“As we move into the final stages of the World Trade Center memorial competition, it’s worth recalling this city’s forgetfulness about tragedy. Perhaps if we make the monument sufficiently majestic – and devote enough resources to change the light bulbs, clean the pumps and scrub the glass – we can prolong the event’s resonance, but we must also build for the future ebbing of emotions.”
Tag: 12.01.03
New African Museum For SF
A new $11 million Museum of the African Diaspora is scheduled to open in the summer of 2005. The museum aims to “explore and celebrate the history, culture and contributions of African-descended people around the world.”
Then There Was The Time Picasso Was Interviewed By The “E” Channel
So, like, Mr. Picasso, were you like really, really excited to have the chance to finally paint “Lady with a Fan”?
Amis: (Yellow) Dog Day Afternoon
“For every writer who has ever longed to be called the best novelist writing in English — as Martin Amis frequently has — the fate of the 54-year-old author is a cautionary tale. Yellow Dog, a satire as wicked and sustained as anything he has written, has attracted mixed reviews. The kinder ones say things like, Amis at his worst is still better than the rest of us at our best. And the worst ones, especially a rabbit punch by a young novelist named Tibor Fischer, writing in The Daily Telegraph, contain comments such as the already oft-quoted (here once again): It’s like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating’.”
UK Gov To Museums: Get More Kids, Poor People In The Doors (Or Else!)
The British government says that if museums don’t increase the numbers of children and economically poor visitors, they may lose funding. “A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) told us that if a museum fails to achieve its targets for no good reason, “we could withhold extra grant which might otherwise have been allocated to it in the next spending review.” He added that “we could also seek changes in the museum’s governance”—which means that trustees or the chairman might be replaced.”
Why Isn’t Contemporary Music More Popular?
Charles Rosen laments in his new book about the lack of appreciation for 20th Century music. Denis Dutton argues that Rosen is wrong to blame audiences, and might better look to the music itself.
Tough-Love Grammar Book Is Bestseller
A hard-core book of grammar has topped the UK best-seller lists. “Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the brainchild of author Lynne Truss, is subtitled The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. On Sunday it topped the bestseller list of the UK online retailer Amazon, and it is already undergoing its sixth reprint since publication last month.”
Could Online Music Expand Choices?
Could competitive new music downloading stores end up expanding the kinds of music available? “As music labels and retailers compete more aggressively online, they will offer more obscure titles and recordings of live performances that could find a paying audience through downloads but make no financial sense to distribute on CD’s.”
Boyd: Saving The RSC
Michael Boyd has a tough job trying to re-energize the Royal Shakespeare Company. The RSC is full of problems, logistical, artistic, and perceptual. Yet Boyd has a plan. “It is based on the very old-fashioned belief that sustained collaborative work can produce theater of more lasting value, of more profound values, than any other way of working. I believe that with a core ensemble of around 40, I can provide rigorous, exciting training for everybody, including the old lags who still want to learn.”
Ex-Stedeljk Museum Director Cleared Of Fraud
“The investigation into alleged fraud by Rudi Fuchs, the recently departed director of the Stedeljk Museum in Amsterdam, and the artist Karel Appel has been concluded, and there is no evidence of criminal activity by them.”