In Philip Roth’s latest novel, aviator and Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh defeats FDR for the U.S. presidency, and a nightmare scenario of American anti-Semitism unfolds. It’s fiction, of course, but the Lindbergh character is based on a very real human being, and the book is raising eyebrows in his home state of Minnesota. Lindbergh is held up as a local hero in Minnesota – the airport is even named after him – and many locals aren’t keen to be reminded of the more sordid details of his life. But the book is providing an opportunity for the state to reexamine its own prejudices, and its devotion to a man who was not always what he seemed.
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Ducking Responsibility
Philip Roth’s decision to write a fable of American politics and hate was less about surface prejudice than it was about every human being’s capacity to ignore the suffering of others. “The deepest reward in the writing and what lends the story its pathos wasn’t the resurrection of my family circa 1941 but the invention of the family downstairs, of the tragic Wishnows, on whom the full brunt of the anti-Semitism falls – the invention particularly of the Wishnows’ little boy, Seldon, that nice, lonely little kid in your class whom you run away from when you’re yourself a kid because he demands to be befriended by you in ways that another child cannot stand. He’s the responsibility that you can’t get rid of.”
Munch Investigation At A Dead End
Despite a steady flow of tips, consultations with international art experts, and a continual media focus, police in Oslo say that they have made no progress in tracking down Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which was stolen at gunpoint in late August. There are currently no suspects and no leads, and the thieves have made no attempt to ransom the painting.
A House Divided
“Lawyers for the estate of author John Steinbeck’s widow are seeking to quash a lawsuit begun by his other relatives over royalties and copyright. Steinbeck’s son, Thomas Steinbeck, and granddaughter Blake Smyle are suing the late Elaine Steinbeck’s estate for at least $18 million. They are also seeking greater control of Steinbeck’s classic novels.”
Sacramento Symphony Exec Quits, Charges Unethical Accounting
The executive director of the organization that oversees the newly formed Sacramento Symphony has resigned, and is accusing the Metropolitan Music Center of mismanaging funds and playing fast and loose with business ethics. Rachel Lewis also insists that she never signed the musicians’ checks which bounced following the orchestra’s opening concert, and further claims that she tried to convince the MMC to cancel the concert due to a shortage of funds for payroll. The MMC’s board of directors is vehemently denying all of Lewis’s charges.
An Organization Built On Lies?
Questions about the ethics and business practices of the Sacramento Symphony and its parent organization were first raised two weeks ago, when a newspaper investigation concluded that the MMC was “falsely claiming association with several prominent artists and support from local businesses and organizations.”
People Will Listen, If You Teach Them How
The newly rekindled San Antonio Symphony held an outdoor concert last week aimed at the city’s Hispanic population, and (almost) nobody came. Yes, it was a broiling-hot day, but Mike Greenberg suggests that the SAS may be trying to attract new audience members without making a real commitment to the most basic audience-building technique. “A Mexican American doesn’t have to make any more of a cultural ‘leap’ to the symphony than does a German or Polish or Italian American… [But] to build an audience for the long term, the symphony needs to take a long-term view of its educational and outreach missions, and I don’t think it’s done that very well.”
Seriously Deep Music
Shaft Chamber No. 41 is not a particularly glamorous name for a concert hall, but for the Donbass Symphony Orchestra, the cavernous shaft sunk 200 meters deep in a salt mine in eastern Ukraine made a fine space for its debut concert. “Instead of cocktail dresses and dinner jackets, most of the audience were dressed in winter coats. The temperature underground was a chilly 14 degrees Celsius.”
As Opposed To How We Perceive Designers Now?
James Dyson’s resignation from the leadership of London’s Design Museum may have seemed like little more than an internal debate over direction writ large, but to hear Dyson tell it, nothing less than the future of the design industry is at stake. “If design museums shy away from explaining the guts of design, he worries, the next generation will perceive the designer as ‘little more than the creator of ineffectual ornaments.’ And what’s left of Western industrial manufacturing will spiral into decline.”
Hurston/Wright Awards Announced
Art and literature are supposed to be color-blind, of course, but there’s no escaping the fact that the vast majority of literary prizes are presented by white people to white people. Thus the necessity of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, which annually honor the best of black literature. This year’s prizes were handed out last week: “In the debut fiction category, Purple Hibiscus, the story of a Nigerian teenager growing up in a rich and troubled family, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; in nonfiction, In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. by Wil Haygood; and in the fiction category, Hunting in Harlem, the tale of three ex-cons in contemporary New York, by Mat Johnson.”