Four years ago, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra was “desperately in need of intensive care, after a five-week strike and a series of administrative setbacks put the orchestra (whose current budget is around $7-million) nearly $900,000 in the hole in one season. It had no music director and no great prospects for finding one. The ESO itself is having a pretty good time these days. It has an energetic new leader, ticket sales are hitting record levels, and a string of balanced budgets has tamed a once-fearsome accumulated deficit.”
Blog
Hollywood’s Political Squeeze
Why can’t Hollywood make politically relevant movies? Well, it can. “In the past six months, the movie business has offered an astounding outpouring of provocative, socially relevant films, some of which will be among today’s Oscar nominees. But while these films have all enjoyed plaudits from film critics, the response from op-ed writers, bloggers and columnists has been, with rare exception, somewhere between scorn and disgust.”
Nam June Paik’s TV World
“Paik’s career spanned half a century, three continents and several art mediums, ranging through music, theater and found-object art. He once built his own robot. But his chief means of expression was television, which he approached with a winning combination of visionary wildness, technological savvy and high entertainment values. His work could be kitschy, visually dazzling and profound, sometimes all at once, and was often irresistibly funny and high-spirited.”
In NYC – An Uninspired Conventioneer
A huge planned expansion of New York City’s Javits Convention Center isn’t urban architecture at its most inspired. Partly it reflects the failure of large government projects. “Although Richard Rogers’s design is more promising than, say, the defunct Jets stadium proposal ever was, it reflects a narrow view of how cities grow. For the time being, bold urban planning remains a chimera here.”
The New Film Schools Are Trade Schools
“Rather than a breeding ground for auteurs, film school — and there are now some 114 colleges that offer a major in film studies, according to the College Board — has become a path to a professional career in Hollywood, a foot in the door and a place to make connections. With the announcements of this year’s Oscar nominations due Tuesday morning, U.S.C. boasts on its Web site that at least one alumnus has been nominated for an Academy Award every year since 1973.”
Remembering Wendy Wasserstein
“Although it was always laced with comedy, her work was also imbued with an abiding sadness, a cleareyed understanding that independence can beget loneliness, that rigorous ideals and raised consciousnesses are not always good company at the dinner table. But she shared her compassion among a wide array of characters, those who settled and those who continued to search.”
Fo Faces Milan Voters In Mayoral Quest
Nobel-prize-winning playwright Dario Fo casts his vote in his attempt to be elected mayor of Milan. “The 79-year-old satirist, who has never before held public office, arrived with his actor wife Franca Rame to cast his vote at one of 124 polling stations open across the city. Repeating his campaign slogan: ‘I am not a moderate,’ the centre-left candidate said he was hopeful of winning the primary against three other candidates.”
Why Frey’s Memoir Lies Matter
“Addicts and alcoholics are desperate vulnerable people; if you’re going to offer them a way out, you’d better be certain it works. But how can you be, if you haven’t walked the path? The reader reviews for Frey’s book on Amazon contain this nugget: ‘I’ve been to four funerals in the last 12 months. One of them was a guy who dropped out of AA/NA after reading Frey’s crap – before it had been exposed as a fraud. He decided to follow Frey’s advice … He lasted about three months before he got high again. He was dead two months after that’.”
Museum Visitor Trips, Shatters Chinese Vases
At the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, “an unfortunate visitor tripped over his shoelace and fell on to three Qing dynasty vases, shattering them. The vases had been placed – rather optimistically, perhaps – on a windowsill on a staircase.”
Plymouth Officials Condemn Springer
City elders in Plymouth, England have joined forces to condemn a production of Jerry Springer, The Opera. “The show has been at the centre of a storm of protest since the BBC broadcast a televised version in January last year. The corporation received a record 63,000 complaints. In light of the controversy, the show’s national tour was postponed. Only last week, Springer’s producers blamed continuing protests by Christian groups, and by the British National Party, for poor ticket sales in the run-up to the now-revived tour.”