Month: May 2000

HOW TO SAVE VENICE ART?

Acid rain is eating the outdoor art of Venice. “Amputated arms, graffiti, and the black streaks caused by sulphur dioxide have marred the appearance of much Venetian sculpture, and everywhere there are examples such as Alessandro Vittoria’s statue of Saint Zaccaria on the central portal of the church, which remains faceless after its marble features disintegrated.” Some want to rescue the work by taking it inside and replacing it with copies. – The Art Newspaper

DANCING ON THE THAMES

Architect Terry Farrell designed two of London’s most flamboyant buildings on the Thames in the 1980s – the MI6 headquarters and the redesigned Charing Cross Station – then promptly fell out of favor without a single London commission in the ’90s. Now he’s got seven major London projects in the works, all for prime sites along the river, and whether or not they’re loved, they’re sure to be noticed. – The Times (UK)

DANCE AS THE BIG SHOW

The English National Ballet was Princess Diana’s favorite company. Since her death, the company has employed some “sometimes dubious tricks” to promote its Albert Hall productions. Its controversial director thinks “British ballerinas are pear-shaped and that ballet should be Albert Hall-shaped, with casts of hundreds and audiences of thousands.” – The Telegraph (London)

A TIGHTLY-GUARDED STORY

It’s been 30 years since T.S. Eliot died, but still there hasn’t been an authorized biography – that is, one written with full access to the author’s estate.  That’s because Eliot’s “fiercely loyal” widow Valerie controls all the copyrights. “If Eliot scholars want to print quotations from the poet’s work, they have to go through her – and this, by all accounts, is not at all straightforward. If Valerie does not like a critic’s line, she may well feel disinclined to grant permissions. In some cases, her refusal could scupper a scholar’s entire project.” – New Statesman

THE GRAYED AMERICAN NOVELISTS

It’s a bountiful spring for challenging American fiction. New books by Joseph Heller (posthumous) Saul Bellow (84), E.L. Doctorow (69), Philip Roth (67) and John Updike (68) are on the shelves. “Because their long-in-the-tooth novels are so creative, challenging, outrageous and well crafted, this is arguably one of the merriest seasons for American literature in decades.” – Washington Post

THE “REAL” SYLVIA PLATH

“At long last, Sylvia Plath’s uncensored journals are published. “Almost from the day she died, readers and scholars, faced with the huge, faceless enigma of her suicide, have been perplexed and thwarted by Plath’s mental condition. The unabridged journals and other new information, some of it reported here for the first time, lend credence to a little-noticed theory that Sylvia Plath suffered not just from some form of mental illness (probably manic depression) but also from severe PMS.” – Salon

REBEL TO SELL

An awful lot of indie music is turning up on commercials for luxury items these days. Why? “If selling today’s college kids on conspicuous consumption is easy, selling it to twenty- and thirty-year-olds is a trickier proposition: how to define in marketing terms a demographic which, not so long ago, defined itself in opposition to the market? The answer is simple if you grant that ironies are like submarines; dangerous only when submerged.” – Feed

AN ACTOR’S ROOTS

It’s so whorish, isn’t it, all these Hollywood actors skittering over to London to get a little legitimate stage credit under their belts? Not that that’s what Donald Sutherland’s doing, mind you. Sutherland “learned his craft in Britain. He arrived in 1952, aged 18, to study at the London Academy of Dramatic Art before going on to do a seven-year apprenticeship on almost every stage in the country. Afterwards, to hone his vocal technique, he added another year in Scotland at the Perth Repertory Theatre.” Now he’s back, starring at the Savoy. – The Guardian