The two sides in the 8-week-old St. Louis Symphony work stoppage are still wrangling, but mediated negotiating sessions very nearly produced a deal last week. The SLSO’s president has claimed in the press that new musician demands derailed the deal at the last minute, but the musicians’ chief negotiator has been speaking with ArtsJournal blogger Drew McManus, and he says that it was the management that reneged on an agreed-to framework, leaving the two sides stalemated a mere $4000 apart.
Blog
Climate Change A Threat To Historic Houses?
The National Trust for Scotland is one of more than two dozen groups that have united in a campaign aimed at winning politicians to the cause of cutting global climate change. The Trust “is concerned that many of the 120 properties it has responsibility for could be at risk from violent storms, rising sea levels and a dramatic change in temperatures that will devastate wildlife and cause extensive damage to buildings.”
No Laughing At The Narrators (Until They Leave The Room)
“As a researcher at Recorded Books, the audiobook publisher, Paul Topping hunts for precise pronunciations of foreign expressions, medical maladies and obscure geographical and biological names.” His job also requires that he keep from laughing when narrators ask him how to pronounce much simpler words. “Proper pronunciation is serious business among audiobook publishers, who are enjoying double-digit sales growth in an otherwise stagnant publishing industry. When reviewers hear gaffes, they let it rip.”
Appreciating Thompson, The Outraged Observer
“Hunter S. Thompson died on Sunday, alone with a gun in his kitchen in Woody Creek, Colo. In doing so, he added heft to a legend that came to obscure his gifts as one of journalism’s most influential practitioners. Somewhere beneath the cartoon – he was Uncle Duke in the Doonesbury strip, of course, but Bill Murray inked him well in the 1980 film ‘Where the Buffalo Roam’ – and a lifestyle dominated by a long and sophisticated romance with drugs, Mr. Thompson managed to change the course of American journalism.”
Aboriginal Music Goes Industrial
“An industry group dedicated to Canada’s aboriginal music scene was launched at the East Coast Music Conference and Awards over the weekend.” The National Aboriginal Recording Industry Association already has “more than 100 founding members, including ‘movers and shakers within aboriginal music.'”
Scots Plea For Architectural Mercy Killing
“When the makers of a new Channel 4 series on Britain’s ugliest buildings invited viewers to nominate the eyesore they would most like to see demolished they were hardly prepared for a request to flatten an entire town. But civic pride appears to be truly dead and buried in Cumbernauld, a 1950s creation that is home to 52,000 souls 15 miles northeast of Glasgow. Its residents were among the first to contact the programme, begging for dynamite and bulldozer to deliver them oblivion.” The town’s design won architectural awards in the brutalist-besotted 1970s, but the 2003 “Idler’s Book of Crap Towns” called Cumbernauld the second-worst place to live in the UK.
Milan Gets Its Groove Back
Stagnant since the 1970s, Milan is in the midst of a revitalization that transforms its old industrial sites and sets it up to compete with Paris and Barcelona. “Now, as the city comes to terms with its post-industrial future, a new layer is about to be added to the city bringing in some of the greatest names in 21st-century architecture – Daniel Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki, Massimiliano Fuksas, Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli.” Leading the way is Fuksas’ new Milan Fiera complex, set to open April 2.
Where Are The New Collectors?
Disposable income has increased substantially in Britain, but changes in the ways people spend their money have left the art-and-antiques trade scrambling to find buyers. “The truth is that although many people have money to spare, most are not spending it on art and antiques in the way that perhaps their parents and almost certainly their grandparents would have done. Business at the top end of the art market is still brisk, yet there are problems further down the price scale…. There are fewer collectors.”
Reality-TV Wrecking Ball: The People’s Architecture Critic
If its citizens have their way, an entire town could be destroyed in a new reality-television series, “Demolition,” coming this fall on Britain’s Channel 4. “The series is asking for suggestions of eyesores to be put to death, provoking outrage from many architects. … Of course, it is a bit trite to apply makeover-television ethics to the landscape. But perhaps this series will highlight the inadequacies of a British planning system that so excludes the public.”
Hollywood’s Dirty Little Military Secret
Not much is spoken about the cozy relationship between Hollywood and the American military. “All a producer needs do for assistance, it seems, is submit five copies of his script to the Pentagon for approval, make whatever script changes the Pentagon suggests, film the script exactly as approved by the Pentagon and preview the finished product for Pentagon officials before it’s shown to its broader audience. And many do this gladly. It is Hollywood’s dirtiest little secret, and the long-term effect on generations of young Americans is an unknown. How many of those killed in Iraq died because they joined up after they saw what was presented in a film?”