“Even when it comes to inexact sciences — beauty pageants, presidential elections — creating odds for the Booker Prize is screwier than most.” In fact, the most well-known handicappers for the UK-based literary award freely admit that they don’t even read the books before setting the odds, a neat trick which allows them to post odds mere moments after the shortlist is announced. Betting on one of the world’s most infamously persnickety book prizes may seem like a losing proposition anyway, but it hasn’t stopped the gambling-happy Britons from making it a popular pasttime.
Tag: 09.04.04
Decker Out At National Building Museum
“Howard Decker, the knowledgeable, affable chief curator at the [Washington, D.C.-based] National Building Museum for the past four years, abruptly resigned this week. His last day at the museum was yesterday.” Decker’s departure, which appears to have been amicable, was apparently precipitated by the desire of NBM executive director Chase Rynd to reorganize the museum’s management structure. “Rynd explained that he wants to replace Decker with a curator who is not ‘overly burdened with administrative tasks’ and who takes direct charge of certain exhibitions.”
Seattle’s Schwarz Dismisses His Concertmaster
The concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra has been fired after 20 years at the helm, apparently at the behest of music director Gerard Schwarz. Ilkka Talvi, who has filed a grievance contesting his dismissal, was apparently the victim of a clause in the SSO musicians’ contract which allows the concertmaster to be dismissed at the will of the music director, even as the rest of the orchestra’s musicians are protected by a tenure system.
Electoral Distraction Tactic #467,323
“President Bush made only one reference to Hollywood in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, and it was almost in passing, but he hit the moviemaking community where it lives.” In one sense, it’s merely a case of one candidate taking advantage of an easy target set up by his opponent. But the Kerry/Hollywood flap has proved to have legs as a political story, and may serve to highlight a larger clash of values, between what the GOP sees as the conservative “heartland” and what Democrats see as the star power of the mainly liberal world of big entertainment.
Laughing All The Way To The Box Office
The creators of a new satirical film called The Yes Men are making a name for themselves as the leaders of a new generation of political pranksters. And while harassing Republicans at a convention, or free-traders at a seminar, may not qualify as genuine political discourse, it’s a great way to sell movie tickets.
Republicans And NYC Artists: Worlds Apart
With thousands of Republican conventioneers flooding the streets of Manhattan this past week, a cynic might have predicted that it would be a slow week in the New York art world. The cynic would have been right: one gallery, owned by conservatives from Georgia, held a blowout party for Senator Zell Miller, but other than that, the city’s galleries and museums were left out in the cold by a political party which is increasingly cut off from the art world. “While there were 4,853 delegates and alternates at the convention, only 133 delegates and their family members checked in at a desk set up in the [Metropolitan Museum of Art’s] lobby to offer them special tours.”
Weimar Fire Claims Tens Of Thousands Of Books
The raging fire that broke out Thursday at the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, Germany, has destroyed as many as 30,000 irreplacable books. The damage is estimated to be in the millions of dollars, and the German culture minister has pledged that public money will play a major role in restoring the surviving books and the library building itself.
Hopper A Hit At Tate Modern
“Crowds who flocked to admire some of the loneliest paintings of the 20th century have helped to make the Edward Hopper exhibition at London’s Tate Modern one of the gallery’s most successful… By the time the exhibition closes tomorrow night, the Tate expects to have sold more than 420,000 tickets – a total beaten only by Matisse-Picasso two years ago. The gallery has stayed open late every night for weeks to meet the demand.”
Fahrenheit 9/11 For The Well-Read Intellectual
“Whatever the critics make of it, David Hare’s Stuff Happens is undeniably one of the cultural events of the year – a remarkable dramatisation of the events that led to the war in Iraq.” The critics, as it happens, have been finding the play overly simplistic and too willing to slosh around in “gray areas.” But to the politicians, weapons inspectors, and other political insiders who lived through the runup to war that Hare has dramatized, Stuff Happens is a powerful reenactment of a divisive year in global relations, “the thinking person’s Fahrenheit 9/11: much more sophisticated, but just as angry.”
The Rock ‘n Roll Cello
It’s a fledgling movement, to be sure, but more and more rock bands are turning to the traditionally classical cello to bolster their sound, and add an unusual twist to a genre which has for decades relied on screeching guitars and hammering percussion. From indie-goth band Rasputina, which sports multiple cellos, to a Colorado-based acoustic rock quartet which recently decided that a full-time cellist could improve their sound, the cello seems to be overtaking the violin in the role of the classical instrument best suited to crossing over into the nightclub scene.