“In China, as in America, there is a debate about what constitutes popularity in fiction: Are Yu Hua’s best-selling novels a concession to China’s newly consumerist culture or a necessary response to the intellectually serious but hopelessly academic “postmodern” fiction in fashion 20 years ago in China? Whereas in the United States this discussion is an aesthetic one, the debate in China has sharper teeth; American writers may fear the culture mafia, but at least they don’t have to worry about the Ministry of Culture.”
Tag: 10.24.03
Beethoven In China
Western European orchestral music has a big following in China. But until this month, Beethoven’s string quartets had never been performed as a complete set before. “The fact that it has taken this long for Beethoven’s quartets to be given this kind of hearing in a country where western orchestral music has built up an established, if still relatively small, audience may seem surprising. Why should the popularity of western chamber music lag that of western orchestral music?”
Germany’s Crisis In Architecture
German architects have little to do. “There is certainly no future in the inner cities, where all museums, government buildings, company headquarters and shopping streets have already been completed. The crisis in German architecture is not just an economic problem, but also an issue of ideology.”
The Death Of Languages
There are only about 5000 languages left in the world. And the number is shrinking fast. “With the rise of international travel, world commerce, globalization and mass media, that number is declining rapidly. Of working languages still in everyday use, there are perhaps only 120. And more than half the world speaks one (or more) of only a dozen languages, including Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Russian – and, of course, English, the most pervasive of them all. Some linguists estimate nearly two billion people have at least a workaday knowledge of English, and that number is growing.”
Music Fans Beginning To Rebel Against Recording Companies
More and more music lovers are getting fed up with the recording industry’s tactics of protecting their business. Some are organizing a boycott of CD sales for the month of Decemeber. “Angry music fans see the recording industry’s tactics for dealing with declining CD sales as punishing the wrong people – music lovers.”
Collectors Snared On Tax Charges
“More than 100 wealthy buyers of art, jewelry and antiques have been forced to make good on unpaid sales taxes as part of a continuing investigation of New York’s art world that was sparked by last year’s arrest of Tyco International Ltd.’s former chief executive, L. Dennis Kozlowski.”
Is Thinking Just A Series Of Inferences?
“It’s plausible that at least some kinds of thinking just are processes of drawing inferences. It’s the same for a lot of other things the mind does, such as learning, perceiving and planning. The picture that emerges is of the mind (or the brain if you prefer) as some kind of inferring machine; perhaps some kind of computing machine, since computations are themselves plausibly construed as chains of inference.”
Disney Hall’s First Night
“As spotlights raked the billowing exterior of architect Frank Gehry’s $274-million edifice, a glittering lineup of politicians, Hollywood players, captains of industry and cultural savants filed up a red-carpeted stairway and into the dramatically sculpted 2,265-seat hall, which has already drawn ecstatic reviews from architecture critics across the country.”
Disney: So How’d It Sound?
Mark Swed writes that Disney Hall is “everything and more than we might have hoped for. In this enchanted space, music can take on meaningful new excitement even in an age when many art forms are satisfied with oversaturated stimulation.”
Bryn Terfel, Baritone In A Rugby Shirt
Baritone Bryn Terfel has “risen effortlessly to become the greatest classical singer of his generation; certainly in Britain and possibly the world. His bass baritone is in demand in all the greatest opera houses, his records sell by the millions and he is that rarest of creatures, a performer with an absolutely natural talent and a golden waterfall of a voice.”