Author: Laura Collins Hughes

Ballet School Bans Too-Thin Students, Principal Says

“Ballerinas – whose art requires them to be ultra-slender – may not immediately strike one as the ideal template for solving the problems of underweight models. But Jane Hackett, the principal of the English National Ballet school, yesterday joined the ‘size zero’ debate, publicly stating that the school bans students who are too thin and called on the fashion industry to follow suit.”

Indian Novelists Find Their Place At Home

Like many Indian writers before her, Kiran Desai left her country for the West. But with Indian literary culture thriving, some writers have returned, deeming the atmosphere essential to their work. “No one in India has pinpointed the next homegrown prize-winning writer, but Desai’s (non-resident Indian) win seems to confirm, rather than undermine, the place of novelists writing in India now.”

War Nudges Nashville’s Politics Leftward

The Dixie Chicks, suddenly, aren’t the only country musicians whose politics are known to be somewhere to the left of the Republican base. “It’s telling when country luminary Merle Haggard has an entry on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of top protest songs. Country musicians and their fans tend to hail from conservative states with high enlistment rates. Then again, the toll of the war on the sons and daughters of these states has been acute.”

In Architecture, The Public Leads With Its Heart

It’s useful to keep in mind the disconnect between professionals’ and the public’s opinions, as illuminated in the American Institute of Architects’ “America’s Favorite Architecture” survey, John King writes. “The general public isn’t looking for cultural sustenance, or a three-dimensional manifesto on the inequities of capitalism. The starting point is more basic: How does it feel?”

North A Casualty Of Smithsonian’s Showtime Deal?

“The Smithsonian Institution rejected a request from Oliver North to film a stand-up in front of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb. This is the latest flap in the Smithsonian’s development of programming for a cable television network. North … said in an opinion column that the museum’s action raises questions about the propriety of the contract between Showtime Networks and the Smithsonian, which limits access of film crews.”

Brooklyn Museum: Art Venue Or Amusement Park?

No question about it, Lance Esplund writes, Arnold Lehman has transformed the Brooklyn Museum and lured huge crowds. But at what cost? “What is present at the Brooklyn Museum is a belief in the power of art as entertainment and attraction. Mr. Lehman obviously knows what the public wants, and he is giving it to them. What is missing at the Brooklyn Museum is a faith in the public and in the power of art.”

The Woman Behind Some Of Those Tiffany Designs

Tiffany designs have long been identified entirely with the creative mind of Louis Comfort Tiffany, but an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society will show a more complex reality. “Focusing on a designer named Clara Driscoll and the group of women known as the ‘Tiffany girls’ who worked with her in the glass-cutting department of Tiffany Studios, the exhibition explodes the myth of Tiffany as the company’s sole designer, and offers a new inside view of the workings of the studios.”

Embracing The Dixie Chicks, Three Years Late

The Dixie Chicks “beat back the campaign by conglomerate radio chains to obliterate them and did it with little support from fellow artists, who apparently feared getting Dixie-Chicked themselves. The band reinvented itself, taking on a pop style, reclaiming some old fans and finding new ones — a lot of them. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush’s polls plummeted to Nixonian levels. Suddenly, the industry found the courage to really, really like them again.”