Portland Oregon has a new tram connecting up two parts of the city. That it is a beautiful example of urban design is due in no small measure to The Oregonian’s architecture critic Randy Gragg, who has prodded those responsible for building it to make it great.
Tag: 04.13.07
Why The Queen Must Stay In Berlin
A 3000-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti’s bust is too fragile to leave Berlin for a trip to Egypt, says the German government. “Experts are of the view that there are serious conservation and restoration concerns that argue against any long-distance transportation of Nefertiti.”
Kitsch Music In The Mainstream
“Volksmusik is a melodic form whose mysteries are beyond the reach of anyone not born in Germanic culture. To the unitiated, it is the pinnacle of kitsch, bucolic nonsense put to simplistic, sickly sweet music. It is the tonal equivalent of wooden cuckoo clocks. And yet there is something fascinating about the genre.”
Joffrey’s Leader To Step Down; Troupe Enters New Era
“When the Joffrey Ballet’s Gerald Arpino steps aside July 1 as head of the troupe he co-founded 50 years ago, it will signal a momentous change for the world-renowned company, based in Chicago for the last 11 years. When the new artistic director is in place, which could be this fall, the Joffrey will be led by someone other than a co-founder for the first time in its half-century history.”
Edgar B. Young, 98, Dies; Helped Build Lincoln Center
“Edgar B. Young, the behind-the-scenes administrator who smoothed the way for the construction of Lincoln Center in the 1960s by juggling the demands of government agencies, donors, architects and artistic organizations, died on April 6 at his home in Medford, N.J.”
Why Vonnegut’s Indispensable In Youth (And Later, Too)
“If you read Kurt Vonnegut when you were young — read all there was of him, book after book as fast as you could the way so many of us did — you probably set him aside long ago. … (T)he time to read Vonnegut is just when you begin to suspect that the world is not what it appears to be. He is the indispensable footnote to everything everyone is trying to teach you, the footnote that pulls the rug out from under the established truths being so firmly avowed in the body of the text.”
Why Do We Laugh At Smashed Pianos?
“There are moments that really remind you that different people see the world in vastly different ways. Take the £45,000 grand piano that fell off a truck and smashed to bits this week. … Why are piano mishaps so hilarious? Partly it’s run-of-the-mill schadenfreude at seeing expensive objects smashed to bits. But mainly, I suspect, it’s because we have been trained by the movies to find shattered pianofortes, in particular, funny.”
The Upside To The French Riots: Book Contracts
In France, “The tumult of October and November 2005 — three weeks of car burnings, street clashes and arrests sparked by the accidental deaths of two youths — have piqued interest in ‘les banlieues,’ or metropolitan suburbs, and helped some young French-Arab authors to get their works in print.”
New Novel Written By Tolkein, Put Together By Son
“Nearly 34 years after the death of J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, his publisher has set a big U.S. press run of 250,000 copies for a new novel.” Coming out Tuesday, “The Children of Húrin” has been assembled by Christopher Tolkien from his father’s work. “The result is entirely in the elder Mr. Tolkien’s words, with only minor grammatical changes in things such as verb tense….”
Roth, Atwood, McEwan Among Booker Int’l Nominees
“Novelists Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan were among 15 nominees announced Thursday for the second Booker International Prize for fiction. … While the original Booker is given for a novel, the international prize recognizes a body of work.”