The “morality” wars being played out by the FCC seem to be at the instigation of a tiny minority. “If 2004 was the year the Culture War became a scene out of ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ we now know that scare tactics and chest-pounding about moral values came from the finger-clicking of a relative few and found their way up through the FCC and out of the mouth of President Bush. Just remember, you might feel like you’re in Helms Deep right now, but when you look out at the vanquishing horde of conservative watchdog goons, it’s really just a CGI illusion. Which means there’s hope in beating back the censorship rampage of a very tiny minority.”
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Judge Okays Barnes Move To Philly
“More than two years after the Barnes board, backed by a $150 million fundraising promise from three charitable foundations, petitioned the court for permission to move the collection, Montgomery County Orphans’ Court Judge Stanley Ott agreed that the Barnes needs to relocate to a more-accessible location to avoid going broke.”
Allegation: Mob-Connected Contractor Got MoMA Job
Were the walls at the new Museum of Modern Art put up by a contractor with ties to organized crime? That’s the allegation. “The firm, Interstate Drywall, has been affiliated with the family of the late John (Dapper Don) Gotti for years, according to several mob informants and public documents. Construction companies align themselves with mob families so they can get cheaper nonunion help on union jobs, and so they can intimidate other contractors from bidding against them for certain contracts, authorities say.”
Licitra Wants To Be Next Pavarotti
Salvatore Licitra has been annointed by some as the next Pavarotti. He likes the comparison: “All singers have to thank Pavarotti because he transformed opera. Everybody knows opera because of him. I hope to become like him. All singers dream of that. Pavarotti and Domingo presided over the last golden age of opera. Now opera is in a dramatic crisis. Even in Italy young people don’t care about opera. They are only interested in TV, computers, fast and easy communication. To appreciate opera you have to know it.”
Mary Poppins, Generations Removed
A new stage musical version of the Mary Poppins movie involves an unusual collaboration between songwriters removed by decades. “Richard and Robert Sherman’s songs from the original film have been joined by eight new songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. But it’s not quite as simple as that. Five of the film’s most iconic numbers – including Chim Chim Cher-ee, Feed the Birds and Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious – have been supplemented and extended, not by the older composers, but by the younger ones.”
Remembering British Ballet Roots
“The audience for ballet – between the wars, and during them too, in blacked-out studios – understood the virtue of escaping from everyday things, of vaulting over the grimy clichés of life. British ballet’s first audience knew that an hour or two in front of a blaze of talent might begin to fortify one for the blaze outside, or kindle a fire in one’s heart. It is a basic demand, but one that ballet may no longer be required to meet or even address.”
Wolfe Wins Bad Sex Award
Tom Wolfe’s new book wins a prize… but not exactly a good one. The Literary Review gave Wolfe its annual Bad Sex award Monday for his best-selling novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. Judges said the book’s sex scenes were ‘ghastly … inept ..(and) unrealistic.’ The nearly 700-page novel is set at fictional Dupont University in Pennsylvania, chronicling the bright, naive Charlotte Simmons’ entry into a hedonistic world filled with heavy drinking and casual sex.”
World’s Tallest Building Under Construction
Construction begins on what will be the world’s tallest building. It’s in Dubai and will be 160 stories. “The Burj Dubai tower will stand 800 metres tall – just 5 metres shy of half a mile – once completed in 2008. That will be nearly 300 metres taller than the tallest floored building in the world today, the Taipei Tower in Taiwan.”
Judge: Barnes Needs To Move To Save It
“Judge Stanley R. Ott of the Montgomery County Orphans’ Court said the proposed move, backed by pledges of $150 million in financial support primarily from three Philadelphia-area foundations, seemed the only realistic way to save the Barnes from bankruptcy and salvage its prized legacy.”
Manhattan Dealer Pleads Guilty To Art Forgery
A Manhattan art dealer pleads guilty to art forgery over a period of 15 years. “The government charged that Ely Sakhai had purchased genuine but lesser-known works of Gauguin and other Impressionist and modern artists, then ordered copies made by skilled forgers working from the originals. Other painters whose works were copied were Chagall, Klee, Modigliani and Renoir. Mr. Sakhai then sold the copies to private collectors, primarily in Japan and Taiwan.”