“It may be hard to imagine — given our current obsessions with television shows, movies, instant-messaging, Facebook and blogs — but literature was once at the center of American cultural life. And literary merit was discussed and hotly debated by critics whose essays, in Garrick Davis’s words, courted the educated public with their elegant prose.”
Tag: 08.02.08
Words From Beyond The Grave
Fancy hearing Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene reading to you? Here they are…
The Chrysler Building – An Old-Fashioned Masterpiece
Today, we tend to think of this design as “extravagant,” “exuberant,” “swaggering” or “brash” — words that could just as well describe the city in which the building stands. Early appraisals were less generous: An “upended swordfish” is how one critic saw it. A “stunt design,” said another.
Massachusetts’s New Culture Czar
“Politicians often talk about the importance of arts and culture. But this summer, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick took an important step in creating a special position in the state’s Office of Business Development to focus on cultural issues.”
Obsessed With Teens
Since the 1980s, teen culture has become familiar fodder for Hollywood, and the flood of teen films aimed at adults has hardly slowed. But rarely do such films attempt to convey the actual reality of teenage life. “Try as one might to carefully slot teenagers, and adolescence, into designated cubbyholes, some part of the whole is too messy, too real, to fit.”
Gas Prices Driving Up Concert Costs
“Add one more discretionary purchase to the already long list of things that could get more expensive because of high gasoline prices – concert tickets. Industry watchers say concert sales were “remarkably robust” in the first half of the year – considering the rise in fuel prices and tough economic times in parts of North America – but artists’ tour budgets may now have to be adjusted up.”
Giving The Little Buggers Their Due
The Insectarium, “billed as the first major new institution to open in post-Katrina New Orleans, has been created in a section of the United States Custom House by the Audubon Nature Institute… An exhibit about the insects of New Orleans discusses the splattered bugs that coat cars in the mating months of May and September, and explains how the city’s history was scarred by diseases carried by uncontrolled mosquitoes.”
Who Doesn’t Love A Good Vampire Love Story?
Vampire Romance may be an unusual literary genre, but it’s a big one, according to sales figures, and it has no bigger star at the moment than Stephenie Meyer. “Meyer’s fourth and final book in her Twilight vampire-romance series… was unveiled on Friday night with thousands of parties across the country to mark its officially going on sale.”
Has Whedon Found The Intersection of TV And The Web?
“It should come as no surprise that ‘Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,’ Joss Whedon’s 42-minute online musical, has been greeted like the second coming of, well, ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’… But is it worth all the attention?”
Musicians Soldier On In Fight Against Nukes
Nuclear disarmament isn’t the cause it once was, but in Cleveland, an organization calling itself Performers and Artists for Nuclear Disarmament (PAND) is turning 25, helmed by two former members of the Cleveland Orchestra.