“Buying an architectural landmark is a daunting proposition. Maintenance is complex and expensive, restoration even more so. Few of these houses meet contemporary standards of energy efficiency. There is also the obvious problem of geography. You can’t move a landmarked house to wherever you wish, as you can a painting or sculpture.”
Tag: 05.11.08
The Venerable Dictionary. Only Online?
“Lexicographers are uploading their work to the Oxford English Dictionary online. Their revisions sit cheek-by-jowl with old entries, some of which haven’t been touched in 150 years. A chicken in the online O.E.D. is therefore “the young of the domestic fowl; its flesh,” which seems poetic and factually not bad but also ambiguous and barely idiomatic in the 21st century.
Why Literary Studies Should Copy Science
“For generations, the study of literature has been a pillar of liberal education… But over the last decade or so, more and more literary scholars have agreed that the field has become moribund, aimless, and increasingly irrelevant to the concerns not only of the ‘outside world,’ but also to the world inside the ivory tower.”
Cannes Do Competition
“Clint Eastwood is in the main competition with “Changeling,” starring Angelina Jolie, pitting him against, among others, Kornel Mundruczo of Hungary in the kind of David-and-Goliath contest on which Cannes thrives.”
The Most Expensive Books
“The Pictorial Webster’s may be the most curious of the many volumes that have borne the name Webster’s over the years. The book costs $2,600, and that’s the least-expensive edition. It took the artist nearly a dozen years to create. And – perhaps most strangely for a dictionary whose entries are images – it has become an overwhelming object of desire for lexicographers.”
The First Starchitect
The breadth of Eero Saarinen’s practice, his fondness for “iconic” forms, his forays into furniture and design, his fame — all of this feels very familiar. Another quick bullet point for this exhibition might be: Eero Saarinen, the first “starchitect.”
Evidence Of A Rocky Ballet Future
“The company didn’t envision its ambitious New Works Festival, the centerpiece of the San Francisco Ballet’s 75th-anniversary season, as a microcosm of what’s wrong with the ballet world. But the fact that this large outlay of money, time and talent — unprecedented in its scope — produced more mediocrity than revelation points to a big problem for ballet. Self-renewal is not its strong suit.”
Italy Vs. The Cleveland Museum
“Italy sent conflicting signals Friday about whether it had reached an agreement with the Cleveland Museum of Art over returning ancient works of art the country believes were looted.”
Bill Irwin: A Clown’s Secret To Long Life
“This is such an interesting time of life, being this age. Because you literally can find yourself thinking one minute about dance steps and the next about where you’d like your ashes spread. And not abstractly, in either case.”
Is The Art Market Headed For A Crash?
“All appears well in the art world, with the millionaire buyers seemingly insulated against the current economic uncertainty. The global market doubled in value between 2002 and 2006 to £28bn… Records also fell this week for Munch, Rodin and Léger. But the headline figures are disguising signs that the market has already cracked.”