Neigbors of the Barnes Collection had been silent. Indeed, they had complained for years about traffic around the Barnes. But now, as the art collection appears headed to Philadelphia, loal officials have a change of heart. “No one in the suburban coalition seems quite sure what has brought the about-face. It may be a change of elected officials in some of the government offices. It may be that the hot embers of the old fights have cooled. It may be that, by lagging in its political efforts to gain ownership of a new site in Philadelphia, the Barnes itself has left open the door for suburban second thoughts.”
Tag: 07.09.07
Victory For A Bookstore Is A Victory For L.A.
“Los Angeles has a way of plowing under its landmarks. … And so it is with genuine delight that we receive word that a Los Angeles landmark will survive. Dutton’s Brentwood Books is a cultural institution of the first rank, host to the happenstance discoveries that define great bookstores — the chance lighting upon a bit of fiction across from the latest biography, the illuminating browse through a book of photographs, the helpful wisdom of a literary clerk.”
Online, DC Opens The Door To Comic Artists
“DC Comics, the venerable publisher of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, will introduce today an online imprint that amounts to a virtual slush pile, accepting submissions from the public and paying for the best comics that come in. The imprint, called Zudacomics.com, will permit aspiring cartoonists to register at its Web site and submit an eight-panel sample of their work. Starting in October and each month thereafter, editors at DC Comics will select 10 entries, post them for public view and invite people to vote for their favorite.”
Architects Take To Second Life
“Second Life is loosely and shambolically generating a new type of architecture. Who knows what that might mean for SL’s current jump-cut geography? In the future, perhaps SL’s overlords will start to clean up its shantytown chaos, repossessing homes and driving giant boulevards through it, as Haussmann did with Paris. Perhaps it will end up looking nothing like our own world; perhaps they’ll converge in ways we can’t yet imagine. It is a world in its infancy, unavoidably complex, useful, unpredictable and legitimate, with countless advantages over the real one.”
BBC Fined For Fake Contest Winner
“The BBC was ordered to pay an unprecedented £50,000 fine today after asking a child from its Blue Peter studio audience to pose as the ‘fake’ winner of a premium-rate telephone competition, in which 40,000 youngsters had participated.”
Record Drop In UK CD Sales
“Retail sales, for which figures have been compiled since 1969, the year that the Beatles’ Abbey Road album was released, have never fallen by so much, although there was a 9 per cent decline in 1982 before the arrival of the compact disc. Wholesale revenues, for which figures date back only a decade, have never fallen by more than 7 per cent in a year.”
The Face Of Modern Movie-Going
Los Angeles has two movie complexes that illustrate the modern movie theatre business: the sleek new 12-screen Landmark complex alongside the Westside Pavilion and the handsome old Westwood Crest Theater, a 1940-era movie house on Westwood Boulevard. “As different as they may appear on the surface, they are fascinating examples of the brave new world of high-quality movie exhibition, a world full of movies aimed at — gasp — people who aren’t dying to see Transformers.”
The People’s Bandshell
Artists build a bandshell out of old cars, doors and junk in San Francisco. “It took four months to construct the piece: Sixty-five car hoods were plucked from Bay Area junkyards; the steel beams were extracted from a closed winery in Napa; the French doors that form the stage were lifted from a shuttered school near Stanford. The group set up a Web site to book stage times for anyone who wanted to perform, at no cost. As of last week, all the slots had been booked through the summer.”
Beverly Sills – Having A Good Time
“Sills took her work far more seriously than she took herself. She sang each role with total devotion, but also with a smile that communicated a subversive thought: What makes opera magical also makes it a little silly. Sills gave the impression that she could don the tiara, plunge into her tragic scena, then sweep offstage on a flood of applause and break up a stagehand with a Brooklyn wisecrack.”
Biennale Blitz With The Men In Black
“There are now so many biennials that art is suffering from overexposure, and we do curators and artists a disservice by seeing these shows only at the openings. More than that, though, I found that each of the three super-shows offers a snapshot of the strategies and styles of those professionals who have been called ‘the men in black.’ I’m talking, of course, about the curators.”