Tate Modern's Sci-Fi Fantasy Slides: Serious Fun? "When you launch yourself from the top of one of Carsten Höller's slides in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall - the largest is 56 metres long and with a stomach-churning 27-metre drop - you leave a lot behind you. Principally, your dignity. And any sense of being an adult. And all control. ... But is this crowd-pleasing work any more profound than a funfair helter-skelter? 'The funfair experience is completely underrated,' said Höller. 'I don't know why we don't take it more seriously philosophically and artistically.' "
The Guardian (UK) 10/10/06 Posted: 10/10/2006 5:13 am
Elegantly, Foster Challenges The Upper East Side "I expect Norman Foster’s design for a new residential tower at 980 Madison Avenue to infuriate people. Rising out of the old Parke-Bernet Gallery building, a spare 1950 office building between 76th and 77th Streets, its interlocking elliptical forms throw down a challenge to a neighborhood known for an aversion to bold contemporary architecture. The tower’s height, roughly 30 stories, hardly helps its cause.... With a little trimming, though, this could be the most handsome building to rise along Madison Avenue since the Whitney Museum of American Art was completed 40 years ago."
The New York Times 10/10/06 Posted: 10/10/2006 3:30 am
So What Was The UK's Best Building This Year? The Stirling is the UK's top prize for architecture. "The official line says that the Stirling goes to the British-designed building 'which has been the most significant for the evolution of architecture in the past year', a sentence packed with assumptions. Does it go to the prettiest? The most thrilling? To the architect most deserving? Or, old-fashioned notion this, to the building that best fulfils its brief, be it a bicycle shed or a cathedral?"
The Times (UK) 10/10/06 Posted: 10/09/2006 7:01 pm
The Pompidou Takes On Shanghai The Centre Pompidou in France is planning to open a branch in Shanghai, China by the end of 2007.
CBC 10/09/06 Posted: 10/09/2006 6:50 pm
Hirst Fakes Withdrawn From Sale Two pictures have been withdrawn from a Sotheby's auction of the work of Damien Hirst. "The genuine limited edition prints are worth up to £10,000 and have drawn attention from forgers who use the latest technology to copy works of art. Sotheby's confirmed the images had been withdrawn and questions over their authenticity were being investigated."
BBC 10/09/06 Posted: 10/09/2006 6:48 pm
Walking To Stone Henge After years of looking for a solution to the traffic strangling Britain's Stone Henge, a radical solution has bee proposed: do nothing. Instead of building expensive tunnels and the like, why not, asks a expert, find ways to encourage walkers and cyclists rather than cars?
The Guardian (UK) 10/07/06 Posted: 10/09/2006 6:25 pm
The History Of Architecture On Denver Streets With the opening of its new Daniel Libeskind-designed art museum, Denver has amassed an impressive array of public buildings. "There's an unbelievable assembly with the library and the DAM buildings and the residences. Within a block, you almost can trace the development of architecture since the Second World War."
Denver Post 10/08/06 Posted: 10/09/2006 6:15 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
NEA Selects 2007 Jazz Masters "Big-band leader Toshiko Akiyoshi, pianist Ramsey Lewis and vocalist Jimmy Scott were among those selected by the National Endowment for the Arts as the newest jazz masters, the nation's highest jazz honor." Los Angeles Times (AP) 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 4:21 am
Opera Where It Lives (Out Of The Mainstream) What is the heart of opera all about anyway? Big overly-familiar productions of Boheme and Tosca and Carmen that everyone knows? Or is it small experimental productions that are attempting to keep the art form revitalizing? The Telegraph (UK) 10/08/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 6:30 pm
Online Help Revolutionizing Music Instruction "From the real-time animated guitar fretboard of workshoplive.com to the truefiretv.com on-demand guitar lessons to the animated courses of Berkleemusic.com, students are increasingly able to forgo formal lessons in favor of à la carte online instruction with as little or as much human interaction as they want." The New York Times 10/08/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 6:12 pm
San Diego Symphony Tries To Invent Orchestra Of The Future Attendance at the Masterworks programs has increased roughly 50 percent during the past five years, with approximately 60,000 people attending the orchestra's core classical concerts at Copley Symphony Hall last year. San Diego Union-Tribune 10/08/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 6:10 pm
San Diego Symphony Keeps Its Balance The San Diego Symphony has managed to balance its books even as the organization grows. Of course, it doesn't hurt that a major benefactor pledged $100 million a few years ago... San Diego Union-Tribune 10/08/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 4:21 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
Carry-On Prohibition Leads To Trumpeter's Broken Arm
"As international authorities strive to harmonize a myriad of rules for carry-on flight luggage, a Russian-American jazz musician is nursing a broken arm he said he suffered in a struggle with French airport police over his right to board with a prized trumpet. The musician, Valery Ponomarev, 63, a former member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, was preparing to board an Air India flight on Sept. 9 from Paris to New York City, where he lives, when a routine airport ritual erupted into a fierce dispute over his 1961 Connstellation trumpet." The New York Times 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 3:57 am
But The Orchestra Doesn't? "Cultural charities suffered a heavy blow today when the the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) lost its appeal to make admission income exempt from VAT." Financial Director 10/09/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 5:47 pm
New York Arts Groups Slash Ticket Prices "Perhaps not since the early 1970’s, when Broadway introduced the TKTS booth, have the performing arts in New York seen such sweeping moves to draw audiences by offering inexpensive tickets. The discounts, underwritten for the most part by corporate donors, are an effort to compete for leisure time with an increasing array of multimedia offerings and, in an era when patrons of the theater, opera and classical music are aging rapidly, to reach a younger, more diverse population." The New York Times 10/09/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 4:45 pm
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
Hadid's Brit Problem Zaha Hadid has "become an international celebrity in the world of architecture; quite why Britain has been starved of her magic is a puzzle. Although she has been awarded a CBE for services to architecture, it was her adopted homeland (she was born in Baghdad) that very nearly ended her career only a decade ago." The Guardian (UK) 10/09/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 6:53 pm
Harold Pinter, High Wire Artist "The idea that now, having won the Nobel Prize and when his reputation as a playwright is higher than it has ever been, he is going to perform Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape is a testament to his bravery and his need, like a gambler needs chance, to put his life and his happiness in the uneasy hands of an audience." The Telegraph (UK) 10/08/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 6:43 pm
Click here for more People stories...
O'Neill Playwrights Conference Locked In Rights Turmoil "Outrage from playwrights over a proposed policy change by the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, in which it would take a percentage of future royalties from plays presented there, caused the conference to backtrack rapidly over the weekend, leaving confusion about whether the proposal was still being considered." New York Sun 10/09/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 4:48 pm
Cleveland Director Assaults Critic's Review Cleveland Play House director Michael Bloom made a very public critique of Plain Dealer theatre critic Tony Brown. "Inspired by an unfavorable review Brown had written of the play and his direction, [he} spied Brown in the back row of the theater, hurried down the aisle and ran the critic down in the lobby, where he passionately delivered an intimate and unrestrained critique of the review." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 10/09/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 4:11 pm
Click here for more Theatre stories...
Waters Is Bookmakers' Booker Favorite "Novelist Sarah Waters is the favourite to win the Man Booker Prize, which is being announced in London on Tuesday. Waters, who was nominated for the award in 2002, faces competition from five other authors for the honour, which carries a prize of £50,000. The author of 'Night Watch' was 5/4 favourite with bookmakers Ladbrokes before betting closed." BBC 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 6:25 am
Gourevitch's Paris Review, Reviewed "Most literary mags have the life span of fruit flies, perhaps because most literary magazines are about as interesting as fruit flies. But the Paris Review endured, partly because (founding editor George) Plimpton was great at raising money from his rich friends but mostly because his magazine was actually worth reading. ... When Plimpton died, the literary world wondered: What will happen to the Paris Review? Now we know the answer. It has gotten even better." New editor Philip Gourevitch has made some changes, but cautiously and well. Washington Post 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 4:33 am
Genre Indie Stores Hold Off Chains Less than 40 percent of books sold in America are sold by independent bookstores. But "genre stores, specializing in literature ranging from fantasy to religion, have bucked this trend by catering to inveterate and demanding readers. Booksellers in southern California, New York, Minneapolis and elsewhere are finding ways to be profitable by targeting specific markets." Yahoo! (AP) 10/08/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 5:12 pm
Indie Book Stores Fight Back Even as 200 to 300 independent bookstores close a year, the number of independent book stores opening is creeping up. "For a long time, from 1992 to 2002, you literally could count on two hands the number of openings. In the last three years there are 60, 70, 80 stores opening." Wired 10/08/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 4:56 pm
Click here for more Publishing stories...
YouTube + Google: Good For The Global Conversation YouTube, Google's newest bauble, "has at least partially succeeded in convincing established media companies that it can be a partner, and not a mortal enemy that must be destroyed. Along with the (Google) deal came a flurry of licensing announcements with the likes of CBS, Universal and Sony BMG. That doesn't mean the GoogTube Goliath will be completely immune from a swarm of copyright lawyers descending upon it like a horde of locusts. But it suggests that this new beast will survive their onslaught." Salon 10/09/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 5:38 am
Low-Budget Christian Movie Does Big Box Office A group of Southern churchgoers banded together to counter Hollywood entertainment with a movie of their own. "Now, 'Facing the Giants,' the low-budget feature film about faith and high school football they made with church donations and Bible-inspired moxie, is playing at more than 400 theaters around the country -- a gigantic release for any independent movie, let alone one created by near-novices. The movie has made $2.7 million in 10 days, and ticket sales were good enough last weekend to place it 13th in the box office rankings, one notch below 'Flyboys,' a war movie with a $60 million budget and starring James Franco." Washington Post 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 4:42 am
Nielsen To Track College Students' Viewing "Moving to assuage critics who say the TV ratings don't reflect the watching people do outside their homes, Nielsen Media Research said Monday it will start measuring the viewing habits of college students next year. It's the first time that the ratings firm will include any out-of-home viewing in its national sample. ... (The) college students whose habits will be tracked will already be members of a Nielsen family — that is, from a household where meters are installed to track which family members are watching what shows." Los Angeles Times 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 4:16 am
US Movie Chains Refuse To Show Acclaimed "Death of a Presdent" Two of America's biggest cinema chains, Regal and Cinemark, have refused to screen the controversial UK-produced Death of a President when it is released later this month. The Guardian (UK) 10/10/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 6:55 pm
GoogleTubing Google buys YouTube (not yet two years old) for $1.65 billion. Chad Hurley, YouTube’s co-founder and chief executive, has repeatedly said he would prefer for his company to remain independent. Asked about such comments in a conference call with Wall Street analysts and investors held late this afternoon, Mr. Hurley said his company did want to stay independent, adding that "by working with Google, that’s still the case." The New York Times 10/09/06
Posted: 10/09/2006 5:19 pm
Click here for more Media stories...
Choreographers, Conferring Behind Closed Doors The Springdance Dialogue, an off-year offshoot of the Springdance festival in the Netherlands, is visiting New York's Dance Theater Workshop. "The dialogues, which vary depending on participants’ resources and interests, arose in 2000 from a question: how can established organizations help young, independent choreographers — those not linked to an institution like an opera house or running a big company — maintain their artistic integrity while sustaining careers?" The New York Times 10/10/06
Posted: 10/10/2006 3:43 am
Click here for more Dance stories...
