Показ дописів із міткою arts. Показати всі дописи
Показ дописів із міткою arts. Показати всі дописи
вівторок, 15 березня 2011 р.
Biutiful
Not to exaggerate, I'd call it the first honest and kind (even despite of some cruel scenes) movie that I saw for several past years. Many thanks to Sr Alejandro González Iñárritu.
субота, 9 жовтня 2010 р.
понеділок, 16 серпня 2010 р.
Books
The cover of the latest Time issue contains a photo of Jonathan Franzen accompanied with the following message:
Great American Novelist. He's not the richest or most famous. His characters don't solve mysteries, have magical powers or live in the future. But in his new novel, Freedom, Jonathan Franzen shows us the way we live now.
The fact that the person placed on the Time's cover is a living novel writer was so surprising, that a number of other media sources dedicated a news entry for it. It appeared that Jonathan Franzen is the first writer for 10 years to get to the cover of this magazine (the previous one was Stephen King in 2000).
In my opinion, this fact is not a worse illustration of the way we live now than the mentioned book. For 50 years (1951-2000) as many as 42 living writers were honoured to get to the Time's cover, ~8 authors per decade. The first decade of 2000's was not that rich. However, I cannot say that the shelves of bookstores have become smaller. Conversely, they obviously have become much larger than ten years ago. And the books have become much more colourful and pretty than before (right now I'm looking at my good old Catcher in the Rye, 1975 edition, and I'm sure it would have never been sold in today's bookstore due to its ugly cover).
The abundance on the bookshelves hides the scarcity of modern literature. It is the same entropy loss problem I wrote about some time ago. The problem is that we produce a lot of form, while forgetting about the sense. A typical book available in a store today is nothing more than a coloured pack of printed paper whose life is limited by a trip from New York to San Francisco. What a difference to my Catcher, the Catcher I've bought at bibliopole's, whose pages become yellow with time, who has some wrested pages pasted back in wrong order, who spent his best years being read by a dozen of my friends (and their friends), and who is still alive and carefully dusted once a week on a dedicated bookcase shelf, waiting for succeeding readers.
Great American Novelist. He's not the richest or most famous. His characters don't solve mysteries, have magical powers or live in the future. But in his new novel, Freedom, Jonathan Franzen shows us the way we live now.
The fact that the person placed on the Time's cover is a living novel writer was so surprising, that a number of other media sources dedicated a news entry for it. It appeared that Jonathan Franzen is the first writer for 10 years to get to the cover of this magazine (the previous one was Stephen King in 2000).
In my opinion, this fact is not a worse illustration of the way we live now than the mentioned book. For 50 years (1951-2000) as many as 42 living writers were honoured to get to the Time's cover, ~8 authors per decade. The first decade of 2000's was not that rich. However, I cannot say that the shelves of bookstores have become smaller. Conversely, they obviously have become much larger than ten years ago. And the books have become much more colourful and pretty than before (right now I'm looking at my good old Catcher in the Rye, 1975 edition, and I'm sure it would have never been sold in today's bookstore due to its ugly cover).
The abundance on the bookshelves hides the scarcity of modern literature. It is the same entropy loss problem I wrote about some time ago. The problem is that we produce a lot of form, while forgetting about the sense. A typical book available in a store today is nothing more than a coloured pack of printed paper whose life is limited by a trip from New York to San Francisco. What a difference to my Catcher, the Catcher I've bought at bibliopole's, whose pages become yellow with time, who has some wrested pages pasted back in wrong order, who spent his best years being read by a dozen of my friends (and their friends), and who is still alive and carefully dusted once a week on a dedicated bookcase shelf, waiting for succeeding readers.
неділя, 15 серпня 2010 р.
A major difference between USSR and western rock music of 60-80's is that most of the Russian bands never really cared about the music (yes, I know that USSR != Russia, but as the majority of the bands sang songs in Russian, I will use that term). There were many reasons for that. There were no money, there were no good instruments, there were no good recording equipment. There were no sponsors. There were no local musical heritage, and getting discs with western music was a challenge.
However, even though the music was recorded on handicraft hardware built from spare parts of three different machines, even though the guitars and processors sounded as a mix of Nirvana, Chuck Berry and Bach, even though a drum machine beat the same boring 4/4 far-from-reality rhythm through entire song, even though guitar solos were as simple as in guitar beginner's guide, even though the rehearsals were performed at someone's apartments or (in better case) in underground studios, even though in many cases there were no official discs available, so the listeners had to use their tape recorders to spread records, even though... Despite all of that, Russian bands played the rockest rock I've ever listened to. Every single song was an inexhaustible source of energy, love, truth and wisdom. It may sound oddly, but probably the poor quality of the music was one of the compartments of the inspiration made by the songs... Good enough music would just have prevented the listener from feeling the spirit they carried.
However, even though the music was recorded on handicraft hardware built from spare parts of three different machines, even though the guitars and processors sounded as a mix of Nirvana, Chuck Berry and Bach, even though a drum machine beat the same boring 4/4 far-from-reality rhythm through entire song, even though guitar solos were as simple as in guitar beginner's guide, even though the rehearsals were performed at someone's apartments or (in better case) in underground studios, even though in many cases there were no official discs available, so the listeners had to use their tape recorders to spread records, even though... Despite all of that, Russian bands played the rockest rock I've ever listened to. Every single song was an inexhaustible source of energy, love, truth and wisdom. It may sound oddly, but probably the poor quality of the music was one of the compartments of the inspiration made by the songs... Good enough music would just have prevented the listener from feeling the spirit they carried.
пʼятниця, 18 червня 2010 р.
Happy Birthday Paul!
Today is Paul McCartney’s 68th birthday.Sir Paul’s performance in Kyiv on June 14, 2008 was probably the most exciting musical event I have attended for all my life. To say that it was wonderful, impressive, awesome, cool, great, unforgettable -- is to say nothing. There are no words to describe my feelings that summer night -- I just stood open-mouthed and stared at the scene, listening to the songs I loved since my very childhood, the songs which caused me to rend my fingers down to pieces, helplessly trying to play them accurately with my old guitar when I was about 12. Probably, that was the day of pure, absolute happiness.
And what a night it was! A powerful shower was pouring down from the sky for the whole day, so the streets in the city centre looked exactly like channels in Venice; umbrellas were pretty useless -- what one can do with a paper shield against a dozen of steel arrows? :) But the rain was nothing for 350’000 gathered at Independence Square to listen to a live legend, a legend whom many of the spectators have been awaiting for more than 40 years. It was an unique atmosphere of pervasive happiness around.
So, happy birthday Paul -- be just as young as you were there in Kyiv two years ago, and... just thank you for your songs and the joy that you bring with them to our hearts.
Photos: Korrespondent.net, Viktor Pinchuk's fund.
вівторок, 11 травня 2010 р.
Sometimes I find myself thinking that modern arts is too ideal to be arts :). The technical quality of modern paintings, music, photography and films just does not leave any chance to find a minimal performance mistake.
That’s why I always prefer live performances to studio records when it comes to music. A common product of studios is something unreal, something too ideal to live together with us in our imperfect world.
That’s why I always prefer live performances to studio records when it comes to music. A common product of studios is something unreal, something too ideal to live together with us in our imperfect world.
вівторок, 27 квітня 2010 р.
Alice in Ordinaryland
I'd awarded the movie with The Greatest Disappointment 2010 prize. Carrol's Alice in Wonderland is one of my most liked books from the very childhood, and I was looking forward to watching the movie since it was first announced. It is pity to say, but... it would be better if I have missed it due to some trifling reason. It seems for me that the creators of the movie just did not understand the idea of the original story, trying to fit the book into the standard "successful motion picture" scheme. Carrol's "Alice" is not a yet another fairy tale from your bookshelf, it has its own very specific atmosphere built on top of quirks, English folklore, logical conclusions and puzzles. Unfortunately, the movie we got is free of all those -- yet another evidence of the fact that commercial grounds ruin the arts.
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