“Modern Greece may indeed be a last-minute culture, as so many Athenians have claimed in the rocky run-up to the Games. But in the case of the New Acropolis Museum, unlike the rest of the Athens 2004 construction projects, no amount of accelerated effort could get the job done. Today, the New Acropolis Museum remains little more than a series of foundation pilings. And the majority of the contentious sculptures they were to hold, a series of exquisitely sculpted marble friezes that once adorned the Parthenon, remain in the British Museum.”
Blog
Sex Sells (Even Classical Music)
How about a little sex appeal when marketing classical musicians? “It’s useless to be shocked by such tactics, and the shock, by today’s standards, is pretty mild. You’d page right past these photographs in a fashion magazine ad without even pausing. Sex appeal has been propelling stars for a century — and, for that matter, classical stars for longer than that.”
Are Today’s Novelists Undermining Fiction?
New Republic critic James Wood is famously harsh on contemporary post-modernist fiction: “Part of my anxiety and unease about novels by Foster Wallace, Franzen, and others is that they have swallowed a great deal of journalism, sociology, and cultural studies, which means they are no longer doing something that’s not replaceable that another medium can’t do as well or better. . . . I am accused of being too harsh, but the critic’s job is to look at the threats, the menaces to literature.”
MPR Swallows WCAL
What will the sale of the small classical music station WCAL to Minnesota Public Radio mean? “WCAL is no ordinary radio station, even among its classical genre peers. With WCAL in the house you can wake up to the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet one day and duo harpists the next. Hosts explain and present bassoon concertos and string quartets, early music and contemporary, lute solos and choral works (whole pieces, not just snippets!) — and feature performers as varied as the Estonian National Male Choir and Yo-Yo Ma. This freshness comes from a commitment to taking programming risks, and they have the talent to pull it off.”
Why Idol Works As Theatre
Theatre critic Richard Ouzounian wonders why, when “all of our playhouses — in Toronto, Stratford and Niagara — have lots of empty seats, waiting to be filled” that tapings for Canadian Idol pack a theatre every Wednesday and Thursday night. The answers are instructive…
When A Movie Is Too Bad To Review
The new Alien Versus Predator movie is about as critic-proof as it gets; sci-fi fans have been anticipating the movie for a long time. So why did the movie studio not allow critics to see the movie before it opened today? This tactic is usually only used when a film is so bad, the critical word will sink it… Instead, banning the critics ensured AVP would be the subject of stories around America with critics speculating on how bad it must be.
PNB Announces Finalists For Artistic Director
Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet has narrowed its search for a new artistic director to six. Fifty candidates applied to replace Kent Stowell and Francia Russell.
Cityscape – Feel The Power?
A proposed 60-story tower in Philadelphia that will require big zoning variances to make it work, has city planning officials pleading helplessness in compelling a better project. So what power do city officials actually have to make a more liveable city, asks Inga Saffron.
Play It Again Sam – TV Clip Shows
“TV Networks love their clip shows, those pastiches of film and TV footage that are wrapped up into programs in their own right, sometimes with a nostalgic spin, sometimes with a more current-events-oriented one. It’s a genre that has proved to be as addictive as it is unchallenging. And it’s yet more evidence that, while TV might not rot your brain, it certainly can massage it by playing to our celebrity and mass-media obsessions, occasionally mocking them and inviting us to mock along.”
Budget Conscious – How Much Do Movies Cost?
What do movies cost to make? The short answer is that nobody but the studios know for sure. But reporting movie budgets is a hot sport. “Today’s budget reporting is truth-or-dare journalism, shaped by constant manipulation and gamesmanship. The issue has become a sore subject because it reinforces the most negative stereotypes about journalists and film execs — that the former are inaccurate and the latter are liars.”