Boston is known as a city where patronage and politics travel hand in hand, but still, many in the Hub’s arts community were surprised and bemused when longtime Mayor Tom Menino appointed a political ally with no arts experience to head Boston’s Office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events. But some say that, in a city like Boston, what the arts community really needs is an advocate who knows the area’s political labyrinth inside out, and can negotiate from a position of strength.
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Is Shanghai About To Lose Its Modernist Face?
Shanghai is experiencing a building boom like few other cities have ever seen, and within a few years, the entire city will be utterly transformed. “Many feel, though, that what Shanghai is losing is even more vital than what it will gain. Shanghai was China’s first, and remains its most distinctive, experiment in modern urbanism, and conservationists say that much of what made it so special in the last century will soon fall victim to the wrecking ball.”
The Man Who Gave Beckett To America
Nearly everyone knows the name Samuel Beckett, whose centenary is being observed this year. But how many avid fans of Beckett’s plays remember the name Barney Rossett? “It was Mr. Rosset, alive and well at 83 and living on Fourth Avenue, who discovered the Irish novelist and playwright, for Americans, more than half a century ago.” Rossett, a publisher, paid Beckett a $150 advance for the American rights to Waiting For Godot, which quickly sold over a million copies in the 1950s. “Grove Press and Mr. Rosset became famous, not just for championing Beckett in this country but also for introducing Eugène Ionesco, Harold Pinter and Jean Genet to American readers.”
Fired Orchestra Chief Forces Bankruptcy
Six years ago, Joseph Rescigno was fired from his position as artistic director of Orchestre Metropolitain du Grand Montreal. “Rescigno sued for lost salary, moving expenses, defamation of character and moral damages. The Quebec Superior Court ruled in Rescigno’s favour in 2003 and this year the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld the lower court judgment in January. The orchestra now owes Rescigno more than $250,000. Early last week, demands for payment escalated. Letters of seizure were sent to the orchestra’s bank,” and the organization filed for bankruptcy protection. A benefit concert raised $200,000 for the orchestra, but like the rest of the orchestra’s assets, that money can’t be touched until the dispute with Rescigno is settled.
Rocks Are Now Art (Or So The Price Tag Says)
“A meteorite believed to have come from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter has sold for $93,000 (U.S.) at an auction of rare space sculptures. The 355-pound chunk of iron, thousands of years old and discovered in the Campo del Cielo crater field in Argentina, was one of 10 meteorites that went for high prices at a Bonhams New York natural-history auction. Known by its place of discovery as the ‘Valley of the Sky’ meteorite, the pristine item was purchased Tuesday by a private collector in the United States who bid by phone and plans to display it as a work of art.”
Remembering Russes
A new documentary traces the history and legacy of the world-famous Ballet Russes, and actually brings together some of the company’s original stars for the first time in decades. “The extraordinary film splices interviews with the surviving dancers with original 16mm footage of performances and nervous, gossipy backstage moments and more than 400 archive stills, gathered from the dancers’ private collections and from trawls on eBay, which produced every Ballets Russes programme from 1933-62.”
Spacey Strikes Back
Kevin Spacey isn’t taking the latest blasts from the London press lying down. Despite the early closure of his latest production at the Old Vic, Spacey insists that audiences love what he’s doing, and accuses the city’s notoriously sharp-tongued critics of having it in for him. “In the end, Spacey is confronted by two dilemmas. One is the celebrity trap of which he is both beneficiary and victim. The other is the anachronistic position of the Old Vic in the modern world.”
Need A Second Source? Try Orwell.
There are times when a regular observer of journalism wonders what authors ever did before George Orwell came along to provide them with enough platitudes and philosophies to support whatever they happened to be writing about on a given day. Catherine Bennett suggests that Orwell has perhaps surpassed Jesus as everyone’s favorite quote machine. “In fact, to look at the places where his wisdom has been invoked recently is to wonder if there is anyone, excepting Stalinists, who would not think better of an opinion knowing it to be one that Orwell endorsed, or would have done had he ever got the chance to hear about it.”
Lending All Well And Good, But Ownership Questions Not Going Away
“A circumcision mask from western Kenya and a headdress made from human hair from Uganda are among 140 artefacts from the British Museum that have gone on show in Nairobi – the first time the museum has lent objects to Africa. But the exhibition has sparked debate about whether such objects should be returned to their home countries for good.”
The Manhood Problem
There was a time when everyone pretty much knew what it meant to be a man, to the extent that anyone even asking the question would probably have earned a quizzical look. These days, manliness is as nebulous as concepts come, and Justin Davidson says that “masculinity is being constantly renegotiated, and men find themselves walking an invisible line, where self-assurance spills into arrogance, aggressiveness into bellicosity, stoic fortitude into cold indifference, sexual assertiveness into rapaciousness.”