“When you visit Mormon temples and visitor centers in Salt Lake, you realize that it’s really a religion [founded in the 19th century] that came of age in the 20th Century at the time of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Disney. Mormonism has this great cheesy aesthetic – when you watch their videos, it’s almost as if they’re about to flash a smile at the camera and burst into song.”
Tag: 03.17.11
Protests Over Working Conditions At Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Construction Site
“The artists’ group says it is responding to a range of abuses that have been reported on the island, including the failure of contractors to repay recruitment fees — which can lead to crippling debt for laborers — hazardous working conditions and the arbitrary withholding of wages.”
SAT Question On Reality TV Stumps Busy Students (They Don’t Watch TV)
“Few questions on the so-called Big Test appear to have provoked more anxious chatter — at least in this era of texting and online comment streams and discussion threads — than an essay prompt in some versions of the SAT administered last Saturday in which students were asked to opine on reality television.”
The Solution To Your Movie-Streaming Woes?
“It’s kind of hilarious to think that this arrangement is the solution to the future of online movies: data centers stacked to the ceiling with DVD players.”
The Culture Of Sarah Palin (She’d Cut It All And There Wouldn’t Be Any)
“NPR, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, all those kind of frivolous things that government shouldn’t be in the business of funding with tax dollars — those should all be on the chopping block as we talk about the $14-trillion debt that we’re going to hand to our kids and our grandkids.”
The Netflix Connection – Will It Upend The TV Business?
“If Netflix goes forward, it could be the most prominent test of whether a traditional multimillion-dollar star-laden show can succeed on an Internet platform where people watch when they please and may only learn about the show if a computer algorithm recommends it.”
Judith Jamison Talks Alvin Ailey
“Everyone felt Mr. Ailey was choreographing for them, period. And when he had to explain for the 19,000th time what something was about, he was so eloquent.”
Arachnophobia on Broadway: Other Producers Annoyed by Attention Paid to Spider-Man
“If a show opens on Broadway and it’s not a Spidery spectacle, will anyone care? … The $70 million production has dominated the limelight for months. And last week’s replacement of director Julie Taymor with a new artistic team, along with the show’s sixth opening-night delay, only intensified public appetite for news about the troubled show.”
Industry Disrupter: Netflix Vies To Enter Original Content Market
“If such a deal were to come to fruition it would add a new competitor to the television industry by increasing the degree to which Netflix vies with premium-cable television channels like Time Warner Inc.’s HBO.”
Regrets, We Have A Few (But It’s Tough After The Building’s Up)
A member of the competition jury that in 1999 selected the US architect Peter Eisenman to design a monumental cultural complex in Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain, has called the decision “an expensive mistake. Probably one of the largest in the history of architecture.”