Jumbling Up Culture (Whatever You Want To Call It) How is it that "high" culture and pop culture separated so thoroughly? "I'm not quite sure how it got to be this way -- writers of heavy books on one side, mass media on the other -- because it wasn't always so. The great American cultural blender once produced whole art forms, such as Broadway musicals and jazz, that might well be described as a blend of the two. But nowadays, that gap is so wide that I'm not even sure the old descriptions of the various forms of "culture" -- highbrow, middlebrow, popular -- even make sense any more." Washington Post 04/07/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 5:39 pm
Denver Contemporary Chooses Adjaye To Design Building Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art has chosen a rising star over established names to design its new building. "A year after revealing tentative plans to build its first permanent home, the 8-year- old institution announced Monday its choice of London architect David Adjaye from among six international finalists to oversee the design." Denver Post 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 7:15 am
Imagining A Park For The 21st Century A competition asks planners to imagine what Chicago's lakefront park ought to be in the 21st Century. "The thesis is simple but profound: We don't live the way people did 100 years ago. Our parks should be designed accordingly." Chicago Tribune 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 7:05 am
Scotland Dropping 800 Historical Sites "Around 800 archaeological sites, including forts, carved crosses, standing stones and cairns, could be dropped from Historic Scotland's official schedule. Critics said the plan was a 'betrayal of Scotland's heritage', which would allow developers to build on protected sites. The change follows a decision to restrict protection to sites deemed of 'cultural significance' and 'spiritual value'." The Daily Record (UK) 04/12/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 5:50 pm
Sharp: Making Denver An Essential Museum When Lewis Sharp arrived as director of the Denver Art Museum in 1989, the talent for a good museum was in place but not realized. In the past 15 years, Sharp has transformed the museum, and raised $63 million for an addition designed by Daniel Libeskind. "I hope that the building will allow us to create such a presence within this community and within the country that the Denver Art Museum will not be overlooked. Simply by the presence of that building, people will say, 'When you go out to the American West, you ought to go to Denver and see that incredible building by Daniel Libeskind."' Denver Post 04/11/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 4:51 pm
Music Sales Turnaround... Why? Sales of music are up 9 percent in the first three months of 2004 after three years of declines. Yet downloading on the internet is still increasing. So if downloading wasn't responsible for declines in music sales in recent years, what was? IOndustry watchers say it was a combination of factors... Wired 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 7:54 am
A Rossini Find Worth Finding It was 170 years between performances of Rossini's opera Ermione. Anne Midgette is aware that such long lost finds more often than not prove why they were forgotten. But "for my money, this is the best rediscovery to cross the radar in a long time. Anyone who likes 19th-century Italian opera — from Donizetti to Verdi — should see City Opera's "Ermione." The New York Times 04/13/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 7:04 pm
All The Opera You Can Eat For £50 All of a sudden there are all these opportunities to buy cheap tickets to opera and music in London. So here's the challenge - how much can you get in to £50? Try five shows at some of the city's biggest performing arts venues. The Guardian (UK) 04/13/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 6:50 pm
Critic: Opera's Cut-Rate Ticket Plan Won't Expand Audience London's Royal Opera House's plans to offer some of its best seats for £10 is not going to widen the audience for opera, says a leading think tank. The critique suggests that "such schemes are more likely to encourage the middle class to go to the opera more often, rather than widen access." The Guardian (UK) 04/13/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 6:45 pm
Rocky 2 Tops Classic FM Poll (Again) For the fourth year in a row Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 has topped Classic FM's most-loved music poll. "Its emergence - in each year so far of the new century - as the British classical listening public's favourite tune indicates Rachmaninov's position as perhaps the most popular mainstream composer of the last 70 years. Its place was secured by the votes of the commercial station's listeners." The Guardian (UK) 04/13/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 6:42 pm
Was Rock Critic Fired Because He's Too Old? Larry Nager was recently fired as the Cincinnati Enquirer's pop music critic. Nager says it was because he just turned 50. "The Enquirer, Nager claims, deemed him expendable because he didn't fit the paper's profile of someone who should be reporting on the Britneys and Justins of the music world. Nager accuses the Enquirer — and many other newspapers — of targeting an 18-34 female demographic, a move he calls a reaction to the whole MTV-ing of our society ... newspapers are trying belatedly to be 'with it.'" Editor & Publisher 04/12/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 6:36 pm
A Lincoln Center Plan That's "Evolutionary" After years of debate, finally a plan for a Lincoln Center makeover that works. "What we've got here is the inverse of the Wow Factor: a new plan for the center's public spaces so understated as to seem almost uncanny. It looks just like Lincoln Center, only smarter, more self-aware and amazingly confident in its sense of direction. The plan is evolutionary. It tweaks, here and there, the existing architecture of Lincoln Center, but the overall effect is to enhance the original rather than to negate or override it. It's respectful. This seems to me an invaluable civic lesson at this intemperate moment in our national life." The New York Times 04/13/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 6:59 pm
California City Funds Plan To Lure Artists The city of Ventura, California has become so expensive to live in that artists moved out. So "last week, the city gave Minneapolis-based Artspace Projects Inc. $400,000 to begin work on a plan to provide homes and studios to at least 25 artists and their families. The company, which specializes in carving airy lofts out of abandoned industrial buildings, aims to raise at least $10 million, mostly from state and federal agencies and private foundations." Los Angeles Times 04/12/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 6:11 pm
Virtual Orchestra Off-Broadway A show coming to Off-Broadway is using a "virtual orchestra" and the musicians union is protesting. But the show's composer says he isn't replacing any musicians with the device - he likes the sound he gets from it. In previous productions, the show used three musicians, and it does now as well. Newsday (AP) 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 6:29 am
Portland's New Theatre Project Draws Critics Portland Center Stage is getting a new, state-of-the-art home, one that will "put its facilities on a par with the country's best regional theater venues in such cities as Chicago, Minneapolis and Dallas. It also will bring back to life one of the city's oldest buildings, the 1891 Oregon National Guard Armory at Northwest Davis Street and 10th Avenue. And it is vying to be the most ecologically sound building so far completed in the Northwest. Sounds pretty good. What's not to like?" So why so many critics of the project? The Oregonian 04/11/04
Posted: 04/12/2004 5:56 pm
New NYT Book Review Chief Gets To Work Sam Tanenhaus began work this week as the new editor of the New York Times Book Review. "Since his appointment a few weeks ago, Tanenhaus' likes and dislikes, his authorship of a prize-winning biography of anti-Communist icon Whittaker Chambers and an uncompleted one of William F. Buckley -- all but his hat size has been parsed and glossed with the earnestness of old-time Kremlinology. Literary insiders have done everything to divine his standards except, typically, to read a whole book Tanenhaus wrote on the subject in 1984." San Francisco Chronicle 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 7:44 am
The New Yorker In California Some like to put down California for a lack of culture. So what to make of the fact that The New Yorker magazine now sells more copies in California than in New York? "For the six-month period that ended Dec. 31, California had a total paid circulation of 167,583, compared with New York's 166,630. What this will do to the well-worn clichés about California is uncertain. The Atlantic Monthly also has more subscribers here than in any other state." Los Angeles Times 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 7:26 am
American Troops Bring Along The Pop Culture The modern American soldier carries his/r pop culture along to war, toting, MP3 players, satellite dishes, and DVD players. "When a day's combat patrol or reconstruction mission is over, the troops join the global consumer culture, retreating into the the privacy of headphones to recapture a bit of territory in the war zone, free from the collective of military life. The new technologies have had a potent impact on the military, ending its monopoly over the supply of news and entertainment for American troops serving in a foreign land whose borders include a language barrier." The New York Times 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 7:38 am
FCC Smut Crackdown Scares Off Victoria's Secret The annual Victoria's Secret televised fashion show has been canceled this year. Why? "The furor over indecency on the air, which has already led to a massive crackdown - including big fines against shock jock Howard Stern - is being blamed in part for the end of the sexy TV fashion show." New York Daily News 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 7:31 am
Getting Together Games And Movies The differences between movies and video games? Well, the differences are getting less and less. "Advances in technology since the '80s enable game developers to model extremely lifelike figures -- an imperative if you are using recognizable, A-list actors. Some of the newest technology even allows figures to show signs of emotion. As movies and games move ever closer, even the improved sound capabilities of game consoles are a factor, allowing the nuances of dialogue to come across more clearly. All of this has pushed the use of movie and celebrity tie-ins to new heights." Chicago Tribune 04/13/04
Posted: 04/13/2004 7:10 am
