St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre unveiled architectural proposals for the theatre’s expansion. They weren’t received well. “Such extravagant and eccentric ideas have frayed tempers in a city celebrated for its baroque architecture. The competition caps last month’s lavish 300th birthday of Russia’s cultural capital. The government will pay £66m towards the project, which will link the new building – on the site of the Palace of Culture in Honour of the [Soviet] First Five Year Plan – to the old Mariinsky building (formerly known as the Kirov, and home to the ballet company) via a bridge on the Kryukov canal. The spending is criticised in a region facing poverty and unemployment.”
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Rekindling The Art Of Cambodia
“During Pol Pot’s four-year reign of terror, up to 80 per cent of Cambodia’s artists perished in a purge of the intelligentsia more far-reaching than anything wrought by Mao or Stalin. With them went much of the performance repertory of classical theatre and dance, as well as an enormous variety of folkloric arts. But the Khmer Rouge failed to extinguish Khmer culture.” And it has struggled back…
NYer Fiction Issue Is Back
The New Yorker is out with its new special fiction issue. “After a year’s hiatus the ‘Début Fiction’ issue is back, and under Deborah Treisman’s watch it’s a gentler affair. Ms. Treisman has done away with the glammy author photos that were a hallmark of the buzzy Buford era…”
It’s A Date – When Van Gogh Painted
Experts have known that Van Gogh’s painting of a field of haystacks in Provence, France, was painted “sometime in the summer of 1889, toward the end of the most productive, but troubled, period of the artist’s life. However, the precise date of its creation has vexed art historians for many years. Now, Southwest Texas State University astronomers Russell Doescher and Donald Olson, along with Olson’s wife, Marilyn, an English professor, have determined that Van Gogh was working on the picture at 9:08 p.m. on July 13, 1889.”
Pop’s New Corporate Naughty
“It is hard not to escape the impression that pop is developing a bad attitude.” But it is a bad-attitude facade fronting for “big-budget, marketing-led operations put together by management, production and songwriting teams. In other words, this is just mainstream manufactured pop in a less parent-friendly guise. After a decade of squeaky-clean boy bands and girls-next-door, pop has rediscovered the joys of rebellion.”
Pinter: “The US Is Really Beyond Reason Now”
Playwright Harold Pinter condemned the United States at a gathering In London Tuesday night. “In conversation on stage with Michael Billington, the Guardian’s theatre critic, Pinter said the US government was the most dangerous power that had ever existed. The American detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where al-Qaida and Taliban suspects were being held, was a concentration camp. The US population had to accept responsibility for allowing an unelected president to take power and the British were exhausted from protesting and being ignored by Tony Blair, a ‘deluded idiot’ Pinter hoped would resign.”
The Farce Of The Iraq Museum Story
Roger Kimball is amazed that journalists were so quick to denounce Americans for the looting of the Iraq Museum. “The story of nonlooting of the Iraqi museums gave us a glimpse into that heart of darkness. That tragedy has collapsed into farce.”
Clinton Book Sets Non-Fiction Sales Record
Hillary Clinton’s book has sold a record number of copies for a non-fiction book in its first day. ” Barnes and Noble, one of the US’s biggest book retailers, said the record was set after it sent out more than 40,000 copies to its stores and online customers in the first 24 hours. First-day sales for the memoirs, called Living History, were said to be more in keeping with best-selling fiction than a political memoir.”
500 Turners Discovered
Curators at the Tate have discovered hundreds of missing Turner paintings after a search for a new catalog. “About 500 pieces were discovered when curators set about the task of documenting all of Turner’s works for a dedicated website. They were traced to private owners during a 14-month detective trail overseen by curators at the Tate Gallery. Some pictures had been stored away in cupboards or attics.”
Are Computers Killing The Art Of Handwriting?
A growing number of parents, educators and historians fear that computers are speeding the demise of a uniquely American form of expression. Handwriting experts fear that the wild popularity of e-mail, instant messages and other electronic communication, particularly among kids, could erase cursive within a few decades.”