“Thus the death of Borges’s father and Naipaul’s father left space clear for the sons to work. They would only have powerful ghosts rather than real presences looking over their shoulders, ghosts whom they could dismiss at will. Like Picasso, whose father was a failed painter, or William James, whose father was a failed essayist, they could compensate for their fathers’ failure, while killing off the fathers’ indolent influence.”
Month: February 2012
Art Meets Agriculture In Rural California
“Yolo County’s ‘Art & Ag Project’ … has artists interacting with farmers at their farms and creating artwork. [The National Endowment for the Arts program] ArtPlace has given YoloArts $63,000 this year, as part of the first year of the project in which $11.5 million was doled out to 34 locally initiated projects.”
How Should One Dispose Of A Quran, Anyway?
“Violent protests have raged outside Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan for two days after local workers found the burned remains of more than 100 Qurans in a pile of garbage from the base. What’s the proper way to dispose of a Quran?”
Obama Sings The Blues, And A Music Critic Opines
Jon Pareles: “Blues singing is part oratory, and after a faltering start on Tuesday, Mr. Obama declaimed his lines with adequate warmth and gusto. … But performing in public – especially in the YouTube era – means that an amateur faces comparison to professionals, while the choice of repertory also gets scrutinized. And should the head of state be taking time away from the job to practice?”
Marina Abramovic Will Teach People How To Watch Performance Art
“How do you watch long performance art? There are many things they have to understand about concentration and contemplation. How do you see something when nothing is happening? It’s really difficult. I will make work and exercises for the public, and I call it the Abramovic method. You hear of Stanislavski method for theatre? This is the time for Abramovic method.”
African American Museum Breaks Ground In DC
“An ordinary sales slip consigning a young woman to slavery is among the chilling items that will be displayed at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.”
Rethinking The Suburb
“Today’s suburb has little to do with the outwardly tidy, seething, monochrome world of Updike or Revolutionary Road. It’s got its own new set of dysfunctions: boarded windows and weedy lawns, acres of sparsely used parking lots flanking clogged roads, immigrant workers jamming by the dozen into houses conceived for the Cleavers, household food budgets eaten up at the gas pump. Then there are all the old urban ills of poverty, violence, drugs, and racial friction, which have migrated to places that were designed for escaping them.”
The New Getty Museum Chief’s Salary
According to a compensation disclosure dated Feb. 14 and published on the Getty website, his base salary is $690,000, and this year he also will receive a signing bonus of $150,000.
The Case For A New York City Opera
We remember the “old, scrappy, ambitious days of City Opera, when there was nowhere else in New York to hear standard-repertory operas with young American singers at low prices. Now, American singers work in houses all over the U.S. and Europe, and you can hear a better cast at a Met HD transmission for $25. As for staging new and unusual work, if it’s “Prima Donna,” then why bother? City Opera will have to come up with a more compelling artistic profile if it is going to survive.”
Why The Oscars Matter
“It’s a TV show. Television is the reason movies get made and watched, and TV is the only reason anybody cares about them. Why was the awards show moved from its traditional March date to February? To put it into the February TV sweeps period. That’s why.”