“Trade unionists at La Scala opera house in Milan on Friday announced a strike that will force the cancellation of next week’s much-awaited performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio by the prestigious Vienna Staatsoper.”
Tag: 09.03.11
David Hare Is Feeling Insecure And Confused
“Sir David Hare is in a quandary. He doesn’t know how to write about today’s politics. … ‘It’s very hard to write when it seems that individual countries or governments are not in control of their own destinies. They seem to be at the whim of a system that failed catastrophically, and which is held to be faulty by those who supported it in the first place’.”
Popular Palestinian TV Comedy Strikes Nerve, Gets Cancelled
“The hit Palestinian TV satire show Watan ala Watar began its Aug. 14 episode with a sketch featuring Palestinian Attorney General Ahmad Mughani getting besieged by Palestinians filing lawsuits over Watan ala Watar making fun of them.”
Developers Gone Wild: Will Planning Reforms Kill Historic Sites In Britain?
Goodbye, green and pleasant land? “Dame Fiona Reynolds, director general of the National Trust, warns that millions of acres of countryside are being placed at risk by the draft National Planning Policy Framework.”
Cities Kill Everything Except Ideas. How Do We Fix That, And Fast?
More than 90 percent of the U.S. population will soon live in urban areas. “If cities are the fastest growing systems on earth — and causing resource depletion, species die-off, and declining natural ecosystems of unprecedented scale — how can we manage the way that urbanization is drastically restructuring the ecology of our planet?”
Degas Liked To Look, But He Likely Didn’t Touch
“Degas is at once the best and the least known of the Impressionists. His ballet pictures are among the most popular images ever created – to modern eyes they look almost too pretty. But in the human chemistry of Impressionism Degas cuts a paradoxical and elusive figure: a severe ascetic with a caustic wit, opinionated, yet intensely private.”
Zines Are Back! (Did They Ever Leave?)
Zines, those markers of ’90s do-it-yourself culture, have seen a dramatic comeback in the last few years – and they’re far more than “photocopied blogs.” Even Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan writes for them. Why now?
What Did You Do This Summer? Oh, Just Discovered The Breakup Of A Comet
High school student Hannah Blyth spent her summer discovering asteroids, falling more deeply in love with astronomy … and oh yes, finding photographic evidence of the breakup of a comet.
Banksy, Street Painter. What About Street Fighter?
“Graffiti artist Banksy is demanding an investigation into a television documentary about a ‘battle of spray cans’ between him and underground graffiti hero King Robbo. Banksy says it implies that he was responsible for putting his rival in a coma.”
Selling Off The British Empire Museum, With Or Without Approval
Who plucked 150 pieces from the British Empire Museum’s collection and offered them for sale? And did the trustees ever see checks for £115,000? A police report says the director thought it “could be politically embarrassing that the museum was selling the items.†Indeed.