“Montreal writer Rawi Hage has won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his debut novel De Niro’s Game… The topicality of this year’s prize may be judged from the fact that three of the eight short-listed novels dealt with the Middle East, two of them being concerned directly with the Israeli Arabs.”
Author: sbergman
California Museum Faces Damning Audit
“A new city audit released this week raises thorny questions about management of the Long Beach Museum of Art, including what it calls the improper spending of $1.6 million in restricted funds earmarked to pay off bonds for the museum’s $6.5-million expansion.” Some of the museum’s collection is also said to be missing…
Will Tonys Be Less Predictable Than We All Think?
“Everybody on Broadway’s been complaining about how boring and predictable this year’s Tony Awards are going to be. And yet, if you look closely at your Shubert Alley tea leaves, you can discern the makings of an upset or two.”
Smoking For The Arts
Nearly a million dollars from Cleveland’s new cigarette tax for the arts will be distributed to 54 area cultural groups this year, officials say. “Cigarette buyers in Cuyahoga County will help pay for a summer arts program for 1,000 young people in neighborhood parks as well as outdoor concerts in University Circle.”
Guitarist Red Shea, 70
“Renowned Canadian guitarist Laurice Milton “Red” Shea, who helped define the groundbreaking musical styles of legendary Canadian folk artists Gordon Lightfoot and Ian and Sylvia Tyson and others, died Tuesday morning after being diagnosed two weeks ago with pancreatic cancer. He was 70.”
T.O.’s CityTV Shuts Down Speaker’s Corner
A Toronto TV station is pulling the plug on the city’s Speaker’s Corner, a street-corner video booth where, for the last 20 years, anyone could step in and rant on camera, with select commentaries airing on the channel. Everyone from Prime Minister Jean Chretien to the Barenaked Ladies (the band, not actual naked ladies) has utilized the corner’s unique public access.
Laughter Is The Harshest Medicine For Pols
Plenty of Americans will turn to names like Stewart and Colbert over the next few months and enjoy watching our politicians get skewered. But most of us wouldn’t admit to actually being influenced in our political thinking by simple bits of satire. Still, “a chorus of comic monologues can move the political needle with viewers, voters and a not-so-infallible media.”
Guggenheim, Hermitage To Collaborate In Vilnius
“Lithuania’s government Wednesday approved the construction of a new museum in its capital, Vilnius, a joint project between the Baltic state, Russia’s renowned Hermitage museum and America’s Guggenheim… The museum is due to open in 2013, in a building designed by the acclaimed Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid.”
The Music Experiment You’ve Forgotten About
“Of all the strange and short-lived periods in the history of experimental music in New York, no wave is perhaps the strangest and shortest-lived… It was a cacophonous, confrontational subgenre of punk rock, Dadaist in style and nihilistic in attitude. It began around 1976, and within four years most of the original bands had broken up.”
Profile Of The 21st Century Artist
“More Americans identify their primary occupation as artist than as lawyer, doctor, police officer or farm worker… Drawing from the census, the [National Endowment for the Arts] has compiled what it bills as the first nationwide profile of professional artists in the 21st century.”