Tag: 04.20.00

SHOWING A LITTLE FLESH

What does it take to shock people in the theater these days? Nudity? Certainly not. But celebrity nudity? That’s another matter, as Kathleen Turner’s brief turn in “The Graduate” in London is proving. “It is mystifying that, with the amount of public nudity there is, so many people would really think it worth their time and money for a quick glimpse of unclothed flesh glimmering out from the wings.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

UNCERTAIN GRAHAM FUTURE

The Martha Graham Company has been floundering in recent years. Earlier this month the company’s board asked for the resignation of Ronald Protas, the group’s artistic director. But “the major complication is that, after Graham’s death in 1991 at the age of 96, Protas became her sole artistic heir and continues to control the rights to her dances through the Martha Graham Trust.” – San Francisco Examiner

A WAY TO EASE YOUR GUILT FOR STEALING

Metal band Metallica has been suing universities (for $10 million) for allowing students to pirate the band’s music off the internet with the Napster program. Now a website has been set up that allows fans to donate money to Metallica to compensate the band for its monetary losses from digital piracy. Just in case you were feeling sorry for the poor lads. – Wired

A MOMENT WITH THE MAESTRO

Daniel Barenboim has been hailed as a “phenomenon” since the age of 12, when his piano playing was compared to Mozart. Now just a few months from the 50th anniversary of his stage debut, the maestro reflects on his career and the sad demise of classical music’s audience. “It is beginning to look as endangered as the Siberian tiger. There is no music education now in the schools. The crossover business, and all the other trivialisations of classical music, is a result of this basically unhealthy state of affairs.” – The Telegraph (UK)

BOSTON ARTS INITIATIVE

  • Boston has long lagged behind other cities in public funding for the arts. Now its mayor announces a major arts initiative to try to aid the arts. But the plan is long on goals and somewhat short of substance.- Boston Globe

    • Where’s the money? – Boston Herald

    • After a year of study, mayor’s finding is that the arts need more money and better facilities? Now there’s a real shocker. – Boston Herald

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

“When the memorial to Fanny Burney is unveiled in Westminster Abbey in June 2002, she will join Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Brontë sisters as the only women to be commemorated in Poets’ Corner.”  Why has Burney – popular 18th-century novelist, diarist, wicked satirist, and playwright (one of her recently discovered plays is receiving its first-ever full-scale production at the Old Vic) been all but forgotten and woefully under-read? – The Guardian

I’M A GENIUS – WHO NEEDS HELP?

David Eggers book “Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” has all the buzz and has climbed to No. 5 on the NYT Bestseller list. He’s sold the paperback rights for $1.4 million, and foreign publishers in 10 countries have coughed up an estimated $500,000. So what does he need with agents? He’ll represent himself – and he turns down a seven-movie Hollywood deal. – Variety

YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME

London’s Marlborough Gallery, convicted of defrauding the Mark Rothko estate in 1975 and accused last month of cheating the Francis Bacon estate, has also been fighting a legal battle over the estate of the German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters for the past two years. In 1998 a Norway court ruled against the gallery (to the tune of nearly $4 million to be paid to Schwitters’ family), but last month an Oslo appeals court reversed the decision. Now the family owes Marlborough $1.2 million in compensation. – New York Times