“Over the past 35 years, Blier has become a guru of song, the man who patiently guides singers past their vulnerabilities, who coaxes them to scrutinize and express some tiny grain of meaning in the text, who homes in pitilessly on glints of fake feeling. A mixture of therapist, teacher, impresario, and pianist-for-hire, he co-founded the boutique organization New York Festival of Song in 1988 (with the conductor and pianist Michael Barrett), and researches, programs, produces, and plays in every concert.”
Tag: 11.21.10
UK Govt. Is Driving Filmmaking Abroad, Says Producer
Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor, Crash, Sexy Beast): “Films made with American studio finance are given a 20% tax break. But if a British film has to go into partnership with, say, a French company, in order to get made, it immediately becomes ineligible for any tax breaks here. So you have to go abroad.”
The Man Who Will Custom-Sharpen Your Pencil, By Hand
“David Rees, a New York state-based cartoonist for, among others the Nation and Rolling Stone, is your guy, blade at the ready. He describes himself as a ‘craftsman’ who ‘practices the age-old art of manual pencil sharpening’.” The price: $12 per pencil.
Playwrights And TV’s Revolving Door
“The successful young playwright who doesn’t take time off to work on a TV series is the exception. Cable networks like HBO, AMC and Showtime now provide a kind of second education for our best theater writers.”
A Big New History Of Ballet (With A Depressing Conclusion)
“Apollo’s Angels” traces four centuries of ballet — from its origins in 16th-century France to its elevation in the court of Versailles, through the Renaissance, Bolshevism, modernism and the cold war — describing the dance’s evolutions and revolutions in the context of political, philosophical and aesthetic currents.
Judge Orders Gawker To Take Down Palin Book Excerpts
“The site on Saturday was ordered to take down the more than a dozen pages it had posted of America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag until a Nov. 30 hearing, said a spokeswoman for HarperCollins, the book’s publisher.”
Salman Rushdie: My Life Under Fatwa
“I felt at some point in my life that that story would need to be told. One of the reasons for writing the memoir is to tell my story the best that I can and as fully as I can. After that, I hope I can get on with writing novels and just talk about them.”
Dutch Museums Getting Big Makeovers
“A survey of some of the most important cultural institutions in the Hague and Amsterdam paints a dramatically shifting landscape. Some are slowly re-emerging after long closures, while restoration and bureaucratic hiccups keep other galleries in mothballs long past projected deadlines.”
Blockbuster Video: We’re Still Here
“One of the biggest challenges for Blockbuster for the past few years has been public perception, and this is intended to remind people that we’re still in business and we have a unique offering.”
James Frey Under Attack
Frey genuinely sounds peeved at the attack he has come under for what detractors say is exploiting young, unknown writers. “People like to make me out to be a villain. I don’t love that. I really have no interest in being cast as a bad boy in this case.”