Tag: 02.18.07

Arts Council England’s Mumbo-Jumbo Policy

What’s all this about Arts Council England soliciting policy help from the public? “Art can only do the thing politicians and arts wonks most dream about – bring people together – if it works. And the only art that really works has been created for its own sake, rather than to achieve some spooky form of social engineering. It’s all very well to deride art for art’s sake, but abandon the creative impulse altogether, and you’re lost.”

A Disconnect Between Oscar Voters And Audience

“the 2006 Oscar race seems to mark an intriguing turning point in recent film history — the year when the industry’s self-regard reached shocking new lows. From The Devil Wears Prada to Dreamgirls to Casino Royale, Oscar voters by and large avoided the most crowd-pleasing, commercially satisfying entertainments this year, in lieu of presumably more “serious” fare that was produced independently or by the studios’ specialty divisions.”

Tentative Agreement In Canadian Actors’ Strike?

That’s the word Sunday. “Talks in the dispute have repeatedly broken down over actors’ wages for digital new-media productions, ranging from full-length works shown on the Internet, to short films made for cellphones, to one- or two-second voiceovers for novelty ring tones. Because new media is such an open frontier for the industry, this round of labour talks were seen as precedent setting.”

Outsizing Hip-Hop Culture

“Why is the all-American hyper-masculine ideal taken to such a laughable extreme in rap culture? Who is to blame for co-opting the African-American self-image, and what’s being done, in more recent hip-hop artistic trends, to stop the self-deprecation? Byron Hurt makes the case that hip-hop’s emphasis on hypermasculinity has roots in American pop culture in general.”

In Search Of: A 21st Century Music Director

Why is the Chicago Symphony taking so much time to find a new music directoor? “The orchestra has taken on the much broader role of asking what a music director needs to be in the 21st century — a time of unforeseen technological advances, shifting musical tastes, tremendous choices in how people spend their leisure time and extra dollars, and a widespread abandonment of music education in the schools. On top of these philosophical questions, the committee is well aware that the availability of top-flight candidates is in itself subject to almost chance variables.”

Toting Up Oscar’s Diversity

“This year’s lineup is the most ethnically diverse ever, with five blacks, two Hispanics and an Asian among the 20 acting nominees. Best-picture nominee ”Letters From Iwo Jima” is almost entirely in Japanese. Hispanics alone garnered a record 19 nominations, including three Mexican directors contending for some of the biggest prizes of the night.”

Why America Took Nietzsche To Heart

“America has been surprisingly fertile ground for Nietzsche’s ideas, ever since he was first translated into English, in 1896. This is more than a little counterintuitive, because Nietzsche challenged pretty much everything America embodies or represents, including the ideal of equality, reverence for Enlightenment rationality, and belief in God.”

A Perfectly Fine Building You Wish Was More

Tufts University’s new Granoff building works well for the purpose it was intended. But “a building like this, a building for the arts, can seek to be memorable. Instead, the Granoff is a tame effort of a kind familiar from many college campuses. It seeks to bridge the gap between traditional and innovative and thus make everyone happy. As often is the case, it falls between those two stools.”

Baltimore Gets Its First Philip Glass

Is it possible – the Baltimore Symphony has never performed anything by Philip Glass, A Baltimore native who’s now 70? Finally this week the orchestra takes the risk. “The neglect doesn’t seem to have bothered the composer. ‘Baltimore’ – he pronounces it, local style, without the ‘t’ – ‘wasn’t the kind of town that had a lot of new music. I didn’t take it personally,’ he says.”