“Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum has named Christina Orr-Cahall its new CEO and director. Currently CEO and director of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Fla., she will take the helm at EMP/SFM on or before July 1. Orr-Cahall will be taking over from interim CEO Josi Callan at a time when the museum is clarifying its focus….”
Tag: 03.24.09
Alternative Reality: In Bust, A Boom For Fiction Workshops
“‘When reality stinks,’ the crusty old novelist quipped, taking a quick drag on his cigarette, ‘write fiction.’ … [A]s stock markets tank, newspapers go bankrupt, and city services vanish, the humble, bracingly personal act of trying to write fiction – preferably with the support of a writers’ workshop – appears more popular than ever.”
Much Uncertainty For Dance Tours Amid Funding Delays
“A backlog of funding applications on the desk of Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore has left dance groups across the country looking at cancelling programming and scrambling to make provisional plans. A number of members of the CanDance Network, an association of 31 specialized dance presenters, still have no answers to applications they submitted last April for funding for 2009-2010 projects. The wait is making it nearly impossible for them to arrange tours and performances….”
Going Up — To An Operatic Soundtrack
“If you’ve used an elevator in the Civic Opera Building in recent weeks, you may have noticed something different. The difference is operatic music. … The Financial District landmark, which opened in 1929, could in fact be the only building in the nation that pipes condensed versions of grand opera into its elevators, although I doubt anyone has made a systematic study of the matter.”
Is Photojournalism Art? Can It Be?
“Copyright lawyers have been arguing over Shepard Fairey’s appropriation of a news photograph of Barack Obama for his ‘Hope’ campaign poster and whether it constitutes ‘fair use.’ But no one has disputed that it is a work of art. But what about the photograph on which the poster is based?”
About That Cultural Olympiad: What Is It, Anyway?
“Does anyone know what a Cultural Olympiad will look like? Does anyone want one? London’s winning bid to host the Olympics included a programme for a Cultural Olympiad. So, we will get one.” But, with three years to go, the idea remains disconcertingly vague.
Radiology Artist Takes Barbie For A CT Scan
“Doctors and researchers regularly rely on CT scanners to create images of body parts like brains, chests and knees. But an artist-turned-medical-student in Manhattan is using one such machine to peer into the meat and guts of cultural icons like the Big Mac, the Barbie and the iPhone, creating whimsical and occasionally creepy images.”
Pop Songs Have A New Story Line: The Economy
“[T]he global financial crisis is providing fodder to all manner of musicians, from rock legends and country singers to folkies and rappers. Contributions from rappers are especially notable, with more and more hip-hop artists forgoing, or at least decreasing, lyrics about excessive materialism in favor of ones about the common man’s economic grind….”
As Other Media Outlets Contract, NPR Is Bigger Than Ever
“At a time when newspapers, magazines and TV news continue to lose readers and viewers, at least one part of the traditional media has continued to grow robustly: National Public Radio. The audience for NPR’s daily news programs, including ‘Morning Edition’ and ‘All Things Considered,’ reached a record last year…. The favorable audience data, however, hasn’t spared NPR from the budget woes that are affecting almost every news organization in the nation.”
Alpha-Male Fantasy No. 4,632: A Hottie To Play My Mum!
“It is all too easy for a female actor to find herself cast as the mother of someone who once played her boyfriend as soon as she blows out the candles on her 35th birthday cake. This has long been an accepted fact of Hollywood life…. But last weekend, Hope Davis finally broke ranks to admit she was somewhat ‘peeved’ when she was recently offered a role playing the mother of Johnny Depp,” who was born in 1963 — the year before Davis.