Philosophy For The Masses Philosophy, while usually an exalted profession in academic circles, has rarely held much interest for the public at large, with its convoluted language and bafflingly theoretical views of real-world events. "These days, though, philosophers are engaging with the world more readily than before. During the past 10 years there has been a spate of books intent, not so much on taking philosophy to streets, as taking it to the dinner parties. And they're a mixed bag. Many are just crass attempts to cash in on the movement - the worst kind of arranged marriage between publishing and opportunistic editors." But some of the books are legitimately moving philosophy into the mainstream without much dumbing down. The Age (Melbourne) 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 7:29 am
New York Reclaiming Its Skyline Contrary to popular opinion since 9/11, the New York skyline consists of far more than the Twin Towers and whatever replaces them. In fact, the look of the insanely crowded Manhattan cityscape is currently being transformed by "a growing list of stunning residential towers designed by celebrated talents like Richard Meier, Santiago Calatrava, Christian Portzamparc and Enrique Norten." But if these residential skyscrapers represent the best of the new New York look, the worst is always just around the corner, represented by a new wave of monolithic office towers. Still, the changes are exciting, particularly following an era in which New York seemed to have lost its architectural bearing. The New York Times 09/05/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 9:41 am
Hopper A Hit At Tate Modern "Crowds who flocked to admire some of the loneliest paintings of the 20th century have helped to make the Edward Hopper exhibition at London's Tate Modern one of the gallery's most successful... By the time the exhibition closes tomorrow night, the Tate expects to have sold more than 420,000 tickets - a total beaten only by Matisse-Picasso two years ago. The gallery has stayed open late every night for weeks to meet the demand." The Guardian (UK) 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 7:54 am
Going Back To The Drawing Board Mark Hanson took over as president of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in January 2004, and it didn't take him long to decide that what the financially strapped organization needed was a completely new way of doing business. Whereas previous administrations tried to patch deficits by dipping into the endowment, and sought to downplay the importance of dramatically slumping ticket sales, Hanson is apparently seeking to face the MSO's problems head on, and in public. Still, that means more deficit spending for the next couple of seasons, and an uphill battle to convince local donors that the symphony is worth their investment. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 09/05/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 9:05 am
Seattle's Schwarz Dismisses His Concertmaster The concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra has been fired after 20 years at the helm, apparently at the behest of music director Gerard Schwarz. Ilkka Talvi, who has filed a grievance contesting his dismissal, was apparently the victim of a clause in the SSO musicians' contract which allows the concertmaster to be dismissed at the will of the music director, even as the rest of the orchestra's musicians are protected by a tenure system. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 8:28 am
- A Tough Year For A Local Legend Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz has always been a master of public relations, and his two decades in the Pacific Northwest can attest to his staying power. But this has been a year in which Schwarz's abilities as a conductor and leader have come under fire: he was all but dismissed from the directorship of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic last month, and at least one prominent critic has suggested that his recently-ended 17-year tenure at the helm of New York's Mostly Mozart festival was tired and unimaginative. Still, Schwarz remains the face of classical music in Seattle, and so far, says Melinda Bargreen, he has weathered every storm with aplomb. Seattle Times 09/05/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 8:25 am
Bribery: The New Scalping? So you want to get into the hottest show of the summer, but you don't care to camp out in a 3-day line or spend hundreds on scalper tickets? No problem: just spend a few minutes scouting the folks taking tickets at the gate, pick a target, and see where a well-placed $50 bill will get you... The New York Times 09/05/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 8:00 am
The Rock 'n Roll Cello It's a fledgling movement, to be sure, but more and more rock bands are turning to the traditionally classical cello to bolster their sound, and add an unusual twist to a genre which has for decades relied on screeching guitars and hammering percussion. From indie-goth band Rasputina, which sports multiple cellos, to a Colorado-based acoustic rock quartet which recently decided that a full-time cellist could improve their sound, the cello seems to be overtaking the violin in the role of the classical instrument best suited to crossing over into the nightclub scene. Denver Post 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 7:39 am
Extension And Mediation In Chicago The musicians and management of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra have agreed to extend the musicians' current contract through October 31, and are bringing in a retired judge to mediate further negotiations. The extension will insure that the CSO season will run for at least six weeks without interruption by strike or lockout, and the joint selection of a mediator suggests that, while the talks remain contentious, there is at least a desire on both sides to avoid the public relations disaster that a work stoppage would likely precipitate. Chicago Sun-Times 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 7:34 am
Infighting In Melbourne The city of Melbourne doled out nearly AUS$3 million in arts grants this past week, but controversy is brewing over the way the money was shared amongst the city's cultural groups. "While 109 organisations and individuals from almost 300 applications shared in an annual funding pool of more than $1.5 million, six major Melbourne arts organisations - the International Arts Festival, the Fringe Festival, the Comedy Festival, the Film Festival, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Circus Oz - shared $1.4 million in triennial funding." The funding decisions left some of Melbourne's smaller arts groups gasping for financial breath. The Age (Melbourne) 09/06/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 8:42 am
Electoral Distraction Tactic #467,323 "President Bush made only one reference to Hollywood in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, and it was almost in passing, but he hit the moviemaking community where it lives." In one sense, it's merely a case of one candidate taking advantage of an easy target set up by his opponent. But the Kerry/Hollywood flap has proved to have legs as a political story, and may serve to highlight a larger clash of values, between what the GOP sees as the conservative "heartland" and what Democrats see as the star power of the mainly liberal world of big entertainment. The New York Times 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 8:21 am
Republicans And NYC Artists: Worlds Apart With thousands of Republican conventioneers flooding the streets of Manhattan this past week, a cynic might have predicted that it would be a slow week in the New York art world. The cynic would have been right: one gallery, owned by conservatives from Georgia, held a blowout party for Senator Zell Miller, but other than that, the city's galleries and museums were left out in the cold by a political party which is increasingly cut off from the art world. "While there were 4,853 delegates and alternates at the convention, only 133 delegates and their family members checked in at a desk set up in the [Metropolitan Museum of Art's] lobby to offer them special tours." The New York Times 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 8:08 am
Decker Out At National Building Museum "Howard Decker, the knowledgeable, affable chief curator at the [Washington, D.C.-based] National Building Museum for the past four years, abruptly resigned this week. His last day at the museum was yesterday." Decker's departure, which appears to have been amicable, was apparently precipitated by the desire of NBM executive director Chase Rynd to reorganize the museum's management structure. "Rynd explained that he wants to replace Decker with a curator who is not 'overly burdened with administrative tasks' and who takes direct charge of certain exhibitions." Washington Post 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 8:35 am
Pulling The Bard's Strings "This autumn, for the first time in its history, the Royal Shakespeare Company is to collaborate with one of the country's leading puppet theatres to present a marionette masque version of Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare's great, sensual poem... Over the past three months the puppets have been crafted in secret by experts from the Czech Republic, Germany and South Africa inside the Islington workshops of the puppet theatre. The miniature costumes are still being sewn together in the wardrobe department at Stratford-upon-Avon." The Observer (UK) 09/05/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 9:32 am
Fahrenheit 9/11 For The Well-Read Intellectual "Whatever the critics make of it, David Hare's Stuff Happens is undeniably one of the cultural events of the year - a remarkable dramatisation of the events that led to the war in Iraq." The critics, as it happens, have been finding the play overly simplistic and too willing to slosh around in "gray areas." But to the politicians, weapons inspectors, and other political insiders who lived through the runup to war that Hare has dramatized, Stuff Happens is a powerful reenactment of a divisive year in global relations, "the thinking person's Fahrenheit 9/11: much more sophisticated, but just as angry." The Guardian (UK) 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 7:46 am
Handicapping The Booker "Even when it comes to inexact sciences -- beauty pageants, presidential elections -- creating odds for the Booker Prize is screwier than most." In fact, the most well-known handicappers for the UK-based literary award freely admit that they don't even read the books before setting the odds, a neat trick which allows them to post odds mere moments after the shortlist is announced. Betting on one of the world's most infamously persnickety book prizes may seem like a losing proposition anyway, but it hasn't stopped the gambling-happy Britons from making it a popular pasttime. The Globe & Mail (Britain) 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 9:25 am
How To Spend $100 Million The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation has finally announced a plan for how it will spend the $100 million bequest which was dropped in its lap two years ago by pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly. The foundation's new initiatives will include a national study to determine current public attitudes towards poetry, an "online, electronic anthology of poetry, available to the public at no cost," and the creation of two new annual cash prizes recognizing overlooked poets and humor in verse. Chicago Tribune 09/05/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 9:19 am
Weimar Fire Claims Tens Of Thousands Of Books The raging fire that broke out Thursday at the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, Germany, has destroyed as many as 30,000 irreplacable books. The damage is estimated to be in the millions of dollars, and the German culture minister has pledged that public money will play a major role in restoring the surviving books and the library building itself. The New York Times 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 7:56 am
- Previously: Fire Damages Famous German Library A fire ravaged one of Germany's most famous libraries thursday - Weimar's Duchess Anna Amalia Library. "The library was opened in 1691 and housed the world's largest collection of Faust by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who had lived in Weimer." BBC 09/03/04
Laughing All The Way To The Box Office The creators of a new satirical film called The Yes Men are making a name for themselves as the leaders of a new generation of political pranksters. And while harassing Republicans at a convention, or free-traders at a seminar, may not qualify as genuine political discourse, it's a great way to sell movie tickets. The New York Times 09/04/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 8:17 am
The Pain Of The Dance In the dance industry, where careers can be made or broken before the performers finish high school, and in which a freak injury or simple old age (defined as "older than 30") can doom even the most talented individual, the competition to be "discovered" is intense and sometimes psychologicaly damaging. Sylviane Gold spent the summer following one 14-year-old hopeful through physical agony, teenage mind games, and ultimately, the triumph of a dancer's spirit. The New York Times 09/05/04
Posted: 09/05/2004 9:48 am
