Been There, Done That... "The fleeting melancholy and euphoria associated with déjà vu have attracted the interest of poets, novelists, and occultists of many stripes. St. Augustine, Sir Walter Scott, Dickens, and Tolstoy all wrote detailed accounts of such experiences. Most academic psychologists, however, have ignored the topic since around 1890, when there was a brief flurry of interest. The phenomenon seems at once too rare and too ephemeral to capture in a laboratory." Chronicle of Higher Education 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 8:41 pm
Department Of Defacement: Disney Hall's New Sign Why does Disney Hall need a giant Claes Oldenburg/Coosje van Bruggenbased tie-and-collar on the sidewalk out front? Christopher Knight writes that "on a digitally fabricated picture of the sculpture on-site, it works like the giant Carpeteria genie or Michelin Man outside a rug shop or tire store — sculpture that functions as a sign. In less than a year, Disney Hall has become perhaps the most famous building in Los Angeles, which means one of the most famous in the nation. You wouldn't think it needs a sign." Los Angeles Times 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 9:58 am
Buildings Of Commitment Milwaukee is in love with its new Calatrava-designed Milwaukee Art Museum. But it's clear now that if the museum is going to be able to keep up its new treasure, there's going to have to be a new level of commitment to doing it. "The difference between simply owning an icon of international architecture and paying for maintenance on a complex, innovative, precedent-smashing structure isn't always understood." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 9:22 am
Housing That Makes An Ass Of Toronto Toronto's mammoth CityPlace project is "one of North America's largest residential developments and, at the risk of putting too fine a point on the matter, it's making an ass of downtown Toronto." How does it go wrong? Let me count the ways... The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 8:53 am
Using Poor Workers As Fodder For Art - Is That OK? Spanish-born artist Santiago Sierra hired 10 Iraqi immigrant workers and sprayed them with liquid plastic to make his latest work. "My first reaction to the use of living men and women in this way was revulsion. I felt indignant that a modern artist should use vulnerable people to make work that will be shown to a small, rarefied, and comparatively affluent audience. Is it not a violation of human dignity to pay immigrants to participate in so hazardous and humiliating a process? As visitors to the exhibition, are we not somehow colluding in the economic exploitation of migrant workers?" The Telegraph (UK) 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 8:32 am
Ottawa Pulling Out Of Human Rights Museum Project? A new Canadian Museum for Human Rights, to be built in Winnipeg, was the dream of the late Izzy Asper. He put up much of the money and the Canadian government said it would chip in a significant amount. But then the country got a new Prime Minister, and though the project is well into the planning and design phase, the feds have reversed field. The government "position is simple and stark: There is no written commitment for federal funding beyond the $30-million, and therefore no commitment exists." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 8:27 am
Defending Diana's Fountain So Diana's memorial fountain in London had a few problems and had to be closed for awhile. The critics are howling. But "if we are to savage every teething problem and failure, how will we ever learn and progress? Things do go wrong." The Guardian (UK) 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 9:28 pm
Cambodia For Sale Cambodia's heritage is being plundered and sold off on the black market. "Sales of such ordinary antiquities are booming at markets across the kingdom, robbing it of a rich history archaeologists are only just beginning to study after decades of conflict ended here in 1998, experts warn." Yahoo! (AFP) 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 8:34 pm
Philadelphia Orchestra - Some Auditions Are Tough, But... Nineteen-year-old Curtis violist Rachel Ku won an audition for a spot in the Philadelphia Orchestra. Then she didn't have the job. Now she does again. Philadelphia Inquirer 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 9:50 am
When Pop Musicians Break "Classical" Many pop musicians seem to want to take a whack at composing "classical" music. But why, wonders Greg Sandow. "Why do these terrific musicians -- really lively spirits, in their own area -- put on handcuffs when they write classical music? There might be two reasons. First, classical music is too well-bred. Or, at least, the classical music world is. People come to it from outside with genuine respect, and do what the Romans do. Second, classical music is largely defined by older repertoire, so when people from outside come to it, that's what attracts them, and that's what they move towards." Sandow (AJBlogs) 07/27/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 9:47 am
Atlanta Opera Gets New General Director Dennis Hanthorn, general director of Milwaukee's Florentine Opera Company, is leaving to take the top job at Atlanta Opera. "Hanthorn said Atlanta offers 'a bigger pond to play in.' The metropolitan population is more than 4 million, compared with Milwaukee's 1.3 million. The Atlanta Opera's budget, Hanthorn said, was $6.8 million to Florentine's $3.7 million. Atlanta staged four operas vs. the Florentine's three. But the Atlanta Opera has a debt of about $1 million; the Florentine has been in the black for 11 years." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 9:35 am
Music's Next Big Thing What's the Next Big Idea in music? It's a flawed question, to be sure. Just asking it betrays a bias about how the history of music works. Twelve of America's best music critics debate the question in a new AJ Blog called Critical Conversation... Critical Conversation (AJBlogs) 07/28/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 10:15 pm
NY Phil In the Round? Facing a $300 million bill to renovate Avery Fisher Hall, the orchestra is experimenting with a stage that would put the orchestra in the center of the auditorium surrounded by seats. "The experiment put the orchestra out much closer to the middle of the hall than ever before, allowing it to play under a higher ceiling. Onstage the musicians play in what is essentially a box set back under a lower roof than the one over the audience." The New York Times 07/28/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 10:00 pm
Magnificent Organ (If Only It Worked) The Royal Albert Hall organ is a magnificent beast. "It has 9,999 pipes, 147 stops, weighs 150 tons, and at its loudest sounds like a jet taking off. It is a quite magnificent beast that the Royal Albert Hall has just spent £1.7m restoring to all its Victorian majesty. Which is why there was a palpable air of embarrassment hanging over the hall yesterday, because on Saturday the damn thing wouldn't work: not a squeak from one of its much-vaunted 9,999 pipes." The Guardian (UK) 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 9:49 pm
Royal Festival Hall To Get Upgrade London's Royal Festival Hall has acoustics that aren't up to much. Now the hall is to get a £71 million refurbishment that will guarantee that it has the 'finest and most flexible' sound in the capital by 2007." The Guardian (UK) 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 9:33 pm
Bayreuth, Salzburg Festivals Greeted With Boos "A storm of boos greeted the opening operas at both the Salzburg and the Bayreuth Festivals last weekend. High ticket prices -- as much as 360 euros ($437) -- in Salzburg and stratospheric expectations in Bayreuth didn't help. When all was said and done, when singers and conductors had been politely applauded, the direction teams marched onto stage and the audiences responded with the verbal equivalent of the rotten tomato." Bloomberg 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 8:32 pm
Miami Commissioners Approve Plan To Finish Performing Arts Center They're incredibly grumpy about it (and who wouldn't be?) but "scolding and grumbling about the past and expressing doubt about the future," Miami-Dade commissioners voted to approve a plan to finish the Miami-Dade Performing Arts Center -- 20 months late and $67.7 million over budget. Said one commissioner: "I feel like an abused wife who isn't leaving a relationship even though she still may be abused in the future." Miami Herald 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 9:17 am
- Previously: Miami PAC - Off The Rails (The Saga Continues) "Fighting to finish construction on Miami's Performing Arts Center, only half-built, 20 months late and $67.7 million over budget, Miami-Dade County will seek county commission approval to hire a new project management firm at up to $150 an hour for five of its executives and more than $100 an hour for five more -- for $2.3 million by year's end." Miami Herald 07/27/04
America's First Arts Journalism Degree (It's In Syracuse) Syracuse Universuty has announced America's first degree program in arts journalism. "While a few general cultural reporting and some short-term mid-career enhancement programs exist throughout the United States, this is the first program from an accredited university to grant a degree in arts journalism." It starts in the 2005-06 school year. Syracuse University 07/27/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 9:01 am
When Stanley Crouch Slugged Dale Peck Jazz critic Stanley Crouch may "use his perch at the Daily News to inveigh against gangsta rap with all deliberate fury and alarm, but his habit of violent exchanges with writers and editors puts him a notch above Snoop on the ne'er-do-well scale. In most cases gangsta rap is just talk—Biggie and Tupac are the exceptions. But while Crouch has yet to peel caps, the gangsta ethos is realer for him than it is for your average gun-talker." Village Voice 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 8:59 pm
The New Producers A new generation of London theatre producers is changing the business. "These new-style producers are not just moneybags, but are intrinsic to the creative process. They represent genuine producer/practitioner partnerships. The behind-the-scenes efforts of this new generation, who often work in non-traditional theatre spaces, are changing the face of British theatre beyond all recognition and making the mainstream sit up and take notice." The Guardian (UK) 07/28/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 9:53 pm
Publishers Cancel Khouri Book "The U.S. and Australian publishers of a best seller in at least 15 countries about a Jordanian honor killing have canceled the book, questioning the story's authenticity. Norma Khouri's Forbidden Love had been the subject of an extensive newspaper investigation." Rocky Mountain News (AP) 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 10:09 am
- Previously: Is Khouri's Story A Fake? Norma Khouri's frightening story of fleeing her Middle Eastern homeland in fear for her life became a worldwide bestseller. But now she is being attacked and her story branded a fake. "Far from being a Jordanian who fled her home in the late 1990s after the "honour" killing of her best friend, Khouri is accused of being an American passport-holder who lived in Chicago from the age of three." The Guardian (UK) 07/26/04
Smiley's Letter-A-Day NYT Habit Novelist Jane Smiley has had nine letters to the editor published in the New York Times in the past four years. Considering the Times gets about 1000 letters a day, that's quite a record. How does she do it? "Depending on what's going on in the world, I send them a letter every day. Some days I send two." Slate 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 7:55 am
Poetry And The Presidential Candidate Improbably, US presidential candidate John Kerry has been reciting poetry oon the campaign trail. "Although there isn't a strict separation between the worlds of presidential politics and poetry, they don't collide with great frequency these days. And Kerry's use of Let America Be America Again, a poem written by the late Langston Hughes, represents a head-on collision." CBC 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 9:41 pm
9/11 Report Is Bestseller America's 9/11 commission report has become an instant bestseller. "At least 50 million hits have been recorded on the Web site of the Sept. 11 commission. Meanwhile, another 200,000 copies of the book version of the commission's report on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have been ordered, bringing the total in print to 800,000." Yahoo! (AP) 07/27/04
Posted: 07/27/2004 8:54 pm
Movies In The Absence Of Words (Make 'em Up) It's the latest thing - movieoke. People watch a movie together with the sound off, performing the script themselves into a microphone. "It's harder than karaoke. People don't watch movies over and over again the way you listen to songs over and over again. And there's no music in the background to help when you mess up." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/28/04
Posted: 07/28/2004 9:06 am
