Los Angeles is seeing a boom in tall buildings. “In all, 32 towers are on the horizon for downtown, though some still need city approval as well as financing. Twenty are considered skyscrapers because they climb more than 240 feet, or about 20 stories. From 1986 to 1992, almost two-thirds of towers 20 stories or more built in the U.S. were for office use. But recently this has really flipped. “Between 2003 and June 2005, about 84% of new towers were for residential, multifamily use — an indication of investor and consumer appetite for multifamily condo development. Luxury high-rises are what’s being demanded.”
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The Egyptian Museum’s Sorry State
“When the Egyptian Museum was built about 100 years ago, it was host to only 10,000 artifacts. The architecture was French colonial, with a lush, cozy garden and a Nile view. Today, the museum is surrounded by a concrete jungle of overpasses, skyscrapers, five-star hotels and an endless stream of cars. Moreover, it holds at least 150,000 antiquities from Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic and Islamic civilizations. The rooms in the King Tut exhibition area were brushed up and supplied with air-conditioning a few years ago. But many others still lack ventilation and humidity control, and some even have their windows open wide, allowing the noise and smoke of the streets to pour in.”
Quills – Publishers’ Pawns
The Quill Awards were supposed to enjoy some populist panache. “Designed as a kind of People’s Choice Awards to the National Book Awards’ stuffy Oscars, the Quills promise to put readers themselves in charge, ‘to reflect the tastes of the group that matters most in publishing – readers.’ A closer look at the Quill Awards, however, shows that they are really designed to serve a different constituency: publishers themselves.”
Live And Online
“In recent months there’s been an explosion on the Internet of what used to be called tape trading. This is not the illegal copying of commercially available music that is being fought by the major record companies. This is the free, generally legal exchange of fan-made concert tapes, radio broadcasts and material that was never officially released — by the Dead and just about anybody else. It’s a world that is growing daily at an exponential rate — and has its foundation in the community of tapers and traders that initially coalesced around and was nurtured by Garcia and the Grateful Dead.”
Mel Gibson Asked To Recreate Passion Live
Mel Gibson has been asked to stage the Stations of the Cross live in Sydney. “Gibson’s staging the Stations of the Cross is part of Sydney’s pitch for Catholicism’s World Youth Day, which a leading Vatican observer claims has already been secretly awarded to the city. According to bid documents sent to the Vatican and obtained by the Herald, Gibson would be asked to create the Stations of the Cross as he did in his film The Passion of the Christ.”
New Vivaldi Discovered
A Melbourne musicologist has found a piece by Vivaldi written in 1754. The find is being described as the biggest Vivaldi find in 75 years. “The work is an 11-movement Dixit Dominus based on Psalm 109 for choir and orchestra, intended to be played in church. But Dr Janice Stockigt suspects that because of a lack of additional notation on the score, this might be its first performance ever.”
When Giants Ruled The Movie Studios (And Now They’re Gone)
Many thought a decade ago that the big movie moguls of the day would be running the world by now. “They shipped billions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of millions in profit to their parent companies, but, with the notable exception of Michael Eisner, they did not have much to show for it in return. Instead of using the leverage of cash flow and profit to take over their owners, they were leaned on year after year to come up with still more. They created a new version of Hollywood, but failed to master the corporate intrigues that would let them rule not just the studio lot, but also the business world beyond.”
In Sacramento – Battle Of The Orchestras
Nine years ago the Sacramento Symphony went out of business. Now there are two orchestras competing for the affections of the city. The question: will competition be good for the orchestras, or will it dilute resources?
In Praise Of The Memoir
Genres may come an go, but the memoir is an enduring form. “The well-written memoir has continued to promote the not-entirely-outrageous view that a properly interesting life is a worthwhile thing to read about. It also plays with the notion that sometimes (just sometimes) people might want to read about a life whose values are not like theirs. More often than not, innovation comes before a fall, but not so in the memoir game, where some of the best British writing finds its audience.”
Now On Broadway (Whose Career Did I Steal?)
Totonto actor Adam Brazier wins an audition and finds himself whisked off to England to star in an Andrew Lloyd-Webber production. Then he wins the lead in ALW’s new “Woman in White” on Broadway. It’s all a little difficult to imagine, he writes, “and if you see the guy whose career I stole, tell him I’m taking it to Broadway with me.”