A Taipei official has pledged to make the city “the cultural city of the Asia-Pacific,” beginning with a year-long arts festival of work from 10 nearby countries. “The Europeans know their neighbors well – they learn each others’ languages, histories, and literature and they work together to form a cultural power house. Someday, perhaps, our children will not only learn English and French and German but also confidently speak Vietnamese and Korean, read Sanskrit and write Chinese.” – China Times (Taiwan) 10/31/00
Month: October 2000
DEFINING THE ARTS
At a forum on the future of the arts, Australian artists launch “a withering attack on the government, the arts media, populism and the boards of the performing arts companies. One cited the image of Nicky Webster’s ‘Dream’ at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics as a metaphor for a bland and hypocritical culture that says it embraces diversity but does otherwise. ‘You cannot present to the world your culture as the dream of a white 10-year-old school girl’.” – The Age (Melbourne) 10/31/00
FAIR PLAY
What are the elements that make a successful world’s fair? The Hannover World’s Fair is about to end. “No one will consider it one of the best, despite the unexpected increase in attendance over the last few weeks and although paying visitors were always more impressed than the critics who received complimentary tickets.”- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
AN EXPENSIVE WOBBLY BRIDGE
There are more engineers studying how to fix the wobble in Norman Foster’s Millennium footbridge across the Thames than there are people who have been to the Millennium Dome. “Yet the £5 million currently quoted for a remedy to the famous wobble is a colossal sum compared both to the original estimate of £9 million and the much increased ‘final’ figure of £18 million. – The Times (UK)
THE UNFORTUNATE LOT OF POETS
As a parent, one of my greatest fears is having my children tell me they’ve decided to be poets. Is there one profession in the world that offers less chance to generate an income? Perhaps repairing Beta video recorders.” – Sydney Morning Herald
THREE STRIKES AND…YOU’RE STILL NOT OUT
Organizers of a Metropolitan Opera gala had to scramble when Cecilia Bartoli pulled out because of laryngitis. Then her replacement pulled out. And then… – New York Times
THE MUSIC TO COME
In a demonstration of the new data-transmission capabilities of Internet2, a conference in Atlanta today will “allow musicians from across the U.S. to perform together over the Web. At the Atlanta conference, Dr. Karl Sievers of the University of Oklahoma will play trumpet while the rest of his brass quintet accompanies him – via Internet2 video conferencing – from the university.” – Sonicnet.com
AIN’T THAT RICH
“By 1993, when he ended his thirteen years as the chief drama critic for the New York Times, Frank Rich had come to be known as ‘the Butcher of Broadway,’ but the Frank Rich that emerges in the pages of his new memoir is far more Dalmatian than Cruella De Vil.” – New York Magazine
WHO IS SYLVIA?
For all the fascination with Sylvia Plath’s life after she died, in truth, “she was boring. Not stretches of emptiness punctuated by tragedy, like a made-for-TV movie, but dull in precisely the way everyday life is: full of waiting for mail, love, something to happen.” – Feed
THE GRAVES BUSINESS
“In the 1980s, Graves became the darling of postmodernist architecture. Then he designed a tea kettle for Alessi, with a bird on the spout, that became an icon of sophisticated home design. Today, he is a self-proclaimed ‘old fogey’ who designs toasters for Target – and, by the way, more buildings than ever.” – The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)