Tag: 08.05.03

The Next JK Rowling? Yikes!

Children’s book writer Louisa Young was briefly touted in the press as “the next JK Rowling.” That’s good, Young supposes, but who wants to be the next JKR? “Why would anyone want a New JK Rowling? The old one works perfectly well. I’m not sure another one is practical. Are there enough trees? Well, I blame the papers. It’s them wot want one, because JKR has become one of today’s sure-fire, never-spiked topics.”

Antiquities Game – Is It All Stolen?

Oscar Muscarella believes that most of the antiquities in museums like the Metropolitan Museum are plundered. “Whether this should all be returned or not is another story. Put simply, his view is that the practice of acquiring antiquities, outside of scholarly excavation, is inevitably immoral. It promotes a trade that Muscarella, during his more animated outbursts, likens to ‘white slavery’.” he believes that “the important thing now is to stop the looting.”

New Era For Poetry Magazine

A new era is beginning at Chicago-based Poetry Magazine. “After twenty years as editor, Joseph Parisi is stepping down to become executive director of the new Poetry Foundation, established through a recent bequest of around one hundred and fifty million dollars from pharmaceuticals heiress, Ruth Lilly. Poetry’s new editor is Christian Wiman. He’s 36 years old and his poems and essays appeared frequently in the magazine.” The magazine gets 90,000 poetry submissions each year.

Recreating The Infamous Rite

The Kirov Ballet recreates Nijinsky’s infamous “Rite of Spring” in the original version which caused scandals in Paris in 1913. “Millicent Hodson, a ballet archaeologist has, with her husband Kenneth Archer, has spent the last 10 years recreating every step of the original, in which a young girl is chosen by her peers to dance herself to death, as a sacrifice to ensure the return of the Spring.”

Robert McFerrin At 82

Robert McFerrin (father of singer Bobby McFerrin) is 82. “In 1955, McFerrin became the first black man to be signed to New York’s Metropolitan Opera. He also performed the songs for a lip-synching Sidney Poitier in the 1959 MGM classic ‘Porgy and Bess’. He was honored June 18 in St. Louis with a lifetime achievement award from Opera America.”

More Terror Than Comedy

The self-styled “Comedy Terrorist” gained notoriety in the UK after casrhing Prince William’s birthday party. Now he’s at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He’s dreadful – a “talent-free zone.” “Throughout its tortuous, one-hour length, the show radiated this sort of laziness. The gags, most of which revolved around the conflicts in the Middle East, were too pathetic to repeat; the props smacked of a primary-school play. And then there was the delivery. Oh lordy, the delivery…”

Warhol At 75

Andy Warhol would have been 75 this week. “He might be taken aback by his status as a household name, and by the fact that his personal museum has become a cultural cornerstone of his hometown. Or maybe he’d be taken aback just for a little while and then revel in his fame, given his fascination with the concept…”

Are Recording Labels Irrelevant These Days?

“Record labels these days are the stuff of great melodrama in the decline-of-Rome battles between petulant artists and the fading major brand names that print their work onto CDs. But music lovers these days know more about who built the blank CDs stacked in their ripping rooms than the name of the record company that puts out Queens of the Stone Age or Ashanti.”