“The nonprofit library cooperative that owns the Dewey Decimal system has filed suit against a library-themed luxury hotel in Manhattan for trademark infringement. The Library Hotel, which overlooks the New York Public Library, is divided according to the classification system, with each floor dedicated to one of Dewey’s 10 categories. Room 700.003 includes books on the performing arts, for example, while room 800.001 has a collection of erotic literature.”
Blog
The NEA’s Shakespeare Gambit
The National Endowment for the Arts’ ambitious new Shakespeare tour begins. “It is the launch of something that could change the political fortunes of the once-embattled, now-neglected national arts agency. NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, at a reception Saturday evening, called the high-profile Shakespeare initiative ‘a Hail Mary pass.’ Dana Gioia’s approach is to try to bring a lot of positive attention, a lot of positive play to the NEA.”
EMI To Buy Time Warner Music?
Recording giant EMI says it is in talks to buy AOL Time Warner’s music business. “British-based EMI, which tried and failed to merge with AOL Time Warner’s Warner Music three years ago, stressed that the talks were not advanced and a deal may not materialize.”
West Wing Wins Emmy
The “West Wing” surprises many and wins another Emmy for Best TV drama. “The ceremony was both celebratory and bittersweet, with homage paid to a number of performers and industry figures who died this year, including Bob Hope, John Ritter, Gregory Hines and Fred Rogers.”
Understanding Kushner
“The charge that playwright Tony Kushner’s theater is more pedagoguish than dramatic stems partly from the inability of his accusers to differentiate between a politically charged play and a screed, or between a character and its author. Kushner’s characters may spout diatribes, but his plays, many coming from an Elizabethan tradition, are about the collision of those arguments into a kind of forum. Kushner’s works are composed of conflicts and discussions merging into a skeptical, ironical and often paradoxical vision; a play with a vision can shed some light, whereas a play with an opinion can be merely annoying. It’s helpful to distinguish the two.”
Why Punishing Downloaders Won’t Work
“The urge to cast downloading as a kind of black-and-white moral issue that simply needs to be made plain to the kids so that they will knock it off is understandable, but it’s also wishful thinking. An estimated 60 million people have downloaded songs illicitly, which makes the phenomenon bigger than a youth fad. It’s more like speeding or marijuana use – activities that many people in a wide range of ages know are ‘wrong’ in a technical sense but not in a behavioral sense. By now, even if the music industry is right on the legal argument, it can’t win the moral one.”
Dance Umbrella at 25
Since London’s Dance Umbrella festival launched in 1978, much has changed in the public perception of modern dance. These days, modern dance is arguably more popular than classical ballet, and the influence of contemporary choreographers is everywhere in the dance world, and even finds its way into pop culture. Dance Umbrella may not be able to claim credit for changing the way the world watches dance, but it has become an undeniably important cornerstone of London’s cultural scene.
New World, New Ideas
Miami’s New World Symphony is a training orchestra that thinks different. “New World places great emphasis on being different, as it performs some of the most edgy repertoire in music. This season, New World will be performing works by John Cage, Steve Reich and Luciano Berio – in a preview of New World’s scheduled performance in Rome – and Sibelius’ Fifth, works typically never even penciled into a regional orchestra’s schedule. ‘We have never been in competition with anyone for audiences because we do very few programs. We’re not scared of putting on an evening where we only have 300 people there if the repertoire is as extreme as it sometimes can be.”
How Not To Refurbish A Stadium
Sports venues are some of the most prominent architectural features of most American cities, and in the last ten years, there has been something of a renaissance in the manner in which ballparks and stadiums are designed. But in Chicago, where a newly refurbished Soldier Field is already being dubbed the “Eyesore on Lake Shore,” most of the lessons in how to properly combine modern functionality with classic form seem to have gone unlearned, says Blair Kamin.
The Rap On The New Hip-Hop
“At its core, hip-hop is about bragging; ostentation and one-upmanship have played a crucial role in a music that confers upon its stars the means to walk their talk. In the South, though, a new school of artists has largely rejected such mainstream models. As new albums by Bubba Sparxxx and Nappy Roots demonstrate, country charm is just as viable as urban grit, and these rappers are retrofitting hip-hop to their purposes and experiences.”