“In an online poll conducted by the National Book Foundation, [Flannery O’Connor’s] collection ‘The Complete Stories’ was named the best work to have won the National Book Award for fiction in the contest’s 60-year history.” The competition was formidable: collected stories of John Cheever, William Faulkner and Eudora Welty as well as Ellison’s Invisible Man and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.
Tag: 11.19.09
And What Is Art For, Anyway?
The Independent offers a debate on the question, with entries from, among others, theatre director Simon McBurney, novelist Lionel Shriver, Serpentine Gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones, and nine thoughtful readers. (Says Shriver, “This assignment is a formula for sounding like a prat.”)
Jeanne-Claude, Christo’s Collaborator & Wife, Dies At 74
“Artist Jeanne-Claude, who created the 2005 Central Park installation ‘The Gates’ and other large scale ‘wrapping’ projects around the globe with her husband Christo,” has died “at a New York hospital from complications of a brain aneurysm.”
Oxford To Get A Storytelling Museum
“The Story Museum has existed online for the past four years, holding events across Oxfordshire and running storytelling pilots in schools, but [a £2.5 million] donation enables it to start constructing a permanent home in Oxford.”
In Armenia, Spectacular New Arts Center Uplifts The Nation
“The center, a mad work of architectural megalomania and historical recovery, is one of the strangest but most memorable museum buildings to open in ages. Imagine an Art Deco version of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon stretching nearly the height of the Empire State Building, its decorations coded with Armenian symbolism. Did I mention the artificial waterfalls?”
One Medium Popcorn, Please, And A Larger Pair Of Pants
“A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation’s largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.”
What Community Orchestras Taught Joseph Schwantner
“They are more limited in terms of their experience, and to engage a new work is a major challenge,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer says. “I’ve learned that you have to be patient; you have to give them an opportunity to digest this music and make it their own. But … I’ve seen them rise to the challenge.”
Southern California Libraries Hard Hit By Govt. Cuts
“Kim Bui-Burton, president of the California Library Assn., described conditions as ‘extraordinarily difficult.’ Never lavishly funded, libraries started to falter with last year’s credit and mortgage disasters. Now, she said, they are being battered by deep state and local cuts.”
Dancer Plans To Induce Epileptic Seizure In Performance
“Rita Marcalo has stopped taking her medication ahead of the event at The Bradford Playhouse, which the audience will be invited to film. Arts Council England, which is funding the performance, said it aimed to raise awareness about the condition.” An epilepsy charity has “urged Ms Marcalo to reconsider the event.”
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg As Music Director
More than midway through her three-year contract as music director of the conductorless New Century Chamber Orchestra, “Salerno-Sonnenberg hinted strongly that she’s inclined to stay a fourth year…. For now, New Century concerts have taken on the fascinating cast of a soloist meshing her distinctive traits with an integrated orchestral texture.”