Well, duke it out verbally, anyway, over Nicholas Hytner’s “allegation that too many critics are ageing misogynists cut from the same cloth,” Michael Billington writes. After the two ran into each other in the car park, “a lively debate ensued. To his credit, Hytner gave some ground and admitted, particularly over the accusation of entrenched misogyny, that he may have overstated the case. But he stuck fiercely to his line that daily drama criticism was dominated by men of a certain generation….”
Tag: 05.24.07
Traditional Music, Reinvented, On The Rise In Bosnia
“Sevdah – the word is Turkish and suggests desire, yearning, thwarted love – has existed for hundreds of years in this region, often composed of just a voice and a saz (a Turkish lute). Yet it took Bosnia’s suffering to focus the world’s attention on this small nation’s music. Sevdah bears comparison to Portuguese fado and Spanish flamenco; all three are vocal arts rooted in Arabic courtly love songs from a millennium ago.”
Cornwell Testifies In Suit Against Her Cyberstalker
“The point of her work, the best-selling writer Patricia Cornwell recently told an interviewer, is to speak up for victims of crime. This week a Virginia courtroom heard the 50-year-old writer speak up for herself, as she described how another, less celebrated author, had stalked her on the internet, causing emotional distress and damaging her reputation.”
Florida Paper Eliminates Movie Critic
“The Sun-Sentinel is transferring resident film critic Phoebe Flowers to another writing assignment and will not be running in-house movie reviews in the future. Instead, they’ll be running retreads from Tribune Company heavyweights like the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, and Newsday. And there are murmurings that this could be a Tribune Company-wide trend that could kill local movie coverage in a number of Tribune newspaper towns.”
$22 Million Sale Smashes Canadian Art Auction Record
“The total sales figure, which includes a 15-per-cent premium charged to buyers on the purchase price, easily surpassed the conservative estimate of a $12-million to $16-million sale, and nearly doubled the previous $12.5-million record, also set by Heffel, at its semi-annual sale in Toronto in November, 2005.”
Congress Slaps Smithsonian
“The House subcommittee that approves funding for the federal cultural agencies yesterday voted to reprimand the Smithsonian Institution by cutting $26 million from its proposed fiscal 2008 budget.”
Solid Wood: New Getty Chief Speaks Of Plans
On the job just three months, new Getty president James Wood talks about his plans for LA’s largest cultural institution. “The biggest danger for an institution with a mandate like the Getty’s is you become responsible for the ongoing operations of more and more things and you can’t be innovative anymore.”
In LA – Luxury Theatres Redefine Going To Movies
Landmark executives remain insistent that the scope and thrust of the finished project — namely, its commitment to environmentalism, cutting-edge screen and sound technology, high design and even gourmet hot dog toppings — will go beyond anything comparable at the city’s other luxury movie halls, the Grove and the Bridge among them.
Down And Out And Dancing In New York
New York’s dance scene has a lot of activity. But a new study portrays a difficult existence. “The survey depicts an economically starved art form in which few practitioners are adequately compensated, health insurance is rare, and the effort to find rehearsal space is increasingly Herculean. Among the especially grim findings, 58 percent of respondents say they have no paid staff, with just 37 of the 310 who responded to the question claiming dancers as salaried employees and only 18 of 294 respondents owning rehearsal space.”
Dinosaurs And Adam And Eve, Oh My!
Dinosaurs cavort with cavemen in a new Creation Museum in Kentucky. There is much “sheer weirdness and daring of this museum created by the Answers in Genesis ministry that combines displays of extraordinary nautilus shell fossils and biblical tableaus, celebrations of natural wonders and allusions to human sin. Evolution gets its continual comeuppance, while biblical revelations are treated as gospel.”