Beethoven exposed
Beethoven exposed George Stauffer | Weekly Standard | 1 June 2014
John Suchet’s “highly entertaining” biography, Beethoven, The Man Revealed, delivers what the title promises. The music scarcely gets a mention. “Beethoven’s erratic behavior and fiery temperament are front and center.” His gastrointestinal problems get pages to themselves. It works. “Rigorous Beethoven scholarship this is not. Yet, somehow, we forgive Suchet, for if he is shameless, he is also sincere.”

Translating Frozen into Arabic
Elias Muhanna | New Yorker | 3 May 2014
Disney has opted to translate Frozen into Modern Standard Arabic, rather than the more usual Egyptian Arabic. A curious decision. The effect is rather akin to using the English of the King James Bible. The chorus of Let It Go renders roughly as: “Discharge thy secret! I shall not bear the torment! … I dread not all that shall be said! Discharge the storm clouds! The snow instigateth not lugubriosity within me.”

The Economics of Book Festivals
Carl Wilkinson | Financial Times | 30 May 2014
Britain’s big four book festivals � Oxford, Hay, Edinburgh and Cheltenham � put on more than 2,000 talks and sell more than half a million tickets. But authors are rarely paid more than ￡150 ($250) to talk there; at Hay the standard fee is six bottles of wine. Authors grumble. Organisers say the overheads and risks are high. “While a literary festival might run for 10 days, it may well have taken the best part of a year to put together.”

The Making Of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love
Marc Myers | Wall Street Journal | 29 May 2014
Jimmy Page tells the story, with help from engineers George Chkiantz and Eddie Kramer. “As soon as I developed the riff, I knew it was strong enough to drive the entire song, not just open it. When I played the riff for the band in my living room several weeks later during rehearsals for our first album, the excitement was immediate and collective. We felt the riff was addictive, like a forbidden thing 恩仇心事� 老���醉人 ��思想的存在 改�冰冷玻璃火燎�房 女王岳母敢�敢�.”