Jake Adam York provides a taxonomy, complete with maps and legends.
Tag: 07.21.12
Chicago’s Ambitious Cultural Plan (Now Let’s Get Real)
“If half of the recommendations in the draft of the Chicago Cultural Plan — heck, even 5 percent of the recommendations — were implemented, Chicago would become an artistic nirvana without global peer.”
PBS Chief Talks Funding, Programming
“It’s disappointing to me the value that people place on public broadcasting. In the same week where we were awarded 58 Emmys, the question of whether investment is appropriate is disappointing.”
How An Indy Podcast Could Change The Way Public Radio Is Made
To date, the 99% Invisible Kickstarter campaign has raised $87,536 (more than double its funding goal), with 21 days left to go. Mars’s success may end up opening the floodgates for other independent radio producers eying Kickstarter as a funding source. “I want to further blow up the idea of what a public radio show is, how it should be distributed, and how it could support itself.”
The Original Hopper Houses (They’re Not What You Might Expect)
“To New Yorkers, Edward Hopper is likely to evoke visions of moody nighttime urban scenes. But the painter created some of his most famous work in the bright seaside town of Gloucester, Mass., on Cape Ann, where he spent time in the 1920s. The photographer Gail Albert Halaban has been locating the original houses in Hopper’s paintings there and taking pictures of them as they look today.”
No, We Won’t Boycott That Play, No Matter What Your Politics Demand
“Closing down and curtailing performances prevents people from different countries from exchanging ideas, songs, debating issues, and finding out what they have in common. This may well come to nothing more than enjoyment; I am not suggesting that the performance would be a political act of solidarity with others in trouble – that is too great a claim, but I am arguing that we see beyond borders in appreciating art, and in any future struggle for a better life. More art and more dialogue is always preferable to less.”
William Morris House Saved From Closure, And Soon To Reopen
“William Morris, the philosopher, novelist and leading light of the Arts and Crafts Movement, once urged householders to have nothing they did not ‘know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’ in their domestic environment, and soon visitors to Water House in Walthamstow can judge him at his word once more.”
Biennials: Competing (In Sometimes Bizarre Ways) For Artists, And Audience
“Now that there’s a glut of biennials, triennials and other festivals worldwide, not to mention the art fairs that serve as their commercial counterparts, the competition for visitors is fierce. It isn’t just biennial fatigue — it’s almost a backlash. Why go to a biennial today when there are so many other venues for discovering new art? What does a biennial offer that making the rounds at galleries can’t? Driven by such issues, many U.S. biennials are rethinking, refining or just plain abandoning their missions.”
The Audition Of A Lifetime (And Where The Stick Went Wrong)
For a classical percussionist, news of openings at the Boston Symphony Orchestra spur a frantic attempt. “Tetreault says he spent almost a year preparing for the audition. This was his life during that period: After working a full day of patchwork gigs scattered across Colorado, he’d go to his practice space until about 1 a.m., then drive home and be asleep by 2 a.m. And then at 6 o’clock, he’d get up and start all over again.”
Alexander Cockburn, 71, Writer And Fierce Critic From (And Of) The Left
“Cockburn had, at various times, regular columns in ideologically disparate publications like The Nation and The Wall Street Journal and became known as an unapologetic leftist, condemning what he saw as the outrages of the right but also castigating the American liberal establishment when he thought it was being timid.”