Turn 30 in Hollywood, and your career is all but over. And we’re not just talking actors and actresses. Writers too. “Hollywood once had a notorious blacklist of political radicals; today it has a greylist of ‘oldies’. A producer of the ABC sitcom Spin City is on the record as saying that writers over 29 were deliberately not hired. Some writers complain they cannot find an agent once they pass 50, making it almost impossible to present scripts.”
Blog
Canadian Opera Company’s Unpleasant News
It’s been a great year for the Canadian Opera Company. Artistically the company’s on a high, and it finally got money to build a new home. But then there’s a nasty deficit rearing up. “Ironically, the crisis in operating funding comes as the federal government is showering the arts with millions after ten years of devastating stinginess. Ottawa is contributing $25 million to building the opera house. But that’s for a building. Operating money is something else.”
Portrait of the Philanthropist
Alberto Vilar, the world’s most famous arts patron over the past few years, but under criticism for not living up to some of his pledges, says “he can easily give away $50-million a year”, and “is on record as saying he is good for his pledges. Some of his Amerindo funds have suffered in the depressed stock market. He has also been in poor health. In his interview with this paper, he says he has had four surgeries in the past two years for herniated discs in his lower back. ‘I was at home for one year immobilized,’ he says.
Havana’s Capital Of Jazz
“If the United Nations ever decided to put on a jazz festival, it might look something like the gloriously multicultural, border-defying event that shook this island for the past week.”
Why Big-Name Orchestras Are A Tough Sell In Edinburgh
Why are audiences staying away from big-name orchestra performances in Edinburgh? Oh, the annual festival is popular, but the rest of the year, first-rate orchestras play before half-empty halls…
Music 10, Words 0…
Many an otherwise good opera has been ruined by a dreadful libretto. “Why do composers ever assume that they can write their own words? There’s nothing which makes the heart sink, going into an opera, like the words ‘Music and libretto by …’ Very few good operas have ever been written to a composer’s own words…”
The Sagging Old Guard
So the dependable crankers-outers of blockbuster bestsellers are seeing their book sales sag. Your Tom Clancys, your Stephen Kings, your John Grishams – “the old guard is visibly sagging. Like childbearing, delivering blockbusters every year takes it out of you. King’s latest reads suspiciously like a Christine retread (old cars with strange powers). Clancy (with his fantasia of papal assassination) bet the store on John Paul II dying, and the pontiff perversely didn’t (despite Cardinal Law’s best efforts). So, too, with Turow’s and Grisham’s legal thrillers. It’s all deja lu; been there, read that.”
Down Down Down…
So why are blockbuster sales down? “One explanation is that traditional bookstores are suffering because the big supermarket chains have moved into bookselling. Another is that all the big releases were bunched together to avoid the anniversary of 11 September, and with only so many book buyers to go round it was inevitable sales would drop. Price could also be a factor, with hardback novels in the US costing $25 or more – steep in these recessionary times.”
Dr. Seuss, Deconstructed
“The Cat in the Hat” transformed the nature of primary education and the nature of children’s books. But it wasn’t just a simple story that became phenomenally popular. It was a product of its time and made an impact on American education all out of proportion to its simplicity. Louis Menand parses the good doctor’s layers.
More Raves For Fort Worth
Critic Paul Goldberger is impressed with architect Tadao Ando’s work on the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. “Many museums these days look their best before any art is installed in them. This is the first great museum building in a generation that gets even better when art is added.”