It's Official - We're All Nerds "Over the past decade, those cultural phenomena that we once filed as geeky minority pursuits have become our masters. The internet now boasts a global community numbering 679 million. Video gaming pulls in more annual revenue than Hollywood. For its part, the film industry seems increasingly in thrall to the comic-book movie , the sci-fi epic and the wizard fantasy. Next week sees the release of the final instalment in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, awash with elves and hobbits and surely the most monumental nerd-fest of the lot. All of which raises some frightening implications. Could it be that there are more nerds today than there were before?" The Guardian 12/12/03
Posted: 12/12/2003 12:20 am
"Y" Me? Every generation has those writers who somehow help define it. But "Generation Y, the teens and early twenty–somethings who are said to represent the biggest chunk of pop culture marketing power, have no one who has encapsulated their generation in their writing so far. Sure, there are some authors their age but they haven't produced a work meant to encapsulate the generation. Nor has one of them been called upon to become the chief essayist, chronicler or spokesperson for their peers. So where are they? 'This isn't a literary generation. It's the MTV/high–speed Internet generation'." MobyLives 12/10/03
Posted: 12/12/2003 12:05 am
Rijksmuseum Under The Knife Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum packed away its most famous Rembrandt this week as the museum begins four years of renovation. "The museum was built for 250,000 visitors a year, has been getting more than a million, and is being remodelled to accommodate twice that number." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/03
Posted: 12/12/2003 12:29 am
Italy Seeking Indictment Of Getty Curator "In Rome, prosecutors are seeking the indictment of Marion True, curator for antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and three art dealers on charges of illegally exporting cultural goods, receiving state-protected cultural property and criminal association. Italy, a pioneer in police work to crack down on illicit antiquities trafficking, forbids selling or exporting ancient artifacts found in the country. Getty officials defended True’s work." MSNBC (AP) 12/07/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 9:52 pm
Barnes Has Lost Hundreds Of Items The Barnes Collection has lost "hundreds of items" including artwork by Matisse, Renoir and a Steinway piano. "It was unclear how the pieces disappeared, whether they were stolen, or when they might have been taken from the foundation." Philadelphia Inquirer 12/11/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 9:42 pm
Bamiyan Buddhas Stabilized "Italian engineers have completed work to prevent the collapse of the cliff niches which house the remaining fragments of Afghanistan's ancient Bamiyan Buddhas which were destroyed by the Taliban." The Independent (South Africa) (AFP) 12/11/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 9:38 pm
What Becomes A Plinth There are four plinths in Trafalgar Square, but one of the pedestals has been empty since 1837. Now there's a plan to rotate art onto the plinths, and the artists have been selected and their projects chosen. So what's going up? Their work includes "a car covered with bird droppings, a statue of a handicapped, pregnant woman, a sculpture of anti-war demonstrators and a pigeon hotel." BBC 12/11/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 8:18 pm
- Fun With Plinths Proposals for Trafalgar's empty plinth are startlingly different from one another. "By 7.54am yesterday somebody had posted a plea on the Fourth Plinth website seeking the public's reaction: 'Put something fun there'." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 8:10 am
Met Broadcasts - Where Are Our Priorities? Jan Herman wonders about the scale of American culture that would allow broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera go off the air. The Met needs $7 million to fund the broadcasts. "In major league baseball, $7 million would not pay the salary of a decent pitcher. The six stars of 'Friends' make $1 million each per half-hour episode. Compare this to the absolute top fee for a singer at the Met, Amercia's most prestigious opera house: $15,000 per performance. No one, no matter how big, not even Placido Domingo, makes more. Mere bagatelle or pittance indeed. What does all this signify? Many things, of course. But one of them is that "given America's wealth, talent, and educational resources, it could be the Athens of the modern world, but is fast losing that chance" and opting instead to be its Rome." Straight Up (AJBlogs) 12/12/03
Posted: 12/12/2003 10:25 am
Do Musicians Know Best? Orchestra musicians aren't always the best judge of the conductors who make them sound best, observes John Rockwell. "Whereas critics tend to prize creative excitement, profundity of interpretation and charisma, orchestra musicians — while hardly forswearing such virtues, at least in principle — often seem to base their decisions about a conductor on his rehearsal efficiency and lack of pretension. There can be no doubt that Mr. Maazel is a fabulous technician. A lot of us agree that the orchestra has rarely if ever played better; it gleams. And no doubt his rehearsals run like clockwork. The controversy has to do with his interpretive skills, or depth, or vision. And the concern is that for all the pride orchestral players take in their music-making, efficiency trumps inspiration when they come to pick a music director." The New York Times 12/12/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 11:46 pm
The Last Year Of Met Radio? For 64 years the Metropolitan Opera has been broadcast on radio every saturday afternoon while the company was in season. But this season may be the last. The broadcasts have "been a cultural lifeline for generations of listeners, both those who live in places far removed from any opera company and those who may live just a subway ride from Lincoln Center but can't afford to attend. They are carried by some 365 stations in the United States, as well as in Canada, Mexico, South America, 27 European countries, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, reaching, according to the opera company's most recent survey, an estimated total of more than 11 million. The Met has been unable to obtain a new sponsor to pick up the annual $7 million cost of the broadcasts." The New York Times 12/12/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 11:27 pm
Cold Weather Equals Good Violins The wood used by the old master Italian violin makers was special - the product of a mini ice age in Europe. "Trees grow slower in colder weather, producing denser wood for that season. So, narrower tree rings grow in cold weather than rings grown in warmer seasons. Narrow tree rings would not only strengthen the violin but would increase the wood's density, the researchers said. The change in climate therefore made a difference to the violins' tone and brilliance, they said." Discovery 12/10/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 8:51 pm
Funding The Arctic Arts A new initiative from the Rasmuson Foundation will create a 10-year, $20 million arts funding program in Alaska, with money from the foundation going to develop a cultural scene as unique as America's northernmost state. "Over the years, arts groups in Alaska have struggled for money. At the apex, 1982, the Alaska State Council on the Arts received nearly $5 million in state money, handing out more than $4 million in grants... for 2004, it is about $460,000." Alaskan arts groups have relied mostly on private donations to survive, but it can be hard to solicit donations to cover day-to-day operations. That's where the Rasmuson program comes in. Anchorage Daily News 12/11/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 5:22 am
Frayling - The Man For The Job Christopher Frayling is the new head of Arts Council England, and he seems well suited for it. "To those who regard themselves as on the inside, Frayling is known not as a popular historian but someone who has sat on every cultural committee going and has connections stretching from, where? - South Kensington to, presumably, 10 Downing Street. He is a trustee of the V&A, chairman of the Design Council, and has previously been a member of the Arts Council, as well as, less respectably, helping to choose the contents of the Millennium Dome's faith zone. Frayling is even better connected than his predecessor in the job..." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/03
Posted: 12/12/2003 12:26 am
Broadway - Standing In This has been Broadway's Year of the Understudy. "Thanks to star walkouts, babies, influenza and the common cold, understudies - typically theater's most obscure, least appreciated actors - have been stepping into the spotlight in record numbers." New York Daily News 12/11/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 11:17 pm
Hot Classics Literary classics are hot with readers right now, and they're selling fast. "Baby boomer nostalgia, the rise of book clubs and a longing for ageless wisdom after 9/11 are among reasons for the trend cited by publishers, editors and authors. High profit margins for books out of copyright help, too." Newsday 12/11/03
Posted: 12/12/2003 12:16 am
The Writer In Your Ear A new CD gives us writers reading their own work. "Writers who seemed beyond our reach are suddenly in our ears, revealing the often startling distance between their voices and the ones we imagine while reading — not to mention the ones that grab us from a movie screen. One of the great surprises is finding which writers actually do voices and which don't. When A. A. Milne reads from "Winnie-the-Pooh," his creations sound like Victorian gents — soothing, paternal Victorian gents reading a bedtime story, it's true, but rather Victorian nonetheless." The New York Times 12/12/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 11:34 pm
In Search Of The Universal Experience Writer Diran Adebayo "does for black urban Britain what Irvine Welsh did for working-class Edinburgh: his novels resonate with the slang and street idioms of the multicultural inner city. 'I want to reach a stage where black characters can talk in a language as universal as white characters. You know, the film Titanic plays from Lagos to Delhi to London and no one has a problem taking lessons of love from it. But what would happen if you did the same thing with an all-black cast? It would be a 'black film', just as my books are still categorised sometimes as 'black books'. People have a much harder time drawing an objective message from that." London Evening Standard 12/11/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 10:57 pm
Indy Film's UK Woes "It felt disorientating to be British at the European Film Awards, now in their 16th year and celebrated at a ceremony in Berlin last weekend. Those of us from the UK mingled with movie-makers and press from a score of countries, all perfectly relaxed about enjoying films from other nations, even those requiring subtitles. It was hard not to muse gloomily on the difficulty for even exceptional non-English-language films to obtain exposure in a British cinema culture so in thrall to Hollywood." The Telegraph (UK) 12/12/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 11:11 pm
Why PBS Programming Is So Timid PBS programming is staid and unadventurous. Why? Consider an acclaimed 36-year-old one-man show about Mark Twain and why PBS declined to air it: "What could literary legend Mark Twain have said 130 years ago that would cause PBS programmers of two different regimes to reject an acclaimed performance of his wit and wisdom by one of America’s most respected actors? Well, about 35 minutes into the one-man show, after the first intermission, Twain/ Holbrook includes a passage ofHuckleberry Finn. In this five minutes of the program, “Twain” acts out the parts of young Huck, his drunk father Pap and old Jim, a slave..." Current 11/17/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 10:33 pm
Video Store As Research Tool "As budget-conscious film studios increasingly greenlight remakes of old films and recycled television shows (coming soon: "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "The Stepford Wives"), independent video stores are finding themselves with a new role in the $9 billion-a-year video-rental industry. They are often used as research libraries and idea factories for the movie studios in whose shadows they lurk." Christian Science Monitor 12/12/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 6:49 pm
Are The Rockettes Eating Nutcracker's Lunch? With touring holiday Rockettes shows fanning out across America, many ballet companies are worried their audiences for Nutcrackers will be eaten up. But is it happening? The answer is complex and not entirely clear. "The discussion going on among ballet executives nationwide is a slice of an issue facing all arts leaders trying to grow audiences. Will the arrival of a new facility or show in town make the entire audience of arts patrons larger? Or does new competition simply 'cannibalize' existing audiences?" Philadelphia Inquirer 12/11/03
Posted: 12/12/2003 12:10 am
Taking Flight On The 100th Anniversary Of It It's the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight, and the Dayton Ballet had the idea to celebrate the feat in movement. "Certainly the subject of the human body’s sloughing off earthly shackles to claim air as its element is apt for dance, given the art’s constant challenge to gravity’s pull and its ecstatic emotional dimension, often equated with soaring." But Tobi Tobias wonders if perhaps the commissioned choreographers interpreted their guiding muse a tad loosely? Seeing Things (AJBlogs) 12/11/03
Posted: 12/11/2003 7:28 pm
