“The North-South divide is the source of serious tensions in contemporary Italy, dramatized by the anti-Southern rhetoric of the Northern League. It has become a commonplace to say that Italians lack a well-defined sense of national identity. But is it true?”
Month: June 2008
The Light Goes Out Above Tate Modern
Since it opened, Tate Modern had a light at the top of the chimney rising above the museum. Now it’s suddenly gone with no explanation. “Tate describe it as a ‘temporary structure’ and insist that it was due to come down anyway (though you have to wonder how long it would have lasted were it not for the storm).”
Qatar’s Building A New Center For Classical Music. Is It Viable?
“Who will fill the lecture theatres, staff the orchestras and fill the concert halls when so few Qatar residents turn out for a concert with the biggest name in the opera business? The LPO’s Tim Walker says that on the ground, classical music is thriving. In Dubai alone 25,000 people are learning musical instruments. There’s a private music school with 90 students, and there are excellent music stores. We will also be helping to train orchestral players. A viable musical life in the Gulf is possible.”
The Problem With Lit Critics?
“They prefer to patrol boundaries rather than venture into the no-man’s-land of hybridity. If culture is often war by other means, we are finally witnessing a truce in one longstanding conflict: that between so-called elite and mass cultures. Skirmishes do continue.” Comics, for example…
Byron Janis At 80
Van Cliburn might have gotten all the attention after his Tchailowsky Competition win in 1958. But Byron Janis made his mark in the Soviet Union in subsequent years…
British Government Gives Away Two Million Books
“With a projected investment of £4m, up from £2.87m last year, the programmes administered by Booktrust will deliver some 2m books to children aged 4-5, and 11-12.”
New York’s New Architecture Stars
“Ben van Berkel’s Five Franklin Place takes the glass-box condo and ties it up in sinuous ribbons of black metal. Frank Gehry drapes the Beekman Tower’s 76 stories in voluptuous folds of stainless steel. More is to come from Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind and Jean Nouvel. These are not just emblems of confidence in the New York market. They also express faith in architecture that strives for significance.”
Charles Wuorinen Talks About His Brokeback Mountain Opera, Music
“I think my attitude is that I stand against a kind of pandering in the arts which I think is very destructive in the long run and has the characteristics of confusing high culture and popular culture and has the result of damaging both. Over the years I haven’t deviated much from my principal. I’ve been criticized for not going along with the flow, but I am not going to change my fundamental values because they have become less widely held than they used to be.”
Question Of The Year: Has The eBook Finally Arrived?
“Could Amazon.com’s seven-month-old wireless e-book reader – a rectangular wonder in antique iPod white, able to download any of 125,000 books adapted to its format – be the tipping point that marks the decline and fall of the paper book?”
A Female British Poet Laureate? Nah! (No One Wants It)
“But hopes that the 10-year tenure, whose previous incumbents have included Ted Hughes and John Betjeman, could go to a woman look set to be dashed. Almost none of the leading female poets are interested in the position.”