After years of delay, it looks like the Scottish government is ready to fund a National Theatre. “This is a very significant moment in Scottish culture. There is a paradox in Scottish culture, which a national theatre can bridge. On the one hand, the Executive have been supporting events like Scotland at the Smithsonian, which took Scottish culture to America. But almost immediately afterwards, we stage these great festivals which offer no real focus. If the Executive is serious about presenting Scottish culture, it needs a champion like a national theatre.”
Tag: 08.24.03
America-As-Idea – A Flawed Concept
The Whitney’s “American Effect” show is an idea worth exploring, on its face, writes Blake Gopnik. But there’s a fatal flaw in the working out of the idea. “Many, maybe most, of the dozens of brilliant artists working today aren’t American, and it’s hard to think of a single one of those foreigners whose art, however socially engaged, centers on ideas about America. Of course, that’s why none of those artists is in the Whitney show. The exhibition mostly features little-known foreign artists who deserve their lack of recognition.”
Lawrence Summers – Reinventing Harvard?
As president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers has a radical agenda – transforming the very nature of the way one of the world’s great universities does business. “Even if Summers were a guileful and calculating figure with a hidden agenda of drastic change, he would have a tough row to hoe. But he’s not: he’s a blunt and overbearing figure with an overt agenda of drastic change. It should come as no surprise that Larry Summers is not quite as popular a figure as his gracious predecessor was.”
Connective Tissue – Why Flash Mobs Are Interesting
Some critics have quickly tired of flash-mobs that began this summer, writing off the phenomenon as “a slightly annoying fad, the techno equivalent of streaking. Others detect a ‘social revolution’ in the offing. Flash mobs are worth paying attention to. They offer a lesson about the evolving nature of networks: from Friendster, a six-degrees-of-separation dating service, to the ‘relationship mining’ software that combs through employees’ electronic address books to identify which of their contacts might be useful to the employer. What flash mobs do is make networks tangible.”
Wild About Harry – American Book Sales Soar
“Even more than anticipated, the June release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix gave business at the nation’s largest book chains a much needed jump start, revving up quarterly sales and igniting optimism that the momentum will carry over into the rest of the year.”
Building A Better Jazz Festival
As Chicago looks to building a better jazz festival, it could do worse than look to Montreal for a blueprint. “Twenty-four years ago, a small group of intrepid Canadian jazz promoters took a chance on staging a weekend-long mini-fest, hoping that a few listeners might show up. Approximately 12,000 did, and today the Montreal International Jazz Festival has grown into the largest, most intelligently programmed jazz soiree in the world. Its $12.7 million (U.S.) budget and 500-concert lineup easily outpace any American counterpart.”
Endangered Species – Dallas Classical Music Radio
Times are bad at Dallas-Fort Worth’s only classical music station. “Ratings have dropped to the point where WRR is no longer among Dallas-Fort Worth’s top 20 stations. ‘We’ve hit a wall in the last 18 months’.”
What’s Wrong At Dallas’ WRR
“Much as local listeners may grouse, some of the problems are built into WRR’s commercial format, which has to make room for the advertisements that pay the bills. Similar artistic concerns can be raised with classical-music stations in plenty of other markets. From coast to coast, classical broadcasting just isn’t what it was 30 years ago, in what now looks like a golden age. Classical radio has been hit by the double whammy of a general economic slowdown and a major rewrite of the laws governing the U.S. radio industry.”
Music – Best Of Times, Worst Of Times
“For the past few years, the music industry has been awash in gloom and doom. The grim chorus is now as familiar to the public as any top 40 hit: Piracy has gutted profits, CD sales are going steadily south for the first time since the format was introduced in the 1980s, corporate conglomeration has stultified any art in the business of recording and concerts. All of that is true, and in private even the titans of the business express fears that probably echo the anxious mutterings of railroad barons in the days when Model T’s began rolling down the line. But here is the funny thing lost in the histrionics: Today may be the very best time to be a music fan, especially one looking for a connection to a favorite artist or guidance and access to the exotic or rare.”