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The New (Old) Philosophy "The new practical philosophers are bringing critical thinking directly to the people. They are translating the dense, ancient writings of Socrates, Plato, Lao Tzu and Confucius into modern lingo and accessible wisdom. They are writing self-help books based on philosophical principles — books sometimes mocked by academicians for their dumbed-down approach but bought by the same hordes who seek answers from meditation, Oprah, psychologists, Dr. Laura and Dr. Phil. Philosophy, its proponents say, is an alternative to all that. It's a way to think for yourself and to find satisfying guidelines for living. It's a way to analyze complex issues through the prism of values, ethics and character. Philosophy (which means love of wisdom) is a search for answers that have made sense through the ages." Los Angeles Times 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 8:54 am
Disney Hall - Pressure To Perform T%alk about pressure. Frank Gehry's new Disney Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is expected to sound great and provide a transformative piece of architecture for a city not known for great buildings. "It is ironic that Gehry is being criticized for not producing a building that will transform a dreary, lifeless downtown area, since that is what he did more successfully than any other living architect when he designed the Guggenheim in Bilbao. (The phenomenon is even referred to generally as 'the Bilbao effect.') He made the first truly popular piece of avant-garde architecture in our time, and suddenly everybody else wanted one, including his own city, where he had not received a major commission until 1988, when he won a competition to design the new hall for the Los Angeles Philharmonic." The New Yorker 09/22/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 9:20 pm
Why Suing Technology Doesn't Work Trying to fight new technologies with legal tactics is a losing strategy. Trying to block file-sharing will only delay the technology, not stop it. "Technologies can be stubborn. Efforts to knock them down can send them rebounding back with a new twist. In the case of encryption, the technology continued to grow more powerful and researchers poked holes in the government's weaker alternatives. In the case of peer-to-peer applications, the makers have found increasingly clever ways to help traders act anonymously, and without a centralized service that can be shut down." The New York Times 09/22/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 5:36 pm
Is Turner's Venice Really Portsmouth? Is a Turner painting long thought to be of a scene in Venice really a picture of Portsmouth? "If Turner expert Ian Warrell is right those dark shapes in the smoky gold light are not glamourous revellers, jaded with the pleasures of the most beautiful and decadent city in the world, being ferried home at dawn across the Venetian lagoon. They're a bevy of Portsmouth councillors, local dignitaries, layabouts, rubberneckers and riffraff, setting out in a little Armada across the harbour to meet the King of France, Louis-Philippe." The Guardian (UK) 09/23/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 7:28 pm
Canadian Indians Want British Museum To Give Back Mask A tiny band of West Coast Canadian indians wants a mask in the British Museum returned to them. "It would be good if getting back the mask would be precedent-setting so everybody who wants their pieces get them back. The people who live in this bucolic corner of Canada's Pacific coast say retrieval of the mask — a beautifully carved and brightly painted crest that opens into a sullen, wide-eyed human face with what looks like sun rays protruding from around its circumference — is part of a broad effort to reverse a cultural theft by Christian missionaries and a series of Canadian governments." The New York Times 09/22/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 6:17 pm
The Six Hour Symphony A listener to a 6 1/2 hour Toronto performance of British composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's "Fourth Symphony For Piano Alone" is exhausted. Imagine what the pianist felt like. Toronto Star 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 7:53 am
New Hall, New (Almost) Orchestra Tenant - Carnegie Goes For Makeover Carnegie Hall is "trying to turn left and turn right simultaneously. It wants to bring in a downtown-ish clientele while acquiring a stable base of Philharmonic subscribers. This urge to absorb everything typifies the modus operandi of Sanford Weill, the chairman of the Carnegie board, who is also the outgoing chief executive of Citigroup. Weill made his name in the financial world by engineering a series of spectacular mergers; he ingeniously erased the distinction between brokering and banking by combining Salomon, Smith Barney and Citibank under one roof. He now wishes to apply the philosophy of synergy to New York’s artistic life. The sort of logic that brought us AOL Time Warner is creating Philharmonic Carnegie Zankel." The New Yorker 09/22/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 9:16 pm
Child Star Tops Classical Charts Sixteen-year-old "New Zealander Hayley Westenra has beaten the first-week sales set by artists like Pavarotti, Charlotte Church and Russell Watson with her UK release, Pure. Pure has shot straight to number eight in the UK pop chart and to the top spot in the UK classical charts." BBC 09/23/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 9:07 pm
Seoul's Opera Wars "Seoul has witnessed the opera wars of 2003, a war waged mostly by over-the-top outdoor productions such as "Aida" and "Turandot," financially and logistically ambitious campaigns designed to shock and awe audiences into submission. But an indoor opera has finally returned fire, a production boasting nudity, orgies, and violence with artistic credibility to boot." Korea Herald 09/23/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 8:39 pm
Aida In Workers' Stadium A giant open-air "Aida" lumbers in to Beijing's Workers' Stadium. "The main stage covers about 6,200 square metres, upon which stands a 40-metre-high pyramid and an 18-metre Sphinx. The 20-ton pyramid is equipped with 800 small tires at the bottom so that it could revolve freely. On the two sides of the main stage also stand two 18-metre-high pharaohs and 10 18-metre-high Egyptian temple pillars. And off the stage there are 40 4-metre-high Sphinxes. The ending scene will be a spectacle with thousands of butterflies flying into the sky, with 400 torches kindled." China Daily 09/23/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 8:33 pm
Recording Companies Who Cheer On File-Traders (And The Musicians Who Love Them) The recording industry isn't solidly against file-sharing. Indeed smaller labels benefit from file-trading. "File sharing, these owners say, helps their small companies compete against conglomerates with deeper pockets for advertising and greater access to radio programmers. 'Our music, by and large, when kids listen to it, they share it with their friends. Then they go buy the record; they take ownership of it'." The New York Times 09/22/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 5:31 pm
The Detroit Symphony's Miraculous Turnaround A dozen years ago the Detropit Symphony was destitute, a once-proud institution reduced to penury. But "the $60-million Max M. Fisher Music Center, which opens Oct. 11, puts an exclamation point on what experts say is one of the most improbable turnarounds in the history of U.S. orchestras. The DSO pulled itself up by its financial bootstraps, rebuilt its neighborhood, forged innovative civic partnerships and reinvented itself as a model 21st-Century arts institution. The DSO has woven itself deep enough into the fabric of the city that nearly everyone has a stake in its future."
Detroit Free Press 09/22/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 5:21 pm
The Anne-Of-Green-Gables Copyright Act There is a proposal in the Canadian parliament to extend copyrights for previously unpublished works for 14 to 34 years for authors who died between Jan. 1, 1930 and Jan. 1, 1949. Why? "It's called the 'Lucy Maud Montgomery provision' because the creator of the popular (and lucrative) Anne of Green Gables novels died in 1942, and it is her heirs who wish to retain control over her unpublished writings." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 7:37 am
Licensing Improves London's Underground Performers A scheme to license performers in London's Underground is a success, and will be extended. "A trial period in which only officially approved buskers were allowed to perform in designated areas will continue until the end of the year. Organisers said there had been an 82% decrease in 'busking-related' police call-outs during the trial. There was less need for police to eject or arrest performers who blocked safety zones or abused staff, they said." BBC 09/23/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 9:10 pm
Ou Est Jean-Paul Sartre? Jean-Paul Sartre is getting a fresh look in France these days. But which Satre? "More than two decades after his death, French intellectuals are trying to reconcile the two Sartres. In the cafes of Paris, the question 'Êtes-vous Sartrien?' is once again being heard. Recently, a new biography of Sartre and several homages to his career have become best sellers in France. One of them, Bernard-Henri Lévy's Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century, has just been brought out here in English. What is taking place is a rehabilitation of sorts, and it isn't hard to see what's behind it." Slate 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 7:16 am
Documents: US Ban Of Graham Greene "Made US Look Bad" In 1952, the US banned novelist Graham Greene from entering the United States, citing his youthful membership in the Communist party. Greene was a critic of US foreign policy. Documents reveal though that US officials thought the ban made the US look bad. "They conceded that he had been a member of the British Communist party for only four weeks when a 19-year-old student, 'as a joke'. They admitted his writing clearly showed that he was anti-communist, according to the documents obtained by the Guardian under the US Freedom of Information Act." The Guardian (UK) 09/22/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 8:15 pm
Ned Rorem At 80 Composer Ned Rorem is turning 80 - and his "bleak pessimism about the future of music and the world at large has deepened even more. Yet the number and scale of events this season show that his fears of being forgotten are ill-founded. Indeed, Rorem's milestone year is being marked in grand style." The Sun-Sentinel (South Florida) 09/21/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 6:56 pm
Biltmore Once Again Graces Manhattan New York's Biltmore Theatre, once a thriving landmark, but more recently a derelict shell, is reopening fully refurbished as a home to the venerable Manhattan Theatre Club. The New York Times 09/23/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 8:46 pm
Has Success Ruined Medieval Plays? The medieval York mystery plays, originally performed on wagons on the feast of Corpus Christi, are in danger of not being performed again. "The uncertainty has been prompted by a dispute between traditionalists who favour small-scale outdoor performances every three or four years and modernisers who think York Minster should stage a bigger show once a decade. This ambition follows the success in 2000 of the production of the plays by Gregory Doran, of the Royal Shakespeare Company, in York Minster." The Guardian (UK) 09/22/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 8:10 pm
Dear Mr. King: Decline Book columnist J. Peder Zane writes an open letter to Stephen King about his pending National Book Award. "I am writing to ask you to do something that only one in a million in your position would even contemplate. I am beseeching you to perform a truly heroic act that could influence the direction of American culture. Respectfully, I am urging you to decline this award." The News & Observer (Raleigh) 09/21/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 7:11 am
Twilight Of Broadcast TV? "For the first time in any Emmy telecast, cable shows received more awards than those on the broadcast networks. And it was not even close." The New York Times 09/23/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 8:41 pm
Scots Ballet's Movement Problem The Scottish Ballet wants to move. But it "has attracted widespread condemnation from the visual arts world after revealing it is applying for lottery cash to convert Tramway 2 - an internationally respected exhibition space which launched the careers of artists such as Roderick Buchanan and Christine Borland - into rehearsal space." The Scotsman 09/21/03
Posted: 09/22/2003 1:23 am | 
