The new improved Brooklyn Museum is getting a lot of good press. But John Perreault isn’t so impressed. “Although the intention to make the entrance more welcoming is not all bad, I fear that looking like a ferry terminal in Scandinavia is not quite right. That glassed-in aquarium effect! Those tilted masts! True enough, the old entrance, consisting of stingy doors leading to the stygian lobby, was off-putting. We will now enter through the best party room in Brooklyn, but at the expense of grandeur.”
Blog
Police Shut Down Rowdy Ragtime Band (And Takes Their Instruments)
Neighbors complained about the noise from a ragtime band practicing. So they called the police, who came and confiscated the band’s instruments. “Acting with the full force of the law, they took an upright piano (white, slightly bashed), two electric pianos, a violin, a trombone, an acoustic guitar, four CD players, two tape decks and a portable stereo. They also loaded a £10,000 viola into the back of their van, but allowed its owner to rescue it when he produced proof that he would need it for an audition in Barcelona the next day.”
Music Should Be Free
“If the current anarchy leads to cheaper music for all of us and a fairer distribution of profits to artists, it can only be a good thing. It is to everyone’s benefit — artist, fans and industry — that there is now greater access to music of all ages, provenance and genre than ever. Piracy may be rife, but the appetite to consume and produce music is also booming. What the current developments also point to is the decrease in the cost of making music, which has accelerated dramatically with the cheapening of technology.”
Running The Poetry Foundation And Its Cash
John W. Barr is in charge of the Poetry Foundation and caretaker of its $100 million windfall. “I don’t see any reason why a cultural organization can’t be run like a good corporation. If we can do that, we’ll not only be on the road to success ourselves but may even be able to give some ideas to other arts groups.”
One Store Fits All?
How is it that everyone on earth seems to be happy shopping at Walmart? “Eight out of ten American households shop at Wal-Mart at least once a year. Worldwide, more than 100m customers visit Wal-Mart stores every week. Photographs circulated over the internet and purporting to come from the Exploration Rover show NASA’s recent discovery of a Wal-Mart on Mars. The mathematics of big numbers suggests that Wal-Mart’s growth must slow. Amazingly, the opposite appears to be happening.”
The Battle For Florida
The state of Florida slashed arts funding last year. But arts supporters were cheered in the past few weeks when members of the legislature proposed a cultural trust fund that would provide long term funding for the arts, restoring last year’s cuts. But Governor Jeb Bush has been throwing cold water on the plan: “The priorities of the future should be established by future governors and legislatures. That’s the general principle that I support and believe in.”
The Curious Mindest That Puts Brooklyn On The Fringes
“When people talk about N.Y. as the cultural capital of the world, they usually mean Manhattan. The rich institutions in the other four boroughs live marginalized lives, always clamouring for a sliver of mindshare and deeply resenting the inertia that keeps people stuck on the island in the middle of the city. Take the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Built more than a century ago as an expression of the manifest dreams of Brooklyn, which was still its own city, at 560,000 square feet it is the second-largest museum of art in the city, and one of the largest in the United States, with an outstanding collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts.”
TV Commercials – From Rage To Oblivion
People are reported to watch 714 commercials a week, or 37,000 a year, yet it is difficult to think of five of them offhand. For a decade or so, watching ads was as fun as joining the kind of religious cult that plays heavy-metal albums backward, laboriously noting the various shout-outs to Beelzebub. Such fun insists that pop culture is a game run by evil, Orwellian masterminds, who can’t fool us! If a certain innocence predated our almost insane distrust of the advertising industry, then this same distrust has now melted into ennui and fatigued resignation. If any of you have ever lived near a smelting plant or airport, you understand perfectly this process, from novelty to rage to obliviousness.”
Arts Against Bush
“Anti-administration politics are busting out of their usual homes in music, books, fine art and standup comedy, and crossing easily over into feature films, theatre, and even mainstream television shows in the run-up to this November’s U.S. presidential election. At the same time, many of the flag-waving, administration-friendly movies that Hollywood rushed to produce in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, either foundered in development or are bombing at the box office, including the current The Alamo.”
Scottish Opera On Hold
“Scottish Opera has put planning for its coming season on hold after it was told not to enter into any binding contracts. The crisis-hit company now has to wait for the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) and the Scottish Executive to agree on its financial future. In the latest sign of continuing problems, Scottish Opera’s accounts for last year have not been signed off by an auditor.”