– Publishers Weekly has a new editor, and major changes are in the offing. Sarah explains it all for you:
Is the magazine actually obsolete? Not as long as they keep the focus on what people pay most attention to–the reviews. One thing I have noticed of late is that more and more of these reviews appear closer to the publication date, which seems rather pointless–if it’s a trade publication, shouldn’t it be ahead of the curve of newspaper reviews or online pundits? A month is too short a lead time; two or three might work better in order to keep PW as a leading contributor to industry dialogue instead of morphing into a dinosaur….
– Tyler sends an open letter to the Big Cheese at the Museum of Modern Art:
You’ve got operational problems, Glenn. The crowds in your museum are so massive that it’s endangering the art. I saw people bumping into sculptures, even paintings, because the galleries were so crowded. And you need more guards–the fourth floor galleries and the contemporary galleries were so full of people that anyone who wanted to touch a painting could. Heck, I saw women with strollers bumping into the art. If Gordon Matta-Clark was alive, he’d be comin’ after you with a chainsaw after what I saw people doing to his work in your museum.
And the cameras, Glenn. You must ban cameras from the building. I must have seen about 100 flashes go off in five hours. The guards simply can’t keep up with every camera flash that happens. It’s bad for the art and it’s bad for the viewing experience of everyone else in the room….
– Jolly Days sharply reduces the number of degrees separating Renata Tebaldi from Jason Alexander:
Renata Tebaldi’s death sent me surfing to Apple’s iTunes store. I purchased what is a high point in human expression, certainly in 20th century western performance, Tebaldi’s O mio babbino caro. This painfully beautiful, far-too-short piece, sitting in the midst of a comic opera that could have been plotted by Larry David — amazing….
This Puccini piece is almost more perfect for its surprising launching pad: Gianni Schicchi. Puccini’s genius enlivens an ancient tale derived from a 14th century commentary on Dante’s Florence. (The plot is often incorrectly associated with a passage in Dante’s Divine Comedy) It could easily be a plot concocted by Seinfeld‘s George to get Susan’s money — with Kramer mucking it up again no doubt….
That’s what we recovering musicians call an enharmonic modulation….
– My competitor-pal Robert Gottlieb, author of that other Balanchine book, has a damned good roundup of the year in dance in his New York Observer column:
The year ended with a bang, not a whimper. The Trocks–O.K., fact-checkers, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo–turned up for two weeks of fun and games at the Joyce, and even though there were longueurs, they gave us a very needed shot in the arm. Because, let’s face it, 2004 was a bumpy ride….
If you’re even halfway interested in ballet or modern dance, this one’s an absolute must-read.
UPDATE: For more on the Trocks, go here.
– Rachel Howard, who blogs at Footnotes, is about to publish a memoir (which I intend to read the second it comes out), and the prospect of going public about a dark episode in her past is causing her to think some interesting thoughts about blogging:
I’m not hesitant to share unflattering details about myself, at least not in hardback. Yet posting on this website–so much less exposing–still feels like such an unnatural and worrisome process. I didn’t come to blogging freely; my husband, a political blog addict, insisted I should do it and found the designer for this site. The blog has proven useful: It aggregates my freelance work and gives me an online calling card. But I’ve never truly taken to it. Not for me the casually confidential working diary of a Terry Teachout or the biting, devil-may-care running commentary of an Old Hag. Every time I type an entry I have to think “Is this interesting to anyone but me? Does it tell too much about me? Too little?” and worst of all, “Why am I doing this?” And usually the true answer is because I think I should. As for why I think I should, I’ll leave the further psychologizing to the therapist’s office.
Why the reticence online when I’m so unguarded in my memoir? I blame the conversational nature of blogging. I’m not shy, but I’m not a chatty person. I can fake outgoingness at a party for about as long as it takes to greet the hostess, and by forty-five minutes I’m trying to nudge my husband toward the door. I detest talking about myself except with known friends, or even talking about my opinions, and if pressed to make small talk at a social gathering, I usually end up interviewing others. Writing has always been different. In writing a memoir or a novel, I’m not forcing myself upon anyone; no one has to nod along with fake interest. If I work hard enough on a page, someone may want to read it. If I fail to engage them, they can put it down….
Next week at “About Last Night”: the unvarnished truth about my sex life, in five daily installments! (O.K., maybe we’ll do Our Girl’s sex life instead.)