A New Generation Of Iraqi Art, Heavy On Despair "The war in Iraq has been especially disillusioning for young Iraqi artists, many of whom believed the American promises of freedom. As the old order fell, they sat in their cracked-window studios and at paint-splattered easels and dreamed of an Iraqi renaissance." But the despair which is now gripping the 'liberated' Iraq is overwhelming any thoughts of such a rebirth of culture, and the work of an Iraqi artist is now likely to reflect "the mayhem of a suicide bomb, the agony of a mother who has unearthed the dusty bones of her son, the confusion of his country today." The New York Times 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 12:20 pm
Government Putting Avant-Garde Architects On Notice The wholesale renovation of Chicago's historic Soldier Field (home of the NFL's Bears) has been roundly panned by football fans and architecture critics alike since it was completed last year, and now, the federal government has weighed in with its own verdict on the ultra-modernist redesign, stripping the stadium of its place on the list of National Historic Landmarks. The decision "sent a message that resounds far beyond Chicago's aesthetically mangled lakefront football stadium: The government will react -- and strongly -- if avant-garde architects and arrogant politicians sack the nation's most extraordinary places." Chicago Tribune 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 11:40 am
Getting Smaller To Increase Visibility "For years, American cartoonists have complained that their world is getting smaller. Plagued by slumping readership and beholden to high profit margins, daily newspapers are busy reducing the size of comics and cutting those that fail to gain support from older readers. Meanwhile, cartoonists who want to try something different, like mammoth Sunday strips, sometimes get the cold shoulder from editors. So it's ironic that the next big thing in the comics world is a small cell-phone screen. But the distributors of strips from Crankshaft to Dick Tracy are working to get a foothold in that tiny space, and at least two cartoonists say they're thrilled to get the exposure." Wired 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 11:13 am
Pushing Absolutely No Hot Buttons Whatever happened to the grand old art of political buttons? Once upon a time, a presidential election brought us such memorable and wearable gems as "I Like Ike" and "I'm Daft About Taft" - and few could forget the classic Goldwater button that emphatically declared "In your heart, you know he's right," and the anti-Goldwater parody that shot back, "In your heart, you know he's nuts!" These days, though, every button from every campaign looks the same - blue backgrounds, American flags, the names of the candidates, and nothing else. At what point did one of America's cleverest forms of politicking become such a deadly bore? Washington Post 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 10:55 am
Who Cares Who Used To Own It? The British Museum has spent the last several years answering charges over the way it acquired several of its most prized pieces. But is the argument even focused on the right topic? "Controversy over ownership of its treasures obscures the British Museum's purpose. By offering everyone insights into cultural history, argues its director Neil MacGregor, the museum promotes a greater understanding of humanity." The Guardian (UK) 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 10:25 am
Cellist Wanted: Must Be Perfect In Every Way There is no ensemble more tightly connected than a string quartet, so when a major quartet loses one of its members, as Canada's St. Lawrence String Quartet did two years ago, finding a replacement who is both musically and personally compatible with the rest of the group can be a nearly impossible task. The St. Lawrence thought they'd found their new cellist, only to discover after a year that the match wasn't quite made in heaven. Now, the group is trying to fill the hole again, and American cellist Chris Costanza is "[fitting] in as naturally as if he had been playing with the others since the beginning." Toronto Star 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 11:51 am
Royal Albert Hall Loses It Pipes "Its 9,990 pipes were designed to resonate to the ends of the Empire and have been painstakingly restored in a three-year, £1.7 million project – but Britain’s largest organ fell silent last night. Royal Albert Hall bosses confirmed today that the mighty instrument, known as The Voice of Jupiter, suffered an electrical fault before an evening BBC Proms performance. Technicians were today bidding to determine the cause of the mystery problem, which set in following a successful afternoon recital." The Scotsman (UK) 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 11:32 am
Why Critics Shouldn't Be Cheerleaders A few former board members of the now-defunct Florida Philharmonic are still furious with local critic Lawrence Johnson for several articles he wrote pointedly criticizing the organization's management and board. In fact, a recent letter to the editor of Johnson's paper accuses the critic of actually having contributed to the orchestra's demise by pointing out failings rather than rallying the public to support the floundering ensemble. Johnson isn't buying it: "Overpraising mediocrity subverts that [critical] duty and serves only to reward lazy or inept artistic leadership. When the third-rate is praised to the skies, there's zero incentive for those organizations to ever strive to improve." South Florida Sun-Sentinel 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 11:24 am
New York's Second City Presence The New York Philharmonic travels a lot, even by major orchestra standards, but this summer, one could forgive Chicagoans for mistaking the Phil for their own orchestra. This month, the New Yorkers' radio broadcasts have been added to Chicago radio, a sign that negotiations with the Chicago Symphony's musicians for a radio presence are at an impasse. And this past weekend, the Phil made its first appearance in five years at the CSO's own Ravinia festival, showing off the much-hailed collaboration between the notoriously conductor-unfriendly New York musicians and guest conductor David Robertson, who is considered a strong candidate to be the orchestra's next music director. Chicago Tribune 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 10:06 am
Is Political Comedy Being Reborn, Or Just Getting Shrill? In a time of unusual partisan divide in the U.S., it's no big surprise that some comedians are increasingly bringing their personal politics into their acts. But whereas political comedy has historically been focused on general themes so as not to appear to be overwhelmingly targeting any one ideology of individual, the new generation of political stand-ups are exceedingly personal. On the left, Janeane Garofalo and Al Franken rail against President Bush and the neoconservatives they believe pull his strings. On the right, Dennis Miller uses his CNBC talk show to ridicule the Democrats' lack of toughness and original ideas. But is it still comedy, or just a new method of attacking the opposition? Boston Globe 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 12:29 pm
Plenty Of Cash, But Lots Of Tough Decisions "When the New Jersey State Council on the Arts convenes its annual meeting in Trenton on Tuesday, the highlight will be the awarding of annual grants -- expected to be somewhere around $22 million, or some $6 million more than last year. Thanks to last year's passage of a hotel-motel occupancy fee, the arts council has a dedicated funding source that brings its 2005 budget to $22.68 million -- the largest state appropriation in the history of the agency. The infusion of money will allow the arts council to pump millions more into the state's museums, theaters, dance companies and performing arts centers. [But] that doesn't mean everyone will be happy." Newark Star-Ledger 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 11:58 am
A Decidedly French Approach To Diversity "After 15 years of soul-searching, France has decided to create a Museum of Immigration. Why now? For generations, France successfully absorbed waves of Poles, Russians, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese — and remained French. Then over the past 30 years millions of migrants flooded in from the third world, and it was France that changed. A Museum of Immigration is a fairly typical French response, one financed by the government and intended by politicians and bureaucrats to address a social problem through culture. Yet while willing to open a museum, France's cultural elite continue to resist embracing the creative energy represented by French artists, writers and performers of African, Arab and Asian descent." The New York Times 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 10:42 am
Dogged By The Pursuit of Perfection The brilliant career of conductor Carlos Kleiber could have been even more memorable, says Harvey Sachs, had the man been able to tolerate even the smallest error. Time management is perhaps a conductor's most important skill, and while Kleiber was adored by his musicians, his tendency to pounce on minutiae often made it difficult for performances to gel in a larger sense. "His maniacal perfectionism and the sense of desolating frustration that overwhelmed him when his goals were not met must have had something to do with his increasing isolation." The New York Times 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 12:16 pm
The Bouquet Tosser John Karls is an audience member of the most devoted sort. Not only does he regularly shell out upwards of $200 for the most expensive seats in the house at countless ballet and opera performances, he scrapes up a few extra dollars every night for a top-shelf bouquet, which he will then heave in the direction of whichever performer pleases him most. "He has attended upward of 2,500 performances and tossed some 750 bouquets in a career spanning more than half a century... Mr. Karls uses a two-handed toss not unlike that of a hammer thrower... The real issue is wind resistance: the cellophane wrap can cause significant drag and can make a bouquet do what Mr. Karls calls a 'dying duck' over the orchestra pit." The New York Times 07/25/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 12:12 pm
More Than Just Clowning Around As a theater town, Chicago may currently be unrivaled in the U.S. But it's a fair bet that even the savvy Chicagoans have never seen anything quite like 500 Clown, a three-person (yes, only three) troupe dedicated to presenting serious theater with serious, well, clownage. The company's first show was 500 Clown Macbeth, which turned Shakespeare on its head and wowed the critics in the process. "With a manic brio, the show challenged past assumptions about the limits of on-stage violence and what director Leslie Buxbaum Danzig has dubbed 'clown-theater,' with equal emphasis on both words." Chicago Tribune 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 10:13 am
Microsoft Puts Slate On The Block One of the original online magazines is for sale. Slate, the web-only mix of politics, news, arts, and humor which was created by Microsoft in 1996, isn't actually losing money, but in a year in which Microsoft's MSN business division, which includes Slate, is looking to tighten up operations, the company is listening to offers for the first time. Microsoft is stressing that Slate will continue to be published, regardless of whether a buyer is found, and there will not be a sale just for the sake of a sale. Wired 07/23/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 11:18 am
The Stooges Get A Literary Pedigree "Screenwriter David Sheffield won this year's Faux Faulkner contest by imagining what it would have been like if William Faulkner... had written for the Three Stooges. Sheffield's 550-word script, "As I Lay Kvetching," has Moe, Larry and Curly renovating a home with the eye-gouging, nose-twisting slapstick guided by plenty of Faulknerian stage directions: 'At last it is Curly who picks up the plank, rough hewn and smelling of sweet gum, and -- feeling the weight and heft and fiber of it -- swings it innocently (bending to retrieve the tool, the ball-peen hammer dropped casually on Larry's toe) and feeling the awful force of the blow as it (the plank) catches Moe upside his head.'" Washington Post 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 11:03 am
You Mean There Are People Who Don't Like Bill Clinton? Bill Clinton's 900-page memoir may not be a critical favorite, but it has been a runaway bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. But critics recently noticed that the version of "My Life" being enjoyed by readers in the UK differs in several important respects from the stateside version. The changes, which are almost all in passages in which President Clinton pointedly criticizes Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, are due to the differing libel laws in the two countries. Whereas the burden of proof in a libel case falls on the complainant in America, UK law forces the defendant to prove the veracity of contested statements, which Clinton's people feared could have opened the door to a Starr lawsuit. The New York Times 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 10:36 am
Smugglers Are Better Role Models Than Wizards? So you're a good parent who wants your children to experience the wonder of reading exciting books featuring heroic children and supernatural enemies, but you're also a devout Christian who is convinced that Harry Potter is a witchcraft-dabbling heretic who will cause your offspring to turn away from God? Fear not: a new bestseller written by an Anglican vicar is "deeply imbued with Christian imagery and set on the 18th-century Yorkshire coast in Britain with its rugged cliffs, hidden caves and smuggler's legends. It is about an evil vicar, Obadiah Demurral, who tries to take over the world but is thwarted by three teenagers and a smuggler." The New York Times 04/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 10:30 am
Cleveland's Multimedia Center Gets A Big Boost A $1.6 million gift from a Cleveland foundation has jumpstarted the funding campaign for a unique multimedia center which will combine the operations of the city's public TV station WVIZ and public radio station WCPN (known collectively as Ideastream) with "broadcast and dance studios, offices, classrooms and a small theater." Organizers hope that the project can revitalize Cleveland's theater district while providing a much-needed center for arts education. $17 million of private money still needs to be raised for the center to become reality. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 07/24/04
Posted: 07/25/2004 10:46 am
