The nudity of Cosimo Cavallaro’s 6-foot-tall chocolate Jesus provoked the Lenten outrage of some Catholics — but whose tradition is it, anyway? “At least with respect to the nudity of his Christ, Cavallaro is in good company. The marble statue that Michelangelo delivered in 1525 to his patrons in Rome followed the stipulation in the contract, which specified ‘a marble figure of Christ as large as life, naked’.”
Tag: 04.11.07
Why David Sedaris Doesn’t Deserve A Pass
“When Alex Heard tenderly busted David Sedaris in the New Republic last month for adulterating his nonfiction with many imagined settings, scenes, and dialogue, I expected journalists and others to rebuke the best-selling humorist. As for Sedaris, I expected him to acknowledge that he had erred by making up stuff, but those days were behind him. I was wrong.”
The Rise Of Torture As Mindless Entertainment
Why are vicious scenes of torture in movies suddenly considered entertaining? How can anyone watch one human being torture another in hideously realistic fashion and not head straight for the exit? “The most troubling part of this wave is how brazenly torture is presented. Many of the depictions are gratuitous and exploitative; others are more restrained. But rarely is the subject dealt with critically, or as something more than a visual provocation.”
$20 Million TV Art Fraud Leads To Guilty Plea
“A satellite TV show host has pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from an investigation into bogus artwork sold through televised auctions that defrauded customers of more than $20 million.”
Shattering Glass
Philip Glass has long since passed from the realm of controversial minimalist into compositional elder statesman, but that doesn’t mean that his music is any less polarizing than it ever was. Rupert Christiansen’s response to being forced to sit through a Glass opera this week: “There are times in the opera house when the tedium reaches such a peak that I am hit by a vertiginous urge to leap out of my seat, strip off my clothes and run on to the stage screaming like a banshee.”
Salivating Over China’s Movie Boom
Singapore’s small but rapidly expanding film industry is looking to capitalize on China’s growing appetite for film. “Cracking the nascent Chinese film market is becoming a holy grail for many Asian production houses as the Chinese are going to the movies in record numbers. In 2006, box office revenues rose by nearly a third to $336 million.”
Such A Thing As Too Many Disciplines
Are young, hip theatre companies in the UK trying to be too many things to too many audiences? “The artistic policies of recently established fringe companies are becoming depressingly uniform, with every new group laying claim to multidisciplinary territory and announcing the use, for instance, of ‘various combinations of movement, text, mask, music, puppetry and mime’. And, naturally, circus skills.”
There Was An Earthquake! A Terrible Flood! Locusts!
Ever since Roberto Alagna walked off the stage of La Scala mid-aria last December, he’s been trying to explain his side of things. His side does not include a great deal of contrition. “It was everyone else’s fault, apparently. He blames the conductor Riccardo Chailly for not holding the right tempo and the orchestra for playing ‘so-so’. The director, Franco Zeffirelli, he says, is ‘a great artist but not a great man… I left the stage because I was not well. I had hypoglycaemia. . When I have pressure I lose my sugar. I have a problem with my metabolism.”
Yet More Smithsonian Scandal
“The Smithsonian Institution last year renewed a contract giving the Chubb Group more than a half-million dollars of insurance business annually while Lawrence M. Small, then the Smithsonian secretary, and Sheila P. Burke, the deputy secretary, held highly paid seats on Chubb’s board of directors.” AJ Blogger Tyler Green first wrote about the connection several weeks ago.
Testing Ground
The first rehearsal of an expensive new stage production is never a good place to discover that your script sucks. But for writers, who work mainly in isolation until that fateful first rehearsal, there aren’t a lot of other options. But a weekly workshop in Los Angeles is allowing writers the chance to see their work performed by local actors without the pressure of press and public looking in.