For years, TV critics have carped and moaned about the lack of “intelligent” drama on American TV, and fans of supposedly smart shows have mounted petition drives just to keep their favorite low-rated show on the air for a few more episodes. Apparently, Hollywood has been listening all this time. “Can it be? Programmers have heard the clamor for smarter, more literate television, and they have responded.” Of course, whether anyone will be watching is another matter.
Tag: 07.23.06
Art By Committee? It Happens More Often Than You Think
“In the romance of the Western imagination, art is proverbially fashioned in solitude, the writer scribbling away, forlorn in his garret, the painter at work in his atelier. But the exceptions touch some of our most beloved arts: movies, TV, rock music and theater. They’re all concocted by that notoriously ill-fated process: the committee.”
Building Consensus -Zaha Hadid Vs. The Real World
“The gulf between what Hadid sees, and enables others to see in her beautifully crafted but highly distorted drawings and paintings, and the realized architecture that results from these two-dimensional fantasias, is vast. The buildings, the few that have been built, seem to exist in a slower, duller universe. Someone has turned the lights on, and the music off, and suddenly the world no longer twinkles, and Hadid’s buildings no longer feel quite so much like spaceships rocketing to galaxies unknown.”
The Field Guide To Classical Music (Yes, You Need One)
Classical music, like any art form that demands effort and intellectual engagement from its fans, can be an intimidating experience for the uninitiated. But today, there are any number of ways for classical neophytes to take the plunge, and thanks to the internet, you can listen to almost any piece without ever leaving your desk. One new guide to exploring the classical world even combines the printed word with an astonishingly large online database of music, enough to keep any fan of the genre listening for years.
Microsoft On The Verge Of Launching iPod Rival
The iPod is king of the digital music world at the moment, and its share of the downloading market is so huge as to make any challenge seem Quixotic. But Microsoft is in the process of testing a portable player that it believes will seriously cut into Apple’s market share. “Microsoft has long coveted the market for handheld entertainment devices as the market for its core desktop software products becomes saturated.”
Actor Jack Warden, 85
“Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actor Jack Warden has died, aged 85… Warden was nominated for Oscars for Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait, and won an Emmy for the 1971 TV film Brian’s Song.He was twice Emmy-nominated for the 1980s television series Crazy Like a Fox. His other films included 12 Angry Men and All The President’s Men.”
Privatization May Help PA’s Floundering PAC
Pennsylvania’s Mountain Laurel Performing Arts Center was supposed to become the state’s next big cultural destination, nestled in the beautiful Pocono mountains and featuring a full slate of summer concerts by the Pittsburgh Symphony. But the center ran out of money almost before it opened, and was a colossal bust in its first season. Still, there are signs that things could be turning around for the center. “In its third season this year, Mountain Laurel, which started with millions in public money, finally opened without debt because the foundering center was bought by a well-heeled residential developer.”
New Arts Fund Debuts In Texas
San Antonio’s new arts fund mailed out its first checks this week, providing 24 cultural organizations with a new source of public funding that civic leaders hope will stabilize what has sometimes been a precarious arts scene. “Applications for additional funding recipients are not being accepted. Whether the application process opens up again will depend on how theFund grows.”
Whatever Happened To Televised Arts?
How is it possible that among the hundreds of television channels available to the average American, there still isn’t a place for the arts? “While networks devoted to everything from cartoons to car culture have thrived, channels aimed at the fine-arts consumer have either collapsed (the seminal arts channel CBS Cable) or survived as changelings, serving up increasing amounts of reality TV while still sporting their original stately monikers (Bravo, A&E). Symbolically at least, the poetic voice of Paul Robeson has fallen silent to the raspy ravings of Kathy Griffin, and the groundbreaking works of Picasso have been masked in favor of the tattoo-shop shenanigans of Inked.”
Payola Spells Relief For NY Arts Groups
New York state’s two-year-old probe into illegal payola practices by record companies has yielded over $13 million in legal settlements thus far, and the money has become an unexpected windfall for the state’s arts organizations. “In all, 153 nonprofit groups statewide were chosen to receive from $15,000 to $750,000 in last week’s first round of payouts from the New York State Music Fund, established as a repository for the payola settlement money.”