“Money, the root of much current brooding, can also be a spark plug for artistic thought, and our relationship with it turns out to be a persistent thread running through this year’s Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe.” That’s true of the the art and also of “the festival, whose budget is tighter this year, given the general economic picture.”
Tag: 08.30.09
T.S. Eliot, Lesbian Activist
“TS Eliot’s reputation as one of the past century’s most austere and solemn poets will be blown apart by a major new exhibition opening next month casting him in a far softer light: as a champion of lesbian fiction and compassionate father figure to struggling writers.”
The Sheer Gracelessness Of Stealing Another Writer’s Work
“Histories do not grow on trees. The first person to cobble out a definitive narrative has to do a ton of work. You interview hundreds of people and hunt down documents…. You separate truth from hearsay. Then — with endnotes — you meticulously source all your quotations and odd facts so future scholars will know whence they came.” Unless, of course, you’re plagiarizing.
Joe Maneri, Jazz-Classical Innovator, Dead At 86
After decades teaching at New England Conservatory and playing close to home, “[by] the mid-’90s Mr. Maneri, a round, cheery, charismatic presence with a snow-white beard, was regarded as a musician ahead of his time, a forerunner of the exploratory, eclectic improvised music then flourishing as ‘downtown’ jazz.”
Michael Mazur, 73, Painter-Sculptor-Printmaker
“[His] restless artistic temperament led him to explore a variety of styles and media, shuttling between realism and abstraction. He produced narrative paintings like Incident at Walden Pond, a triptych from the late 1970s depicting the aftermath of a rape, and, beginning in the 1990s, abstract landscapes based on his own vascular system and on [medieval] Chinese landscapes.”
Online Detroit Arts Funding Challenge Exceeds Expectations
“Last week’s Community Foundation Challenge, an online fund-raising effort for the arts, funneled $4.8 million to 75 local groups, according to figures released Friday. That’s nearly $2 million more than the original $3 million goal of the Aug. 18 matching-grant initiative spearheaded by the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan.”
Wire Writer David Simon: Ads Are Kiling TV
“Television as a medium, in terms of being literate and telling stories, has short-changed itself since its inception. That is because of advertising.”
Is Alt-Comedy The New Mainstream?
“With more and more young TV viewers migrating to the Web, TV executives are trying to lure them back with the same awkward-ironic brand of humor that drew them to the Internet in the first place.”
Orlando Orchestra Finishes Year Profitable
“The Orlando Philharmonic has ended its year with not only a balanced budget of $3.1 million but a small surplus.”
Rocco Landesman Plays In Peoria
“Actors and artists are part of the real economy. They have real jobs, like working in a steel mill or an auto plant, and they have medical bills and rent to pay and kids to send to college. The arts are tough work. But it’s real work, and it counts.”