“People who hated history in grade school view the subject as a collection of facts. In a certain sense they are right: Historians trade (in part) in verifiable events that no person can own or copyright.”
Tag: 04.24.09
Proposed: Let’s Leave Readings Out Of Literary Education
“If I could make one wish for the members of my profession, college and university professors of literature, I would wish that for one year, two, three, or five, we would give up readings. By a reading, I mean the application of an analytical vocabulary — Marx’s, Freud’s, Foucault’s, Derrida’s, or whoever’s — to describe and (usually) to judge a work of literary art. I wish that we’d declare a moratorium on readings. I wish that we’d give readings a rest.”
Great Battles In Architecture (Gehry’s Is The Latest)
After some ham-handed maneuvers by the suddenly budget-conscious city of Miami Beach, Frank Gehry has left a concert-hall project there, headlines blaring. “Gehry, however, is hardly the first architect to become embroiled in the kind of spat that goes down in architectural history books. The ghost of the brilliant Danish architect, Jørn Utzon, must surely haunt Sydney Opera House” — and the list goes on….
J.G. Ballard’s Final Book Won’t Be Published After All
“As tributes to the late, great JG Ballard continue to roll in from all quarters, his publisher has quietly cancelled publication of what would have been his final book. HarperCollins had planned to bring out the non-fiction title, which would have been an account of Ballard’s discussions with his doctor, this September. But the author, suffering from cancer, was too ill to work on it….”
15 Hitler Paintings Sell At Auction
What a British auction house claims are a set of paintings and sketches by a young Adolf Hitler sold at auction Thursday for 97,672 pounds ($143,358).
UK Regional Arts Hardest Hit By Recession
“Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of small and medium-sized arts organisations – which are more likely to be located outside the capital than large ones – have experienced falls in private funding so far this year, the research found. Four in 10 have experienced a drop in public funding, while the same proportion has been forced to scale back projects.”
Venerable Deems Taylor Awards Suspended
“ASCAP CEO John LoFrumento cited budgetary reasons. Asked when the program would return, he responded, ‘We will be discussing its future as we go forward, but at this time we have no definitive projection.’ It is an unfortunate turn of events for classical music coverage, an ever shrinking area that, now more than ever, deserves all the recognition it can get.”
The Music Inside Your Brain
“Does the brain naturally compose melodies to rival those by Mozart or Chopin? Researchers at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) think so.”
New V&A Theatre Museum Shows The Detritus Of The Stage
“The contrast between the vitality of the stage and the inert theatrical afterlife haunts the V&A’s big scale galleries that cover live performance in Britain over the last 350 years. They replace the old Theatre Museum in London’s West End, which controversially closed in 2007, and despite the obvious curatorial care, you wonder if this museum of live performance isn’t an oxymoron.”
Florida Opera Cancels Its Concert Series
Florida Grand Opera canceled the series for lack of ticket sales and difficult fundraising. The series was launched with much hype and lavish promotion this season.