Monday, February 13
Spain's Architectural Renaissance Architecture in Spain under Francisco Franco was dreadful. "Franco's idea of great architecture was a deadening, nationalistic sort of classical kitsch. Modern architecture, for the most part, was just something for the tourists -- mile after banal mile of hotels that were degrading to local culture and the fine beaches they were built on. And, yet, here we are. Spain today is an international stage for architectural innovation and experimentation." Washington Post 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:48 am
Richard Rogers And His Swirl Of Projects Now in his 70s, architect Richard Rogers has more projects than he has time. There's the huge addition to New York's convention center, of course. "There are big projects, like Madrid Airport, or Terminal Five at Heathrow, or the competition to redesign Darling Harbour, Sydney (they're down to the last five); and there are small ones, like a £60,000 house (to prove that inexpensive housing can be other than Disneyfied), or a Maggie's Centre, up the road from the office." The Observer (UK) 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:33 am
Big Building, No Buzz A new 1000-foot tower is rising in Chicago. But "hardly anybody is talking about Waterview Tower, even though construction just started on the 82-story skyscraper at the southwest corner of Wacker Drive and Clark Street. The lack of buzz is enough to make you wonder: Is it because the design is good but kind of tame or because Chicagoans have become totally blase about great height? 'Ho hum. Another tower taller than New York's Chrysler Building. Who's the next pol to get indicted at City Hall'?" Chicago Tribune 02/12/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:11 pm
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The Grammy Hawaiian That Doesn't Fit Last week's Grammy award for best Hawaiian album has provoked controversy. "No sooner had the award been announced, Hawaiian discussion boards, phone lines and radio shows began buzzing with the controversy: Slack key may be a Hawaiian art form, but it has won both years, and will most likely keep winning precisely because it is the Hawaiian style with which most non-Hawaiians -- and most Grammy voters -- are most familiar." Chicago Tribune 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:27 am
Baroque-Style Program Squeeze When Wu Han and David Finckel took over the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, they faced a programming challenge. The Society has traditionally performed all of the Brandenburg Concertos on a single program each year. But should the tradition continue? "Half of the board members told me, 'If you cancel the "Brandenburgs," I'm not supporting you.' The other half said, 'If I hear another six "Brandenburg" concertos, I'm going to go crazy'." The New York Times 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:12 am
Promoting Home-Grown On Hold The City of Seattle is replacing its generic Muzak with recordings by local musicians. Anyone calling City Hall will be serenaded by locally-produced music while they're on hold. "The program is a great way to support local artists and expose more people to the incredible diversity of music this city has to offer."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer 02/13/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 9:40 am
Schoenberg Still Polarizes The Boston Symphony is playing an all-Schoenberg program this week. "The Schoenberg programming has had a polarizing effect, pitting the traditionalists, who would prefer their Beethoven served with a dose of Mozart, against the modernists, a group made up of musicians, students, critics, and subscribers who say they're inspired by Levine's commitment to a composer who, while long respected, has never been a hot ticket." Boston Globe 02/12/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:17 pm
A Missing Strad And Its Lost Journey One day in 1967, David Margetts' Stradivarius was stolen from his car. Some time late a woman found it on the side of a freeway in Los Angeles. It took 27 years before the instrument surfaced again... Los Angeles Times 02/12/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:16 pm
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UK Minister To Arts Council: Better Improve England's minister of culture has a warning for Arts Council England. "The record sums of public investment we have made in the arts have not led to a higher profile for the arts in the public's mind. The body must be 'more than a passive cash machine, doling out money to a familiar roll call of organisations and individuals." The Observer (UK) 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:37 am
Can Freedom Of Speech Extend Only Halfway? Suddenly the meaning of free speech and where its boundaries are have become an issue. The issue is being played out in cartoons and on American college campuses... Chicago Tribune 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:24 am
Creative Scotland Awards Fall Behind The Creative Scotland Awards are six years old, but £250,000 worth of winning projects have yet to be finished. "With less than a month to go before this year's awards are announced, the revelation has caused outrage among Scotland's artistic community, who complain that the awards are an indulgence and are not properly monitored." Scotland on Sunday 02/12/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:25 pm
Arts: The (Alarming) Wage Gap At a time when the economics of the arts world seem particularly challenging, there's a category of arts worker who is doing quite well. The artistic directors and upper management of arts organizations are scoring huge salaries, while the rank and file artists are getting squeezed. Wall Street Journal 02/11/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:24 pm
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When A Bollywood Star Goes Down(Everything Stops) Amitabh Bachchan is one of Bollywood's biggest stars. So when he got sick recently, it was very big news in India. "After Mr. Bachchan checked in, traffic near the hospital doubled. Dozens of television crews kept a 24-hour vigil; even the state-owned Doordarshan network reported on Mr. Bachchan's illness 63 times in one week." The New York Times 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:08 am
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Missouri School Bans "Crucible" After "Grease" Fire A high school in Missouri stages the musical "Grease." But the high school gets complaints, writers "complaining that scenes of drinking, smoking and a couple kissing went too far, and glorified conduct that the community tries to discourage. One letter, from someone who had not seen the show but only heard about it, criticized "immoral behavior veiled behind the excuse of acting out a play." The school superintendent "watched a video of the play, ultimately agreeing that 'Grease' was unsuitable for the high school, despite his having approved it beforehand, without looking at the script. Hoping to avoid similar complaints in the future, he decided to ban the scheduled spring play, 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller." The New York Times 02/12/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:35 pm
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Scots Switching From Romance To Crime Crime novels are gaining in popularity in Scottish libraries as romance novels wane. "Total loans for the year were 341 million, or more than five books for every man, woman and child. This year sees crime fiction stealing a march on romance. Maybe this is an indication that national tastes are becoming increasingly macabre." The Scotsman 02/12/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:29 pm
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Customers Upset At Netflix For Movie Slowdown Some Netflix customers are slamming the company for "throttling" them. The company has been slowing down shipments of movies to customers that its computers identify as heavy renters... Wired (AP) 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:17 am
The Value Of An Oscar (Really) "An Oscar has always been as much about commerce as about art; it ups an actor's asking price and box office appeal. These days the trophy itself can mean cold cash as a collectible, worth up to $50,000 for a "common Oscar," as experts call the technical and tangential awards, and from several hundred thousand dollars to $1.5 million for those bestowed upon famous films and actors. The trade in vintage Oscars through publicized auctions and an underground market has become a parallel universe as competitive and bitter as the annual acting derby itself." The New York Times 02/12/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 10:06 am
Video, Anywhere, Anyhow "Video has jumped the shark, escaping the bonds of cable, dish, disc or cassette. Every media company from AOL to Zenith is scrambling to sign deals with programmers, allowing consumers to find and purchase nearly any form of moving image to play over any device." Denver Post 02/12/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:35 pm
Placing Products Takes Off The 30-second TV commercial is old news. Now product placement rules. Over "the last three years, the number of placements, including the new integration, jumped 30% to 108,261 last year. NBC ranked highest with 7,470 instances of a product being shown on its reality show The Contender alone and an additional 3,009 placement shots on The Apprentice." Los Angeles Times 02/12/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:34 pm
NPR In The Passing Lane While many news organizations have been reducing staff, National Public Radio has been on a hiring campaign. "The NPR news operation has added 50 journalists in the past three years, raising the total from 350 to 400. Ten years ago NPR had six foreign bureaus; it just opened its 16th, in Shanghai, putting it in the running with major national news organizations. The New York Times and CNN both have 26, the Los Angeles Times has 22, the Washington Post has 19." Washingtonian 02/11/06
Posted: 02/12/2006 9:33 pm
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Martins And The City Ballet Legacy "Veteran New York City Ballet fans -- who witnessed the glory days under Balanchine -- habitually carp about Peter Martins's ballets. Even these naysayers admit he has craft, but they sense the absence of imagination. They're also put off by the aridity of his pieces in the classical mode and the hostility between the sexes that prevails in his contemporary-style works. It's possible, too, that the detractors conflate Martins's lack of choreographic genius with other perceived flaws. During his tenure, the custodianship of the Balanchine repertoire has, arguably, been careless."
Bloomberg.com 02/13/06
Posted: 02/13/2006 9:46 am
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