Used to be that writing programs at universities turned out plenty of eager young writers who dreamed of getting a story published in the New Yorker. These days they’re still eager, but they’re increasingly cashing in with big screenplay and book contracts. “The growth of these programs is a function of the amazing number of first-book contracts and film options that are making some young writers rich. About 40 percent of the 600 to 1,000 manuscripts we receive each quarter come from students in these programs.”
Blog
Boston Symphony Sues Group Over “Jewish Tanglewood”
The Boston Syhmphony has filed suit against a Connecticut arts group who has been billing its event as the “Jewish Tanglewood.” “A New England Jewish Music & Arts Festival spokesman said yesterday the title was really a nickname of sorts, given to the six-year-old event by a New York reporter who called the two days of music ‘the Jewish Tanglewood’ in a story a few years ago.”
Will MoMA in Queens Leave Behind A Legacy?
The Museum of Modern Art’s Matisse Picasso show closes Monday, and with it the crowds that have thronged out to the museum’s temporary home in Queens will be gone. “Everyone in Long Island City, of course, knows that the Modern’s charmed visit to Queens will end. But they still wonder whether the museum will leave anything enduring behind. Will it help reshape a raw Queens neighborhood, known for its factories and warehouses and the gridlock around the Queensboro Bridge, into the next SoHo or TriBeCa?”
Iraq Museum Damage Estimates Revising Downwards
Experts are reassessing the extent of looting and damage to Iraq’s National Museum. It looks like the damage is far less than originally reported. ” ‘We have dodged a bullet. Through some luck and some real preparations by the museum staff, we have saved a lot.’ The preparations included moving hundred of boxes of museum treasure to safe storage in an air raid shelter several miles from the museum. Luck spared several priceless pieces that were there for the taking but somehow overlooked by looters.”
Enron’s Art
It may be last year’s news, but the defunct Enron Corporation is still trying to pay off its accumulated debt, mainly through asset liquidation, and the company’s art colection is the latest asset to hit the block. When it was acquiring the collection, Enron hoped to eventually be the caretaker of an eye-popping collection of important contemporary art, but the open disdain of auction attendees would suggest that Enron’s taste in art was as flawed as its bookkeeping.
A Museum Worthy Of Its Name
Washington, D.C.’s new City Museum is an exciting addition to a city which too often seems hesitant to admit that it is a city, says Benjamin Forgey. “Splendidly tucked into the old central library, a century-old Beaux-Arts building in Mount Vernon Square, the new institution is a museum with an attitude. Washington is a capital city, the familiar saying goes, and the emphasis here falls definitively on the city side of that equation. It’s a healthy shift of emphasis. The functional and symbolic monuments of the nation’s capital do, after all, get plenty of attention. The city itself deserves a space to call its own.”
Glitter, Glamour, and Glitch
“The excitement of attending the Cannes film festival fizzles quickly when you discover that you’ve landed in the midst of a general strike — in France, where anarchist endeavours are something of a national pastime.” Trains are delayed or cancelled altogether, nothing seems to happen on time, and even getting to Cannes becomes a major endeavor in the face of the labor strife currently ongoing. Still, Cannes is Cannes, and most of the glitterati are finding a way to make the best of the situation.
Strange Bedfellows
As the FCC continues steamrolling towards what now seems to be an almost inevitable loosening of the rules governing media ownership, a bizarre coalition of opponents has come together to agitate for the necessity of diverse media voices. Perhaps the most unexpected participant in the organized opposition is the National Rifle Association, which is concerned that its message will go unheard in a media world dominated by a few large conglomerates. In joining the masses of artists, liberals, and media critics who oppose the changes, the NRA is taking a bit of a political risk, since the Republican politicians proposing the changes are frequently the gun lobby’s most reliable supporters.
New Names, New Responsibilities
The L.A. Opera is hoping that a few changes in title will spark renewed enthusiasm among its staff and patrons, even without anything much changing in the way of personnel. Placido Domingo, who has been top dog at the company for several years, will now be the ‘general director,’ and Kent Nagano goes from ‘principal conductor’ to ‘music director,’ a move designed to draw him closer to the day-to-day operations of the company. “In many respects, the [Domingo] promotion formalizes a shift in power that became apparent in late 2001, when the opera’s then-executive director, Ian White-Thomson — nominally Domingo’s equal in the company hierarchy — abruptly resigned, complaining that the tenor’s frequent travel made collaboration impossible.”
Domingo In Demand
On the same day that he accepted his new title as general director of the L.A. Opera, Placido Domingo was named to the same job with the Washington (D.C.) Opera, a company where he has been artistic director since 1996. But unlike L.A., no one in Washington seems entirely sure of what, if anything, the change in title will mean for Domingo or the company.