“Another newspaper has decided to cut back its book review coverage. The Sunday book review section of the San Diego Union-Tribune has folded–the June 24 stand-alone section was the newspaper’s last. Beginning July 1, the Union-Tribune’s coverage of books will be folded into two pages within the Sunday entertainment section; the number of book reviews will be halved.”
Tag: 06.26.07
Canadian Cultural Exports To U.S. On The Decline
“Book exports to the United States slid 23.6 per cent between 2002 and 2006, Statistics Canada said yesterday, as the greenback tumbled 26 per cent against the loonie. … Exports of newspapers and other printed material fell in 2006 from a year earlier, and so did films, videos, sound recordings, original art, advertising, architecture and photography.”
What’s At Stake In Smithsonian Woes? National Identity
“Few people familiar with the Smithsonian in Washington and its various underperforming, weirdly performing and, in some cases, barely existent art and culture museums were much surprised by” its recent troubles, Holland Cotter writes. “The institution has been deteriorating for a while, which has come to seem like part of its musty machinery. Besides, in the grand arena of national politics, why should anyone care about the sins and missteps and of a museum complex? One reason is selfish: As taxpayers we are footing the bill.”
Miami Bails Out Performing Arts Center
Miami-Dade has approved a $4.1 bailout of the Carnival performing Arts Center. The newly-opened building has been running a large deficit. “Occupancy cost projections were based on a building area of 476,000 square feet. The Carnival Center’s actual building area is 525,000 square feet. The result of the combined miscalculations was that staff budgeted occupancy costs at $306,250 per month. The costs have come in at $647,844 a month.”
Philly Suburbs’ Last-Ditch Effort To Keep Barnes
“Nearly five years after they first proposed a downtown Philadelphia location, Barnes officials last week rejected a $50 million offer to keep the gallery in Lower Merion Township, saying it came far too late to be taken seriously. Montgomery County officials, who made the offer, say they will take the Barnes to court in a final effort to prevent the move.”
Taking The Bolshoi Back
“Recently appointed director Alexei Ratmansky, who was ironically brought into the Bolshoi as a modernising force, has also been on a mission to regain the past. Working with meticulous ballet master Yuri Burlaka, Ratmansky has gone back to the early notation and production notes of Corsaire to try and figure out what the ballet looked like in the 1899 production of Marius Petipa.”
The Saatchi Effect (Lethal For An Artist?)
Charles Saatchi has bought up all of Royal Academy student James Howard’s work in one fell swoop. “The question is, who wins? Saatchi gets a bargain – three years’ work for the rock-bottom price of £4,500 – and Howard gets notoriety, so it would seem that both of them have a reason to smile. Yet more than a few artists have suffered at the hands of Saatchi’s generosity in the past.”
Should Museums Stick To Their Greatest Hits?
“The Rijksmuseum has cherry-picked its masterpieces into a ‘greatest hits’ show during refurbishment. Great! No one wants to trudge through an entire collection anyway – do they?”
Hitchens Book Hits Homerun
“Sales in the US for Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything have been phenomenal. The book, published just seven weeks ago, is already in its 11th printing, and Hitchens has been commissioned to compile a companion volume, The Portable Atheist.”
A Grateful Dead Symphony
“The work, assembled from nearly a dozen songs and recorded by the Russian National Orchestra, was released as a download in May and on CD on Tuesday. Although a basic five-chord rock ‘n’ roll band, the Grateful Dead’s multiple-time signatures, harmonies and rhythms have had its fans swearing for decades that they could hear the sounds of Beethoven and other classical composers echoing throughout the music.”