Monday links: Oregon Symphony, Hollywood in decline, National Jukebox

Oregon Symphony plays Carnegie/Photo:NPR Melanie Burford

By Barry Johnson

Playing some catch-up on arts news with occasional local implications.

Oregon Symphony Triumphant!: The great New Yorker critic Alex Ross gave us a quick take on how our symphony performed at Carnegie Hall last week -- and he was pretty darn happy. I'm listening to it online as I type, and I'm pretty darn happy, too!

The Great 2011 Hollywood Box-Office Crash:  I saw Thor yesterday, convinced by some "interesting" movie reviews and Kenneth Branagh's participation as director that it might be worth seeing. I even saw it in 3-D.  And having seen it, this headline came as absolutely no surprise. (By the way, I prefer the old View-Master 3-D technology to modern film 3-D...)




The National Jukebox Gets 1 Million Pageviews in Week 1:  Not to mention 250k downloads: Hey, free music! Kudos to Sony for allowing the Library of Congress to use its pre-1925 Victor catalog this way. That's the Paul Whiteman Orchestra above, playing Doo wacka do.