Herbert Muschamp is unequivocal about Zaha Hadid’s first American building, the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati: “It is an amazing building, a work of international stature that confidently meets the high expectations aroused by this prodigiously gifted architect for nearly two decades. Might as well blurt it out: the Rosenthal Center is the most important American building to be completed since the end of the cold war.”
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Getting To The “Authentic” Shakespeare
What exactly is authenticity in Shakespeare? There are so many ways of interpreting, remaking, and reimagining the plays, stretching them in unaccustomed directions. So what exactly is authenticity in Shakespeare?
Early Music – Not Just For The Sound
Over the past 20 years the Early Music movement has revolutionized the way we perform and listen to early music. But renovating sound is not its main accomplishment. “It’s not really a matter of philosophical debates as to whether and exactly how we follow composers’ own conceptions of their works, or recover the precise aesthetic or sound of a long lost age. Far more important has been the recovery of lost repertoire and the reinvigoration of the familiar.”
The Web – How Audiences Work?
“There are hundreds of millions – perhaps more than a billion – websites out there. If the normal distribution applied, then we would expect that most of them would cluster around an average in terms of size and link density. But this is not what is observed: although the web has a huge number of very small sites, the probability of encountering a big site is nevertheless quite high. up to now we have argued that the concentrations of media power and audience share that exist in the real world are the product of capitalist accumulation or inadequate regulatory regimes. But the web and the blogging culture are completely open. Yet, even in those ideal conditions, we see concentrations of power and audience emerging. Deep waters, eh? And is that curious noise the sound of Rupert Murdoch laughing up his sleeve?”
Poetry-Pushers All
Can poetry be hip? Cool? There sure are a lot of people who want to convince that it can be. “We’ve had Poems on the Underground and the Buses, Poetry in Schools, National Poetry Day, Young Poet competitions and indeed Murray Lachlan Young (remember him, with his Byronic smouldering and his million-pound EMI deal? Ubi sunt…) – all much-needed endeavours, because poetry ought to be seen as lively and relevant. Yet for many people the idea of it remains trapped in shudder-inducing schoolday memories of interminable recitation or forced deconstruction.”
Colorado Arts Commission Fires Director
Completing its gutting of the Colorado Coucil on the Arts, the CCA’s director was fired Friday. “The action effectively completes the elimination of the current CCA staff, a move that could also cost the state an additional $614,000 in federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts because it only distributes its grants through viably functioning state arts councils. On Wednesday, Owens ordered that no more than $40,000 of the council’s 2003-04 budget of $814,000 could be spent on payroll, utilities and all other operational costs. A year ago, the office had seven staff members, each making more than $40,000, Holden said. Since then, the CCA’s state funding has been cut from $1.9 million to $200,000, and the staff had been cut to three even before Friday.”
Movies: Pining For The 70s
The movie business is so big, so powerful, so slick, it seems as though it’s never been in better shape. Consider that “30 years ago the summer blockbuster hadn’t been invented, films weren’t equated with franchises, ‘multiplex’ wasn’t a word, and the people calling the creative shots were the artists, not the bean counters. This situation didn’t last long, but it spawned a group of films so satisfying and challenging that many consider the late-’60s-to-late-’70s to be cinema’s best era.”
Is Free TV Worth Saving?
“Since the 1950s, the free American broadcast system has served as the great galvanizer and equalizer, accessible to anyone in the nation owning a rooftop antenna and a TV. Even today, most Americans get their news from broadcast TV. Yet some critics say the system is irreparably broken and growing more irrelevant in the face of competition from cable and satellite services, even as the federal government has moved to prop up the broadcast industry.”
Through The Lookingglass (Theatre)
Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre has become one of the city’s most respected theatre companies. But in its 15 years, the company has camped out in a variety of spaces. Now it’s moving into “a newly renovated performance space in the Water Tower Water Works. The site, in the heart of the Magnificient Mile, where thousands of people, locals and tourists alike, will pass by daily, gives the company perhaps the highest visibility of any theater in town…”
The Buddy System
Seventy-five-year-old Buddy Zamoiski officially steps down as chairman of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, after 15 years at that organization’s helm. Zamoiski has a spectacular talent for talking money out of people for his various causes. “Except for Joseph Meyerhoff (who built the symphony a fancy new hall), Zamoiski probably is more responsible for the orchestra’s relative financial stability than anyone in its 86-year-history.”