“Television viewers worldwide spent 15 minutes more per day glued to their screens in 2003 than in the previous year, bringing global average viewing time to three hours and 39 minutes daily, according to figures released today. Based on eight hours of sleep, that means the average viewer spends almost a quarter of their waking hours in front of the TV – and maybe a few of the sleeping ones as well.”
Blog
TV: It’s A Gay Old Time
Gay culture is hip on TV, where it’s become a popular part of mainstream TV fare. Why? “A number of factors have coalesced to fuel the mainstream media’s appetite for all things fabulous. Not least the fact that gay culture is frequently viewed as more trend-savvy, fashion-forward and rampantly creative than the rather dreary heterosexual one – which, quite frankly, is screaming out for a good zhuzhing.”
Mariinsky Asserts New Authority
The Mariinsky Ballet has claimed its contemporary credentials, writes Clement Crisp. “For the fourth Mariinsky Ballet Festival the ballet company made its best claim for a valid modernity in a post-Soviet age with stagings of three ballets by Frankfurt’s William Forsythe. I have been watching and loving the Kirov since its first appearances in the west in 1961. I recall few evenings more significant, more assertive of the troupe’s potential and its greatness, than this, and I salute the company’s artistry in Forsythe as a logical extension of its grand academic identity.”
World’s First Maori TV Channel
New Zealand has launched the first Maori TV channel. “The government-funded station aims to preserve the culture of New Zealand’s indigenous people, who make up around 12.5% of the country’s four million population. Half of the station’s programmes must be in Maori, which is now spoken by fewer than a tenth of Maoris.”
How America’s Literary Culture Has Changed
America’s critical literary culture has changed over the years, writes Sven Birkerts. “The commercial consideration (sales, circulation, publicity) has in recent years become paramount. The logic of the situation is obvious. And desperation driven. What we are seeing is an effort in certain quarters to awaken a somnolent literary culture, to create attention, the idea somehow being that power and money go where the noise is. There is no way to solve the problem at the source, of course—it is systemic—so the best strategy is the quick fix.”
Get Your Budget Opera Here
Raymond Gubbay’s new Savoy Opera is preparing to make its debut. But can the company succeed as London’s third opera house? “Their idea is to present accessible opera sung in English for the price of a West End show (highest ticket price £49.50, whereas at the Royal Opera the best seats for the most sought-after shows cost £170). They want to tempt in the sort of audience who might go to Holland Park Opera or Gubbay’s Albert Hall extravaganzas, but who might find the aura associated with Covent Garden or the Coliseum off-putting.”
A Skylon In London’s Future?
“An ambitious plan to recreate the Skylon, the glittering spaceship-like spearhead which once rose over London as a symbol of Britain’s postwar resurgence, has been put to the South Bank Centre. The structure, 88 metres (290 feet high) in internally lit aluminium-clad steel, would rise again near the Royal Festival Hall, upriver from the London Eye, only yards from where it stood as one of the two centrepieces of the Festival of Britain. The original Skylon, built in the last year of the postwar Labour government and immensely popular as a futuristic shape, was vengefully scrapped, cut in pieces and sold as ashtrays by an incoming Conservative administration.”
Emin Vs. The 8-Year-Olds, Part II
Tracey Emin worked with a school class of 8-year-olds to create a quilt. The school wants to sell it, but Emin says it’s not technically her artwork (thus making it less valuable). Nonetheless, she wants the school to give the quilt to her rather than sell it. And she’s angry over the request to sell: “As a result of this incident Tracey has since declined any further requests to work with schools or with young people.”
Philadelphia Arts Funding Cuts Will Be Felt
Philadelphia’s arts community is struggling to assess the impact of major cuts in the city’s arts funding. “The mayor balanced his $3.4 billion budget proposal in part with about $4 million in cultural cuts.”
Writers Union? Now There’s A Curious Concept
“The Writer’s Union of Canada has done and continues to do great things for the community it serves, but I’m sure its membership would find the idea of a strike laughable. First question: Against whom do we strike? Publishers? Heather Reisman? The Malahat Review? And imagine the fallout if we did — this is what really keeps writers in their place — the resounding yawn we imagine would be the response to our announcement that we’re mad as hell and not going to write novellas about it any more.”