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Hip Hop – Not Just The Music Anymore

“The billion-dollar music genre, which already has the advertising and fashion businesses bouncing to its beat, has now infiltrated one of pop culture’s less-frequented markets — book publishing. Ranging from pricey coffee-table eye candy to practical reference and history books, the tomes are an effort to preserve hip-hop culture in more than just CDs and music videos.”

How Do You Make A Poet Laureate? (They Want To Know)

“With their public profiles growing, the role of poets laureate is being called into question. In April the nation’s first conference for state poets laureate will convene in Manchester, New Hampshire, where they will discuss poetry and their responsibilities as public representatives of their art. The goal of the conference is for poets laureate to meet each other, discuss the ambiguities and perceived responsibilities of being a state-endorsed poet, and explore what happens when poetry intersects with politics, education, and community.”

Anonymous 4 Quits

The popular early-music group Anonymous 4 have decided to pack it in after 17 years. “Since forming in 1986 in New York ‘as an experiment’ in response to the lack of opportunities for woman to sing early music repertoire, the group have gone on to achieve great commercial success, clocking up nearly 1000 concerts internationally and selling over 1 million discs.”

Music: Electronic Inroads

Almost all popular music uses some form of electronic instrumentation. Not in classical music though. “The future of innovation in music seems almost surely to be in digitally created music whose origin is either purely electronic or in imitation of acoustical sounds, “rather than string instruments growing extra strings or things like that.”

Stravinsky’s Mouthpiece?

Robert Craft’s relationship with Stravinsky draws fresh attention with the publication of a new Craft volume. Though the composer has been dead 30 years, the Craft continues to write of his friend, reviving old debates about where the composer ends and Craft begins…”The final Jamesian irony is that Robert Craft is able to write supremely well only as a ventriloquist, requiring no less than an authentic genius for his dummy.”

Museum Car Picks Up Driving Fine

It now costs £5 to drive into the center of London. But officials at one museum were surprised to get notice of a fine for the museum’s 105-year-old Daimler that has not been on the road since 1947. “We were surprised to get the paperwork because the Daimler has not moved under its own power for decades,” said Andrew King, curator of the Bristol Industrial Museum, where the car has been on display for 25 years.”

A World Of Hurt (But Is It Art?)

The latest reality TV shows feature pain or gross-outs. “Pain is the new rock‘n’roll”, proclaims one show. “It may be, but it isn’t exactly new; pain and dangerous stunts have been finding an arts audience for years. Edinburgh Fringe-goers were watching Jim Rose juggle with chainsaws when Jackass’s Knoxville was a twinkle in an MTV executive’s eye. Devotees of the boundary-pushing forms of live art have been witnessing representations of self-harm for some considerable time. Now it’s gone mainstream, what has changed?” And is it art?

Tourism Chief: Failure To Invest In Arts Harms Economy

A former Scottish tourism chief says Scotland’s failure to invest in the arts will hurt the country’s economy. “As soon as an arts organisation looks for money, it is described as eating up money for a group of people who can well afford the ticket price. That view has far too much credence in government and needs to be challenged; government needs to identify the arts as an important component of what we are as human beings. Instead every penny towards the arts is questioned, almost begrudged.”