Why do people constantly dump on classical music? Justin Davidson writes that “those who are most passionate about the art are also people with a strong allegiance to the past – often stronger, in fact, than their affection for the present. Connoisseurs believe in a golden age, when composers really knew how to write, performers knew how to play and music lovers knew how to listen. To members of this cult of bygones, John Adams is a puny figure hopping alongside the colossus of Beethoven, and the violinist Maxim Vengerov a flickering shade in the brilliance of Nathan Milstein. The present is degraded precisely because it can never be the past.”
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Hip Hop Nations…
“Hip hop has become one of the most influential U.S. cultural exports. In virtually every city on the planet, there are hip hop communities that not only have adopted the percussion-heavy music and spoken-word vocals, but have appropriated the sartorial and attitudinal style of the black and Latino youth who created the genre. Some 25 years after its birth, the genre has become a $5 billion industry but remains troubled at home.”
French Movies Making Comeback
French movies are enjoying a record year, and look likely to eclipse the record 37.4 million admissions set last year. “The past two years ‘have been the best that French films have had for at least 10 years’ in foreign theatres.”
Education For All! (Is It Really Such A Good Idea?)
“In the past 20 years, Britain has stumbled into a system of mass higher education. It is enrolling larger percentages of young people than most other comparable countries.” But is mass education compatible with quality education? And how do you possibly pay for it? Is elite education desirable in a mass system?
The Global Localization of TV (What The World’s Poor Watch)
There are about 2 billion people who have access to a television set. What are they watching? Not the global fare produced by Western networks. “The trend in many television markets is to localise the global, to take a western format, juggle with it, and produce a Hindi or a Mandarin version. There is, for instance, a Saudi version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire called Who Will Win the Million? which is one of Saudi Arabia’s most popular programmes.”
The Movies That Own You
“An obscure contract clause is reshaping show-business deal making, sometimes ruining the very relationships it is supposed to cement. Called an option, this contract term legally obligates actors and directors to work in a number of subsequent films, often at below-market rates, as a condition of employment in an initial movie. Used for years with little acrimony to bind performers to sequels, options are turning some contract talks into what look more like hostage negotiations.”
Where Rudeness Is A Status Symbol?
Bad behavior among Hollywood execs who have any power, is rarely punished. “This is Hollywood, the only business in the world where people seem to confuse rudeness with power. People think that being rude and demeaning is somehow a show of importance when, to me, it just suggests that you’re dealing with a lot of spoiled brats whose mommies didn’t give them enough time-outs.”
We Dig World Music – Just One Question…What Is It?
World Music is hot. Yet the genre is so broad, defining it leads to all sorts of disagreements. “Such acute diversity can be bewildering. If you’ve ever thought that the term ‘world music’ is one of convenience, you are right. It was, according to Radio 3’s most sturdily-accented presenter, Andy Kershaw, coined by ‘six independent record companies in a room above a pub in Islington in 1986’.”
San Francisco’s Poor Record of Public Art
Why is San Francisco’s public art so mediocre? In an arguably arts-oriented town, the level of public art that gets up is timid, cautious, or just plain mediocre.
Another Chance To Get It Right
But maybe the 60-foot-high monumental new outdoor sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen can reverse the city’s “embarrassing record” on choices of art in public places…