Members of the Swiss parliament are furious over an art exhibit at the Swiss Cultural Center in Paris that criticizes democracy in Switzerland and attacks the country’s minister of justice and police. “Last week, after 10 days of furious debate, the Swiss Parliament slashed $1.1 million from the $38.9 million annual budget of Pro Helvetia, the government-financed cultural foundation that owns the Swiss Cultural Center. Legislators on the right also demanded the resignation of Michel Ritter, the center’s director, who invited Mr. Hirschhorn to show his work here.”
Blog
Broadway’s A Bust So Far This Year
“Look at the shows that have opened so far in the 2004-05 season, and you see a sea of revivals and stand-up comedy. There was a time when it was thrilling to see classics reinterpreted, reconceived or rediscovered. But for the most part many of the dusted-off shows are museum pieces. This would be fine if they were surrounded by other productions of new plays and musicals. But at season’s midpoint, anything that doesn’t have a pre-sold brand name of some kind might as well head straight for regional theater hills (not that we’re facing a renaissance of nationwide creativity there either).”
Israel Museum’s Prized Pomegranate Is Fake
“The Israel Museum has discovered that the most important item in its priceless collection of biblical antiquities is a fake. An ivory pomegranate originally thought to have adorned a sceptre carried by the high priest in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem is to be withdrawn from public exhibition. The withdrawal of the pomegranate, which was on display during an exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Civilization last year, is the latest in a series of embarrassing scandals which have rocked the quiet but high-spending world of antiquities collectors.”
Alice Munro At 73
Alice Munro’s latest book is set to be her most successful yet. The reviews are rapturous, and it’s selling well. “So late in life,” she admits, it has occurred to her to stop writing. Working on Runaway, Munro was tempted by the idea, she says, of becoming a “normal person.” It hasn’t come down to that yet, because, for one thing, she thinks her best work is still ahead of her. “This, of course, is a fallacy that probably keeps you going,” she says
Poetic Justice – What’s A Poet Laureate To Do?
California is looking for a new poet laureate, joining 35 states that have designated poets. But what, if anything, does the job entail? “These jobs come with almost no job description and little if any pay, so we start from scratch and decide what we want to do and how to do it.”
Departure Puts Chicago Lyric Opera Back Into The Pack
Matthew Epstein’s departure from Chicago Lyric Opera won’t affect the company’s day-to-day operations much. But the experienced administrator brought a forward-thinking style that set the company apart. “Epstein’s departure at Lyric leaves no leading American opera company except David Gockley’s Houston Grand Opera with a bold artistic visionary among its top administrators. Everybody else is taking a cautious line and blaming artistic reticence on a sputtering economy.”
America’s Disappearing Music
Rarities of American music are disappearing because care isn’t being taken to preserve old movies, recordings and sheet music. “The irony is that original artifacts are vanishing, but the golden era of American song is enjoying a comeback. New recordings of old standards by Rod Stewart and other artists have sold millions of copies, and record companies are forever reissuing classic albums. Songs made famous by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Billie Holiday provide nostalgic soundtracks for films, sitcoms and television commercials.”
The Email Mystery
A new book is published over the internet in the form of a series of emails. “Those who order the book receive 98 e-mail messages during a three-week period from a sender identified as “e-mail mystery.” Readers are then treated to the voyeuristic experience of reading Sam’s correspondence. As the plot thicken and Sam’s life is threatened, e-mails arrive in a sudden flurry. Then, just when readers worry about Sam’s safety, they have to wait for an update.”
The Digital Book (And What It Won’t Remember)
The drive to digitize every book is a good thing, right? It will make information more easily available to more people. And yet, digital records fail to include some of the traditional book’s essential information. “The book as we know it carries within itself something more concrete: its own archeology. Dependent on ever-changing technology, e-books are relatively ephemeral; and although this need not be so, they tend to obscure their own origins and inner workings. Seeking to tame the ghosts of the past, the digital future may end up erasing its own history.”
Culture At War – The Year Pop Culture Was Politics
“The past 12 months put forth two faces because American entertainment was riven by partisan politics and the culture wars emanating from them. We saw all the symptoms of split personality play out every day on our TVs, DVDs, CD racks, bookshelves, and movie screens, in reds and blues that rarely blended into a peaceful and Princely purple. Even the most benign of pop provocations — a metal-clad aureole, stage prattle from Linda Ronstadt, ”Saving Private Ryan” — were transformed into politically divisive events analyzed relentlessly on talk radio.”