A French reality TV show has sparked protests by farmers. “La Ferme Celebrites – Celebrity Farm – sees 14 French celebrities live in a farmhouse for 70 days without running water or electricity. Tasks include sheep shearing, milking cows and tending as animals give birth. But the show, which attracts eight million viewers, has infuriated the Farmers’ Confederation, who consider the show ‘degrading’ to rural people.”
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Court Throws WTC Project In Doubt
Suddenly, a court ruling concerning the insurance payout to the developer of the World Trade Center site has put the entire project in doubt. “Now, barring a lengthy appeals process, it appears that developer Larry Silverstein is a day late and a dollar short of the time and money he needs to build back all 10.5 million square feet of the office space he lost on Sept. 11 according to the Governor’s aggressive plans. And so everyone downtown is buzzing Larry Silverstein is unlikely to be the developer behind most of the office buildings at Ground Zero. Another developer will have to step in. But who has billions of dollars to spend on a spanking new building with no guarantee it will fill up?”
Picasso Sells For Highest Price Ever For A Painting
Picasso’s Garcon a la Pipe (Boy with a Pipe)sold for $104 million Wednesday night. The painting is “one of the most important early works by the artist ever to appear on the market. It was the star item in the collection of the late Mr and Mrs John Hay Whitney. The record price previously paid for a painting was $82.5m for Vincent Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr Gachet at a Christie’s auction in 1990. The previous high for a Picasso was $55m.”
Proms In The Digital Age
London’s annual Proms concerts have been reborn. “Digital and web technology has not only revolutionised universal awareness of the Proms, it has become an invaluable PR tool for the BBC. If the two-month event was ever in danger of being an expensive and cumbersome weight around the corporation’s neck, the Proms are now, without doubt, its greatest cultural showcase.”
Wright: Great Poetry Requires Great Readers
Pulitzer-winning poet Franz Wright on poetry in America: “Devoted and discerning readers with a genuine love of poetry will find, in this country, an astonishing wealth of wonderful poetry being written and freely offered—it is one of the finest things about the United States, though I’m afraid far too few people have the skill, patience, or the opportunity to benefit from it. I am always haunted by Walt Whitman’s remark to the effect that there will be no great poets without great readers. And there is, of course, a considerable audience for all this and always has been—there is a longing for poetry that can never be eradicated by the more glaring, consumer-oriented forms of popular culture; that’s pretty obvious.”
BBC 3 Giving Up Classical Diet?
Is BBC3 giving up its commitment to broadcasting classical music? “They don’t claim to be the classical music station any more and we feel sad about that. I think they desperately don’t want that mantle.”
Historic Homes As Theme Parks
“Until now, most of the America’s 3,000 or so historic-home museums have resisted opening pop-culture exhibits and renting out galleries for corporate dinners – even as prestigious art museums have done just that. But sharp state budget cuts, stiff competition from more modern attractions and the overall tourism slide have left many of the homes with little choice. Just in time for the summer tourist rush – and to the dismay of purists – historic homes from California’s Hearst Castle to Virginia’s Mount Vernon are rolling out Broadway-style productions, opening fast-food outlets and courting party planners to combat a steep drop in financing and plummeting attendance.”
Aussie Art Collector Donates Major Collection To Victoria
Dr Joseph Brown, one of Australia’s biggest art collectors has decided to donate his collection to the National Gallery of Victoria. “The fate of the highly-prized collection — renowned in art circles for its quality and quantity — has been a 20-year saga. A succession of state governments have failed to take up Dr Brown’s offer of the works, which was once valued by art experts at more than $60 million. The historic value of the works, by many famous artists including Streeton, von Guerard, Drysdale and Whiteley, is immense. The collection has been in storage since 2002, at a cost of about $650-a-week insurance and $300-a-week storage.”
Listeners Protest BBC 3’s New Music Policy
“The Friends of Radio 3 have launched an all-out assault on the station’s controller Roger Wright and the way he has, since he took on the job six years ago, sought to widen its remit. Classical music, they complain, is being sidelined to make way for a trendy cultural cocktail liberally laced with world music and jazz. Now, they say, the Rubicon has been crossed – in the BBC’s statement of programme policy, released last week, the old maxim that “classical music remains at the heart of the [Radio 3] schedule” has been quietly dropped.”
Images Of War, And Of A National Disgrace
The photos that emerged from Iraq last week – showing American soldiers exulting next to naked Iraqi prisoners forced to adopt humiliating poses – are a disturbing piece of visual evidence that America is its own worst enemy, says Philip Kennicott, and only the stark reality of a photograph was able to bring that fact home to us. “These photos, we insist, are not us. But these photos are us. Yes, they are the acts of individuals… [but] great national crimes begin with the acts of misguided individuals… Every errant smart bomb, every dead civilian, every sodomized prisoner, is ours.”