“The Smithsonian Institution rejected a request from Oliver North to film a stand-up in front of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb. This is the latest flap in the Smithsonian’s development of programming for a cable television network. North … said in an opinion column that the museum’s action raises questions about the propriety of the contract between Showtime Networks and the Smithsonian, which limits access of film crews.”
Tag: 02.13.07
Brooklyn Museum: Art Venue Or Amusement Park?
No question about it, Lance Esplund writes, Arnold Lehman has transformed the Brooklyn Museum and lured huge crowds. But at what cost? “What is present at the Brooklyn Museum is a belief in the power of art as entertainment and attraction. Mr. Lehman obviously knows what the public wants, and he is giving it to them. What is missing at the Brooklyn Museum is a faith in the public and in the power of art.”
The Woman Behind Some Of Those Tiffany Designs
Tiffany designs have long been identified entirely with the creative mind of Louis Comfort Tiffany, but an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society will show a more complex reality. “Focusing on a designer named Clara Driscoll and the group of women known as the ‘Tiffany girls’ who worked with her in the glass-cutting department of Tiffany Studios, the exhibition explodes the myth of Tiffany as the company’s sole designer, and offers a new inside view of the workings of the studios.”
Larry King, Master Of The Movie Blurb (He Loved It!)
“While most people know him as the man who’s interviewed everyone from Bill Clinton to Anna Nicole Smith, in my neck of the woods Larry King is famous for liking movies. In fact, if you’re a habitual reader of movie ads, you might say that CNN’s indefatigable talkmeister is famous for liking movies too much.”
Embracing The Dixie Chicks, Three Years Late
The Dixie Chicks “beat back the campaign by conglomerate radio chains to obliterate them and did it with little support from fellow artists, who apparently feared getting Dixie-Chicked themselves. The band reinvented itself, taking on a pop style, reclaiming some old fans and finding new ones — a lot of them. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush’s polls plummeted to Nixonian levels. Suddenly, the industry found the courage to really, really like them again.”
Samarra’s Golden Dome, Ruined And Untouched
“It has been a year since Sunni insurgents ripped a hole in the glorious dome … of one of Iraq’s most sacred Shiite shrines, shattering its 72,000 golden tiles and unleashing a tide of national sectarian bloodletting. Not a single brick of the mosque has been moved since.”
Decades After Bayreuth, Soprano Silja Wows Met
Anja Silja, the “luminous and controversial soprano, sometimes called the ‘German Callas’ … had long expected to be retiring by this time. Yet here she is, giving a mesmerizing portrayal of Kostelnicka in the Met’s current production of Janacek’s ‘Jenufa,’ which opened on Jan. 29.”
Dancer Jeannette Ordman Dies
“Jeannette Ordman, a South African-born dancer and teacher who headed the Bat-Dor Dance Company, one of Israel’s most important contemporary-dance organizations, died on Wednesday in Tel Aviv.”
Libraries – All In The Building
“Libraries are no longer intimidating but inviting. Where once libraries went to considerable lengths to keep people out, now they struggle to entice all kinds of people in, the young, the poor, the lame, the blind.”
A Computer That Can Peer Inside Your Head
The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way.