Amazon.com has unveiled an e-book reader called Kindle, which may finally be the commercially successful non-book book device that has been promised us by various seers and manufacturers for at least 10 years. You can see what Farhad Manjoo has to say about it here and here, although he hasn’t yet gotten his hands on the thing. Maybe this will be the devicee that changes my mind; I’m a longtime skeptic of e-books, as you can read here.
The Tucson Symphony Orchestra will soon record its first commercial CD, it says here. I just wish the composer to be showcased were less justifiably obscure. (The first time the TSO played one of his pieces, a former orchestra employee mouthed to me from a couple of rows away, “Wasn’t that crap?”)
In the article, don’t completely trust George Hanson’s claim that this sort of recording and exposure are “unprecedented” for a regional orchestra. To take just one example, the Nashville Symphony was still classified as a regional orchestra when it began its extensive recording series for Naxos, a label that has given that orchestra far more exposure than the worthy but limited Canadian label Analekta can do for the TSO.
James Reel's cranky consideration of the fine arts and public radio in Tucson and beyond.
