“The use of an arts grant to fund what was more like a business development project has meant that the collection of world-class recordings has been funded for both its operating costs (such as hiring musicians) and capital costs (such as acquiring studio recording equipment) by the government, yet finished up in private hands.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Composer Blocks Slumdog Millionaire Musical From Using Film’s Hit Song
“If an executive producer for 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire pushes forward with a musical adaptation sans Academy-Award-winning director Danny Boyle, then the film’s composer” – A.R. Rahman – “will tighten his grip on ‘Jai Ho,’ the song that also scored two Oscars, in protest.”
Why Do ‘Artists’ Vandalize Picassos? (To Get Noticed, Probably)
Four decades ago Tony Shalfrazi – then an artist, now an art dealer – walked into MoMA and spray-painted on Guernica. A couple of weeks ago, art student Uriel Landeros went to the Menil Collection and stencilled his own “addition” onto Woman in a Red Armchair – and Artinfo subsequently decided to publish a review (very favorable) of Landeros’s portfolio.
New Yorker Copy Editors And The F-Word (Or Is It “F” Word?)
“Nothing is so debilitating to a copy editor as having to lavish care on illiterate tweets laced with obscenities. … There should be a detox facility for proofreaders who have undergone this kind of extreme experience.”
Why Do Some Arts Institutions Expand Too Fast? Because Everyone Else Does It
“Set in Stone,” a new study out of the University of Chicago, ” finds that many institutions recently expanded their buildings in part because everyone else had. Other reasons that organizations will build too much are overambitious trustees, self-interested architects and unrealistic financial projections.”
US National Symphony Adds Oman To Its Tour Plans
“The orchestra announced plans Tuesday to perform at the new Royal Opera House Muscat in February 2013. It will be the first major American symphony to perform there.”
British Equity Says Publicly Funded Theatres Have Too Few Female Roles
“Too many plays performed in theatres subsidised by the taxpayer are dominated by male roles, with female actors often struggling to find work … The union has sent out letters to 43 artistic directors of subsidised theatre companies highlighting the need for better employment of women in the theatre and asking for their plans to improve the situation.”
The Next Vagina Monologues? Eve Ensler Has A New Testimonial Play
Emotional Creature, to open Off-Broadway in November, will feature six young actresses “perform[ing] monologues, stories, and songs that render the pressures and rites of passages of growing up female in disparate cultures.”
How Nora Ephron Became The Problem
Janet Maslin: “When Nora Ephron wrote about her early aspiration to be the only lady at the table, the sharpest wit in the room, she called this her ‘Dorothy Parker problem.’ … Dorothy Parker set an example for scathingly smart female journalists of Ms. Ephron’s generation, but Ms. Ephron’s five-decade-long career outdid that. It’s now the Nora Ephron problem instead.”
How Did Our Remote Buttons Get So Completely Out Of Control?
“Imagine if there were a separate door for each shelf of your refrigerator, and each of those doors had its own combination lock. That’s the state of the modern entertainment center, and the hand-held devices we use to manipulate it. The remote control was supposed to make life easier, but instead it’s led us into a labyrinth of bad design. How did we get here, and where are we going?” (There are, in fact, answers to those questions.)