“Under current copyright law, we’ll have to wait until 2054.1 And no published works will enter our public domain until 2019. The laws in other countries are different—thousands of works are entering the public domain in Canada and the EU on January 1.”
Archives for December 2014
Jazz In 2014: A Culture Of Complaint
“Jazz in 2014 — or more accurately, the discourse around jazz in 2014 — often resembled a crescendo of gibes and gripes, with each new affront calling forth a fresh wave of umbrage. In the end it wasn’t any single skirmish that led to my air of weary resignation, but rather a brisk accumulation of them, quickening into a blur. And what surprised me was the exasperation I felt not only with jazz’s cynical assailants, but also with its gallant defenders.”
The Art Of Great Theatre Posters
“Whether it’s the sexed-up photograph of Neil Patrick Harris on Broadway or the pared-down treatment of a domestic drama in a regional theater, the best posters convey the conceptual complexities of the plays they serve.”
Really? This Was The Top-Grossing Movie In The UK In 2014?
“The film made £34.27 million in ticket sales this year to claim the top spot at the British box office, beating runner-up The Inbetweeners 2 by over £1 million in takings.”
“Wolf Of Wall Street” Was The Most-Pirated Movie Of 2014
“Wolf was illegally downloaded 30.035 million times between Jan. 1 and Dec. 23, 2014. The film, which was released in theaters Dec. 25, 2013, grossed $116 million domestically and $392 million worldwide.”
Morocco Is The Latest Country To Ban “Exodus” Movie
“Morocco’s film commission issued a letter to all cinemas on Saturday, notifying them that the film, which portrays the story of Moses, has been banned for possibly portraying God in the scene of Moses’ revelation. Islam and Morocco law both forbid the public display of images of God.”
How To Disabuse Your Child That (S)he’s An Artist
“Sex is one of the most animal things a human can do (biological), and language is one of the most human things a human can do (cultural). Language is also for everybody. Art is another matter altogether. It is not as universal as sex or as democratic as language. Which brings me to the first thing you must tell your child about art: Art is not democratic. Meaning: There is no fairness in art.”
Another Theatre Agrees To Pay Living Wage To Its Workers
“We think it’s a good thing to aspire to, and we’re able to pay that. Our staff work long hours, often unsociable hours, and they work very hard. They’ve been key to the success of the Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall in recent years, and we think it’s only right that is recognised.”
The Medical Costs Of Loneliness
“The range of harmful neural and behavioural effects of perceived isolation documented in adults include increased anxiety, hostility and social withdrawal; fragmented sleep and daytime fatigue; increased vascular resistance and altered gene expression and immunity; decreased impulse control; increased negativity and depressive symptoms; and increased age-related cognitive decline and risk of dementia.”
Security Experts: Sony Hacking Probably Done By Insider
“They argue that the connections between the Sony hack and the North Korean government amount to circumstantial evidence. Further, they say the level of the breach indicates an intimate knowledge of Sony’s computer systems that could have come from someone on the inside.”
A Case For The Importance Of ’70s Culture
“The recent burst of fictional resurrections of the Seventies — the most acclaimed novels of recent years among them — doesn’t just represent the establishment of a new consumer market. The novelists who have lately returned to the Seventies seem to be making a stronger claim: that there is something uniquely vital to the decade, and in fact uniquely to be missed.”
Penny Arcade: Here’s What It Takes To Have An Art Career These Days
“Art was done the same way for a long time — you were young, you came, you watched a lot of other people and you started to struggle to make your own work, and eventually people came to see you and you made a little bit of money. Now that economic structure is totally broken. Young people only go to see a few other people; they only go to see people whose careers they want to emulate. And they mostly stay within their own age group. So you have tons of people who are all 22 who make their work with other 22-year-olds. You can’t get much mileage out of that. You need the inter-generational thing, I believe: the energy of the young and the wisdom and experience of the old.”
Is Art Dead In New York? (Naw, Just Reinvented)
“Embedded in the premise that art in New York is dead is often a fetishized nostalgia for the 1970s and early ’80s, a cheaper, more chaotic time when high crime, civic neglect and the threat of bankruptcy opened whole neighborhoods to artists.”
In Praise Of Know-Nothing Criticism
“The problem with demanding a certain kind of knowledge or a certain kind of expertise in criticism, then, is that it can end up presupposing, or insisting upon, a certain kind of conversation. And often that seems like the point: expertise is used as an excuse to silence critics — and especially negative critics.”
Annie Proulx Wishes She’d Never Written “Brokeback Mountain”
“I wish I’d never written the story. It’s just been the cause of hassle and problems and irritation since the film came out. … One of the reasons we keep the gates locked here is that a lot of men have decided that the story should have had a happy ending. They can’t bear the way it ends – they just can’t stand it.”
“Creative Entrepreneur” Or No, The Artist Is Definitely Not Dead Yet
Robinson Meyer hits back at William Deresiewicz’s jeremiad: “His reading suffers a tremendous flaw: Deresiewicz cannot discriminate the substantial from the faddish. What’s more, his historical work is incomplete – he mistakes a very new idea for a very old one. Deresiewicz’s artistic philosophy aspires to timelessness, but it’s younger than most of his Millennial subjects.”
Is Social Media Killing The Professional Critic?
Mmmm-maybe …
How Sony Botched Its Response To The Hacking
“Interviews with over two dozen people involved in the episode suggest that Sony – slow to realize the depths of its peril – let its troubles deepen by mounting a public defense only after enormous damage had been done.”
Milan’s Symphony Orchestra Saved For Another Year As Italian Government Finally Guarantees 2015 Funding
Since the fall, the management and supporters of the Orchestra “Giuseppe Verdi” have been warning that, because €3 million in promised government funding since 2013 had still not arrived and no subsidy for 2015 had been allocated, the ensemble could be forced to shut down. With less than 48 hours remaining until the new year, Italy’s culture minister at last came through. (in Italian)
Eileen Atkins Remembers “The Killing Of Sister George”
She and Beryl Reid played the leads in the first British play about lesbians, touring the country to stone-silent audiences (when they weren’t walking out). Then they got to London.
Jeff Koons Faces Another Plagiarism Accusation In Paris
“A second sculpture by Jeff Koons is conspicuously absent from his retrospective at the Centre Pompidou after a photographer’s widow complained to the art star and the museum’s administration that Naked (1988) constituted copyright infringement.”
Hilary Mantel Writes About Grief
“Grief is like fear in the way it gnaws the gut. Your mind is on a short tether, turning round and round. You fear to focus on your grief but cannot concentrate on anything else. You look with incredulity at those going about their ordinary lives. … Your former life still seems to exist, but you can’t get back to it; there is a glimpse in dreams of those peacock lawns and fountains, but you’re fenced out, and each morning you wake up to the loss over again.”
How Shostakovich’s “The Bolt” Changed Ballet History
“Despite its seemingly impeccable narrative of industrial espionage being routed by heroic factory workers, its creators were too tempted to have fun with their cast of baddies (the Lazy Idler, the Petty Bourgeois Woman, and the decadent, western types satirised by the local amateur theatre troupe). They were too obviously bored by the decent workers, the earnest members of the local Komsomol group – the young communist league.”
The French Are Simply Mad For Christopher Wheeldon’s “American In Paris”
The choreographer’s stage adaptation of the fabled Gene Kelly-Leslie Caron Hollywood musical – the first ever – at the Théâtre du Châtelet (and headed to Broadway) has won ecstatic reviews and completely sold out its run. (includes audio)
The Strange Connections Between What We’re Hearing And How Things Taste
Turns out there is actually a science to the music or background noise in restaurants, cafes and grocery stores – and to why airline food tastes bland.