” ‘The real culture of America,’ ” Lawrence Ferlinghetti said after announcing the finalists for the 2006 National Book Awards, ” ‘is not corporate monoculture and television. It’s the writers, teachers, universities, libraries and librarians. That’s the mainstream culture of America.’ It’s hard to say what’s more unexpected: to hear Ferlinghetti invoke the mainstream or to see him take part in an event like this. … Still, the issue he raises — that of the mainstream and literature’s place within it, of why this stuff matters — is one readers and writers have no choice but to take on.”
Tag: 10.17.06
Sexy Dancing, 2006 Edition (Or: Elvis’s Legacy Lives)
“Freaking has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, propelled by the mainstreaming of rap music and the sultry images in hip-hop videos. Critics say its unquestionably carnal positions — girl bent at the waist, boy thrusting behind her — go far beyond previous generations’ bumping and grinding. ‘Every generation finds its successors’ dances to be improprieties,’ said Judith Lynne Hanna, a University of Maryland senior scholar and author of a book on dance and sexuality.” Even so, “educators from New Hampshire to Washington state are growing increasingly agitated.”
Painting Abu Ghraib
“Naked figures writhe in an eerie darkness. Vicious beasts bare their teeth and snarl. The faces of lost souls cry out in unimaginable agony, forced into strange and contorted positions reminiscent of crucifixion. Such a vision evokes a scene of the apocalypse typical of 15th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. But no, these paintings by Colombian artist Fernando Botero are depictions of real events. Despite their hellish subject matter, they are all meticulously based on photographs and press accounts of the torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003.” Having made their way from Europe, they’re now on view in New York.
Harlem’s Gatehouse, Remade As A Theatre
“There was a time not so long ago when people would hike to the Gatehouse pumping station at 135th Street and Convent Avenue in Harlem just to stand at a railing inside and watch the water rush by below. The water is still there, coursing its way underground to points south in Manhattan, but the building above now offers a different kind of spectacle. The architect Rolf Ohlhausen set out to evoke the public-works legacy of this rugged 1890 building in transforming it into a brand-new 192-seat performance space for Harlem Stage/Aaron Davis Hall. … (The) $21 million theater (is) the first new performance space to open in Harlem in a generation.”
When All The Books Are Online
“Spurred by Google’s initiative and by the lower costs, higher profits, and immense reach of unmediated digital distribution, book publishers and other copyright holders must at last overcome their historic inertia and agree, like music publishers, to market their proprietary titles in digital form either to be read on line or, more likely, to be printed on demand at point of sale…”