What Happened To Cantonese? "Cantonese, a sharp, cackling dialect full of slang and exaggerated expressions, was never the dominant language of China. But it came to dominate the Chinatowns of North America because the first immigrants came from the Cantonese-speaking southern province of Guangdong, where China first opened its ports to foreigners centuries ago. But over the last three decades, waves of Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants have diluted the influence of both the Cantonese language and the pioneering Cantonese families who ran Chinatowns for years." Los Angeles Times 01/03/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 8:03 pm
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Philly Museum Branches Out Into Korean Art "Responding to growing involvement from the local Korean-American community and an increasing awareness nationally of Korean art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has hired its first curator of Korean art. Hyunsoo Woo, 36, formerly of the Japan Society in New York and the Brooklyn Museum, started work Monday as the museum's associate curator of Korean art - making the museum one of just a few in the United States to have a full-time staffer devoted to Korean art." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 6:51 am
Drawing Center Lands In Fish Market New York's Drawing Center was to be part of the World Trade center project until controversy torpedoed the deal. Since then the center has been hunting for a home. "Scouring abandoned buildings, vacant parking lots and high-rises, they fell in love with some locations and flatly rejected others, while learning the perils of what its president calls a 'lack of nimbleness' by losing out to quick bidders." Now a home has been found - in the old Fulton Fish Market. The New York Times 01/11/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 7:11 pm
The Rauschenberg Franchise "Robert Rauschenberg may be the American Picasso. He is a Dionysian maverick of experimentation, openness, visual wit, and roguish nerve; an artist who cannot be diminished by others but who can only diminish himself; someone whose envelope-pushing has been inspirational for generations. As Jasper Johns generously avowed, 'Rauschenberg was the man who in this century invented the most since Picasso'." Village Voice 01/06/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 7:00 pm
German University To Return Piece Of The Parthenon "A German university plans to give back a fragment of the Parthenon sculptures, marking the first time any piece of the statues held outside Greece has been returned to Athens, the Culture Ministry said Monday." Chicago Tribune (AP) 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 5:38 pm
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Is The iPod Generation Destroying Music, or Saving It? A recent British study declared that the era of downloadable music and portable MP3 players is creating "producing a generation that doesn't seriously appreciate songs or musical performance." But hasn't the real impact of music-on-demand been the newfound ability of consumers to bypass an increasingly marketing-driven music industry which insists on promoting style over substance? "Today, discerning music listeners aren't at the mercy of a few label bosses, marketing gurus and program directors. If they're willing to invest even a small amount of effort, they can go online, confer with other fans and have at their fingertips every imaginable artist in every imaginable genre. The result is that, more so than generations past, the current one really is appreciating musical performance." National Post (Canada) 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 6:40 am
New Team In Place At SF Opera The new general director of the San Francisco Opera, David Gockley, has moved quickly to bring in his own administrative staff, appointing to two high positions men he had worked with in his last job at the Houston Grand Opera. Gockley took over the directorship from industry icon Pamela Rosenberg late last year. Rosenberg has moved on to a job with the Berlin Philharmonic. San Francisco Chronicle 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 5:10 am
Donor Rescues Audubon Quartet Members An anonymous donor has come forward with $200,000 to help members of the Audubon String Quartet pay a judgment against them and avoid having to sell their instruments. Former quartet member David Ehrlich won the judgment last year: "Why am I settling at this point? It's bothersome to me. I don't want them to lose every little thing that they had. If they can come out of this with something, then I would feel better about it too." He has said he never wanted the other members to lose their instruments but needed the funds from the judgment to pay lawyers. The New York Times 01/11/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 7:24 pm
The Name Problem "Sure, we're no longer living in the era of Haydn, Beethoven, and the gang where everything was either Piano Sonata No. 28 or Symphony No. 6, but this strangest of naming games has yet to completely disappear from our collective reflexes. For the record, I don't intend to criticize folks who write piano sonatas or symphonies—I've even penned a couple of piano sonatas myself, though I've yet to attempt a symphony—but why must they be named as if they were volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica?" NewMusicBox 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 6:45 pm
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Canada's Arts Scene May Take An Election-Year Hit Canada is in the final stages of a tough national election campaign, and arts leaders are not pleased with what they're hearing, or rather, what they're not hearing. "Extra cultural funding through the Canada Council that was announced in November by Liza Frulla, the heritage minister in the Paul Martin government, could vanish if politicians refuse to provide campaign assurances they're committed to it." So far, none of the leaders of the four major political parties have offered such assurances - in fact, as nearly as anyone can tell, they haven't uttered the word "arts" at all. Toronto Star 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 6:58 am
Locking Down Our Culture "New ideas about the bounds of 'fair use' are slowly shifting the blame to antiquated notions of intellectual property, for making copies a crime. Contrary to popular logic, there's an argument to be made that access to our common culture has never been as restricted as today, when the simple act of circulating a song comes with the threat of a lawsuit." Village Voice 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 6:56 pm
Using Warhol In An Artistic Way Artists build on other artists' work. So the Warhol Foundation has a double standard when it comes to the use of Warhol's work. The Warhol Foundation is "vigorous in enforcing our rights when it comes to people wanting to use Warhol's art for commercial purposes," Wachs said. But when it comes to artists and scholars, the rules are very different. "We permit artists to use and reference Warhol work without charge and without challenge." And "we let scholars use Warhol imagery for just a nominal fee to cover the cost of administering the rights." Wired 01/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 5:43 pm
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Prickly Pinchas Pinchas Zukerman is having an unusually newsworthy season, even for him. Always an outspoken critic of people and music he sees as "mediocre" (don't get him started on the period performance movement), Zukerman has been taking some heat of his own lately for his decision to pull out of what remains of his obligations as music director of the Ottawa-based National Arts Centre Orchestra's 2005-06 season. Zukerman calls the journalists questioning his decision "mediocrities," but he admits to what has long been rumored within the industry: that his NACO is not a happy place at the moment. "In every orchestra, in every institution that has climbed to prominence quickly there's always going to be a few rotten apples. And they have created an atmosphere that has to be eradicated, quite frankly." Orange County Register (CA) 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 5:26 am
James Levine On A Roll James Levine has turned the Metropolitan Orchestra into one of the best, and his debut season with the Boston Symphony has been acclaimed. "Even taking into account his rich career, with its long trail of megasopranos, James Levine may just now be at his absolute peak. So why won’t people in the classical-music world stop whispering, or worrying, about him?" New York Magazine 01/09/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 6:08 pm
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Did Phantom Make Broadway, Or Vice Versa? The record-setting run of Phantom of the Opera is getting plenty of press, but the show's success is about more than just the popularity of Andrew Lloyd Webber and a masked antihero. "Although the price of tickets [on Broadway] has skyrocketed — the top regular price seat is $110, and up to $360 for 'premium seating' — Berlind says a booming economy has meant that people are willing to dig deep into their wallets if shows warrant it. And so far, people have been showing up. In the last week of 2005, 20 shows were at more than 90% capacity, with Wicked bringing in an unprecedented $1.61 million." In other words, Phantom is where it is because of a Broadway theatre scene that has never been more robust, and that shows no signs of slowing down. Los Angeles Times 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 6:32 am
Lestat Slammed By Critics In Pre-Broadway Tryout The splashy, big-budget, supposedly Broadway-bound musical version of Anne Rice's bestselling vampire novels has run squarely into a wall of critical derision in its tryout run in San Francisco. "The creative team has nearly driven a wooden stake through the heart of author Anne Rice's much-loved Vampire Chronicles," says one Bay Area daily, and that's one of the kinder reviews. San Francisco's largest daily summed up the brickbats nicely: "Didactic, disjointed, oddly miscast, confusingly designed and floundering in an almost unrelentingly saccharine score by Elton John, Lestat opened Sunday as the latest ill-conceived Broadway hopeful." Broadway.com 01/11/05
Posted: 01/11/2006 5:41 am
- Is The Director Sinking Lestat? "Theater people are whispering that [Lestat director Rob Jess Roth] has to be replaced by a stronger and more imaginative director if [the show] is going to have a chance in New York... Roth has a poor track record on Broadway. He directed Disney's Beauty and the Beast, a third-rate production that no one will confuse with Julie Taymor's great staging of The Lion King. He was given a shot at directing Aida, but was fired after his production opened to poor reviews out of town. His third musical — The Opposite of Sex — was aborted out of town, also because of poor notices." New York Post 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 5:39 am
Acting Through The Ages What does it mean to be an actor at the various stages of one's life? The Guardian (UK) 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 7:36 pm
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Back To School Critic Julia Keller never liked Jonathan Swift back in college, when his "lofty sarcasm [and] misanthropic superiority" seemed at odds with her vision of what literature ought to be. The wonderful thing about graduating from college, of course, is that you're no longer required to delve into the work of writers you hate. But Keller is diving back in, auditing a Swift course at a Chicago university in order to "engage in an intellectual arm-wrestling match with Swift, my old nemesis, and report on the results." Vegas oddsmakers are currently laying 3-to-2 odds on Swift. Chicago Tribune 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 6:11 am
Savvy Marketing Or Copyright Infringment? A copyright dispute appears to have broken out between Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam and the publisher of a collection of "luxury magazines" aimed at high-end consumers in cities across the U.S. Beam first wrote about the company and its magazines last September, and he was more than a bit derisive. But now, the publisher appears to have pulled a few select quotes from Beam's article to use as promotional material for the magazines, an action which Beam calls "blatant copyright infringement," especially since the references to Beam's column "omitted what we call the lead, which referred to [the] magazine as 'a 352-page doorstop' filled with 'puffy, party-oriented proto-journalism.'" Boston Globe 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 6:00 am
The Second Book Problem "Is there really anything to it, or is Second Novel Syndrome a myth? Reviewers who fall for the schematic over the actual will lament the 'disappointing second novel' just as they will damn a debut with the faint praise of 'an author to watch in the future'. But, as with much in reviewing, this can be based on a preconceived idea rather than reality." Sydney Morning Herald 01/05/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 6:34 pm
Publisher: Memoir Isn't Necessarily Fact James Frey's publisher says it doesn't matter if some of the author's work isn't true. "Memoir is a personal history whose aim is to illuminate, by way of example, events and issues of broader social consequence. By definition, it is highly personal. In the case of Mr. Frey, we decided 'A Million Little Pieces' was his story, told in his own way, and he represented to us that his version of events was true to his recollections. Recent accusations against him notwithstanding, the power of the overall reading experience is such that the book remains a deeply inspiring and redemptive story for millions of readers." The New York Times 01/11/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 6:17 pm
- Frey Memoir Continues Selling Well Despite Charges Charges that James Frey's best-selling memoir ''A Million Little Pieces" contains numerous ''wholly fabricated or wildly embellished" details are dogging the book. "It's unclear what effect the allegations will have on readers. The Oprah's Book Club edition of ''A Million Little Pieces" was the best-selling book on Amazon.com yesterday." Boston Globe 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 5:54 pm
The Well-Funded Poets Three years ago, Ruth Lilly left $175 million to Poetry Magazine, making it the richest literary magazine in the world. So what's happened since to the cause of poetry? Boston Globe 01/08/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 9:52 am
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Spoiling For A Fight It's always been an article of faith among movie and TV critics that you don't reveal a big plot twist before the audience has a chance to see it for themselves. But what to do today, in a world of on-demand media in which some viewers will go berserk over a critic's "spoiler," even if it comes weeks or months after the show in question first aired? Joanna Weiss is sick of all the whining: "Well, I contend that what happens on TV the night before constitutes news, and is thus fit for a newspaper. That's not to say we can't be nice and offer a small grace period... But beyond that, facts are fair game." Boston Globe 01/11/06
Posted: 01/11/2006 5:56 am
A Plan For UK TV Downloads The UK has the most illegal downloads of TV shows. There's no legal downloading system. Now there's a proposal for TV producers. "They would have a set amount of time, called a 'primary window', in which to distribute the show. There would be a second period, or 'holdback window', during which broadcasters could restrict what the show's producers do with it." BBC 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 5:32 pm
IMAX Puts Up Big Numbers "In a year when box office receipts were down 5 per cent at mainstream theatres, Imax Corp. saw ticket sales climb 35 per cent in 2005. Much of that increase was driven by the conversion of several Hollywood films to its giant screens." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 10:22 am
Rating The Movie Experience "Box office may be down, but sales of iPods, Xboxes, cellphones, MP3 players, TiVos and plasma screen TVs are going up. Make that ... skyrocketing. People are spending more time every year with entertainment — nearly every new consumer electronics gadget exists to provide it. But with today's entertainment coming in all sorts of shapes and sizes, two-hour movies are simply no longer the first-choice package." Los Angeles Times 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 10:19 am
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Ballet Sneaks Into Fitness Classes Elements of ballet are seeping into fitness classes as health experts continue beating the drum about the benefits of not just stretching movements but keeping one's core strong and healthy. Washington Times 01/10/06
Posted: 01/10/2006 6:18 pm
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