Category: Music
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Aura of Inevitability (or: When a Technology’s Time has Come)
New technology products often take us by surprise. In 1992, for example, we couldn’t possibly have dreamed of how the Internet would transform the world by 1997, only 5 years later. The best innovations are things “you never knew you wanted but cannot live without” kind, inventions that come out of nowhere. YouTube, for example.…
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Dreamgirls and the Self-Referential Musical
I saw Dreamgirls this weekend — it was great! I’ve been to my fair share of movies where the audience broke out into enthusiastic and spontaneous applause before, but they’ve almost always applauded some kind of triumphant action scene, never clapping and cheering for an individual performer. Which is to say that they are applauding…
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There’s a Ring at Lincoln Center, and it ain’t Wagner
Johannes Brahms, clearly pissed off at Avery Fisher Hall. How is it possible that New York’s most dedicated Brahms lovers can excuse Lincoln Center? A couple of nights ago I went to see a concert of chamber music by Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, on one of the final nights…