” “The woman across the street just threw her baby out the window.” “Are they paying royalties?”

Is Beverly Hills’s New Arts Center Snubbing L.A. Actors?

Southern California casting directors are calling for a boycott of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Their beef is that the Wallis is only casting one show in-house this season, and for that one they hired a New York casting director. The SoCal theater community is worrying that the Wallis may become just one more venue for touring productions.