“In the latest round of real estate brush fires to hit the [New York] rock scene, several clubs in the East Village and on the Lower East Side are facing their demise, including CBGB, the Bowery dungeon that was the birthplace of punk in the 1970’s. Besides CBGB, the clubs in danger include the Luna Lounge, Fez and Tonic… Owners of endangered clubs complain that rents and insurance charges have skyrocketed and that city officials show little interest in helping them survive.”
Tag: 02.17.05
A Stripped-Down Approach To Filmmaking
Documentarians can be scrappy and persistent, but Canadian filmmaker Eva Ziemsen might take the prize for most innovative baiting of her subject. Desperate to conduct a face-to-face interview with iconoclastic filmmaker Lars von Trier, Ziemsen, traveled across Europe with nothing more than the vaguest hope of success, barged into von Trier’s studio with the camera rolling, and then, with the ultimate rejection at hand, offered to conduct the interview naked. Two hours later, von Trier was sitting across from her (and no, she didn’t have to remove any clothing).
Protecting PBS From Those Nasty Cabinet Secretaries
PBS is asking the U.S. Congress to create a dedicated endowment which would fund the public broadcaster in perpetuity, protecting it from the political whims of politicians who object to one program or another. PBS has frequently been accused by conservatives of tilting to the left (as has nearly every broadcast network in the U.S.), and a recent flap over an episode of a children’s program which featured a family with two mothers has renewed the right’s vitriol, even though PBS has recently launched several high-profile shows featuring conservative commentators. The idea of funding PBS through a permanent trust comes as the network prepares to begin a search for a new president.
Mitchell Leaving PBS
PBS President Pat Mitchell told a gathering of the network’s managers this week that she will step down when her current term expires in 2006. “Under Mitchell’s leadership, prime-time ratings rose to the highest ever and PBS stations extended their reach for digital broadcasting to over 89 percent of the country. Mitchell also added diversity to the schedule – including the ‘American Family’, an emmy-nominated series featuring a Latino family, and ‘American Mystery!’ a special featuring Indians living in the Southwest.”
Death Of A Salesman (And His Dream)
“Its gradual demise lacks the éclat of the Gillette takeover, the disappearance of Fleet Bank, or the offshoring of John Hancock, but Cahners Publishing Company’s death by a thousand cuts has had a significant impact on civic life in Boston. The name of Norman Cahners, the hustling young Harvard grad who turned a Navy inventory newsletter called ‘The Palletizer’ into a trade publishing empire, was quietly removed from the company’s signature Newton Corner headquarters a while back. Now the Boston-area staff is leaving the building entirely… The purge of the Cahners name was completed two years ago, when the founder’s daughter Nancy was summoned to Newton to remove her father’s portrait.”
Kennedy Center Makes Major Push On Arts Ed
Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center has announced that it will spend a whopping $125 million on performing arts education programs over the next five years. The new initiative includes plans for a new theater specifically designed to accomodate young audiences, a collaboration with Disney Theatricals to encourage the production of school musicals, and an extensive arts management training program. The money for the project will be raised entirely through private donations.
Conductor Marcello Viotti, 50
“Viotti, director of La Fenice since 2002, conducted at renowned opera houses worldwide including Milan’s La Scala and the Vienna State Opera. His time at La Fenice coincided with its reopening in 2003 after it was destroyed by fire in 1996. He fell into a coma after suffering a stroke during rehearsals for Jules Massenet’s Manon last week.”
AZ Opera Closes Budget Gap
Arizona Opera has met a $500,000 fundraising goal and qualified for $250,000 in matching funds from the city of Phoenix, offsetting a budget shortfall created when the company was forced to temporarily move to a new home while its existing venue is renovated.
Edinburgh Fest Scraps £5 Tickets
A few years back, the Edinburgh International Festival sought to recapture some of the crowds and attention which had been diverted to the hugely popular Edinburgh Fringe by creating a new late-night concert series featuring some of the world’s finest classical musicians, with all tickets priced at a rock-bottom £5. The idea was to try to draw new audiences who ordinarily wouldn’t have come near the concert hall. Instead, while the Festival’s existing audience found the £5 admission attractive, no one else seemed to much care. So this year, the Festival is pulling the series altogether, claiming that it had the opposite effect on ticket revenue from what was intended.
When Is A Blogger Not A Journalist?
As more and more bloggers enter the realm of investigative journalism, some have begun to face similar quandaries to those faced by “real” journalists, and the issue of First Amendment protection for the self-styled reporter crowd has started to be seriously debated. “A useful first step would be to learn whether bloggers are covered by existing state statutes that protect journalists from having to cough up sources. The vast majority of states mark a clear line between professional journalists and everybody else. How do reporters qualify? They must be employed by news organizations — or as bloggers refer to it, the dreaded MSM (mainstream media).”