There may be as many as 50,000 book clubs in the UK. “What is clear is that the book club is now a near-ubiquitous feature of bourgeois life. If you are not in one, you will know someone who is. There are reading groups devoted to football, horror, and crime books. There groups in prisons, groups for men, groups who dress up in clothing appropriate to the book, groups who cook for each other, lesbian groups and radical groups.”
Tag: 02.12.05
UK Museums Trapped In Vicious Cycle
UK museums are facing a funding crisis with no end in sight. “The reality is that a decade of expansion has left many British museums struggling to pay for running all those shiny new buildings they have only just opened. At the same time, the abolition of admission charges two years ago raised expectations about visitor numbers. The British Museum and the National Gallery both get close to five million a year; the Science Museum has more than two million. Even if these vast numbers remain static, they will be seen as a sign of failure… But to keep the audience coming back each year requires continuous investment.”
NYC Comedians To Get A Hard-Fought Raise
Cable TV has made stand-up comedy into something of a glamorous profession in recent years. But for those struggling comics without development deals and HBO specials, stand-up is a tough way to make a living, with many New York clubs paying only $20 to $75 a set. So earlier this winter, the Big Apple’s comedians banded together to demand better pay from club owners, and to threaten retaliation if their demands weren’t met. And the funny thing is, they actually won.
The Museum Of 20th Century Kitchenware?
Toronto is planning a major new museum for its Harbourfront district to celebrate the city’s cultural history. “Its core collection will be the more than 100,000 items ranging from 18th-century military uniforms to 20th-century industrial moulds, kitchenware and advertising signs amassed by the City of Toronto and currently stored in an unmarked building near the CNE. For the museum to open by its target date of 2010, council has to budget about $200,000 over two years for the formation of a governing board, determination of a site, and the planning of a Humanitas festival showcasing the creative energy of the city in 2006 that will move the consultant’s plan forward.”
Million Dollar Misdirection
The furor over a controversial plot twist in Clint Eastwood’s new film, Million Dollar Baby, is just the latest example of shrill right-wing protestors trying to impose their own values system on everyone else, says Frank Rich. But who would ever have thought that Eastwood – a man’s man if ever Hollywood had one – would find himself targeted in such a manner? “What really makes these critics hate Million Dollar Baby is not its supposedly radical politics – which are nonexistent – but its lack of sentimentality. It is, indeed, no Rocky, and in our America that departure from the norm is itself a form of cultural radicalism. Always a sentimental country, we’re now living fulltime in the bathosphere.”
So Bing Crosby Wouldn’t Have Been Eligible?
The Grammys have introduced a Hawaiian music category, agreeing at long last that the islands’ rich musical tradition are worthy of separate recognition. But what exactly constitutes Hawaiian music? Can it still be Hawaiian if a singer performs in English? Must there be a ukulele involved? And most importantly, who gets to decide the answers to these burning questions?
Everybody Loves An Oldie
Picking the winners of the Grammy awards in advance may not be all that difficult. Jon Pareles thinks he’s found the secret predicter: “The album with the oldest song wins.” The rule seems to hold true in almost every year, and may point up the, um, veteran sensibilities of the majority of Grammy voters.
Vox Populi
New Yorkers are rarely shy with their opinions, and the Gates of Central Park are inspiring plenty of comment from Manhattan’s residents, from gripes about the cost (which is being covered entirely by the artists) to praise for the way the saffron colors have transformed Central Park in winter.
Oboist Wanted – Apply Anywhere
The position of principal oboe is currently open in three of America’s major orchestras, and in several other second- and third-tier ensembles as well. When you consider how many aspiring professional musicians there are in the world, and how few high-profile positions available, the current surfeit of jobs has to be considered mannah from heaven for oboists. “The sudden raft of openings appears on the surface to be a confluence of health problems and retirements. But there is also a generational change under way, as the recent musical descendants of the father of American oboe playing, Marcel Tabuteau, who died in 1966, leave the scene.”
America’s Moralist
“Arthur Miller may or may not be the greatest playwright America has produced – Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams both have equal, if not more, claim to that phantom title – but he is certainly the most American of the country’s greatest playwrights. He was the moralist of the three, and America, as some recent pollsters rushed to remind us, is a country that likes moralists. The irony, of course, is that Mr. Miller’s strongest plays are fired by convictions that assail some of the central ideals enshrined in American culture.”