“College campuses are widely supposed to be the bastions of shaggy liberalism, but the good people managing our higher education system have sometimes behaved as if they were possessed by the spirit of Reaganomics rather than the enlightened principles of humanism. Perhaps the most telling evidence of this vexation is their treatment of university presses.”
Tag: 09.14.07
The Littlest Collectors
The $6 billion-plus global art market has more than doubled in four years, thanks to the growing number of wealthy patrons and an influx of new collectors from Russia and Asia. Now, children are emerging as one more niche. Collectors such as Bil Ehrlich, a New York real-estate developer, and Peter Brant, a Los Angeles-based film producer and magazine publisher, pay for their kids to collect works from name-brand artists.
The Houston Symphony – Collect The Whole Set
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra may market itself with an 80-foot mural beside the Harbor Freeway downtown, but the Houston Symphony has decided to look through the other end of the telescope. It’s offering the public free ‘official trading cards,’ featuring 33 of its musicians, just like the ones of baseball players that kids have long coveted.
The Politician As Actor
“You may have noticed that we Americans get very excited about the nexus of performers and politicians. Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger are the two leading examples, and what about actor-turned-senator-turned-actor-again Fred Thompson’s recent entry into the presidential race? We also like to see politicians who have never been professional thespians trying their hand on stage and screen.”
Why Aren’t Recording Companies Making Hay On Pavarotti?
“The apparent lack of cashing-in can be attributed in part to the immediacy of digital retail. Ten years ago, a record label would have rush-released a compilation in order to capture the public mood. Not any more, because with the music available through internet stores there is no need to repackage. So without any overt promotion, Pavarotti – The Ultimate Collection has risen to No 11 on the Amazon album chart, while The Three Tenors’ rendition of Nessun Dorma charted at No 24 based on downloads alone.”
Chinese Warriors Break British Museum Ticket Records
The British Museum has smashed ticket sales records with an exhibition of China’s terra cotta warriors. “By 10 AM the museum had sold 150,403 tickets, breaking all previous records for advance sales. Organisers are frantically calculating how they can extend opening hours until April, to admit a total now expected to reach half a million.”
Does Art Belong In Hospitals?
“Hospitals are places of extreme drama: death, injury, birth and the saving of life are hourly occurrences. This is not reflected in the art that ends up in them. The emphasis seems to be on calm – few, if any, of the works loaned by Paintings in Hospitals seem to tackle the churning existential questions that must clamour in the heads of so many in hospital.”
Classical Music Dying? Naah!
“The visceral thrill of live music comes in part from the relish of a player or a singer or an orchestra for performance, and also from the challenge to an audience to consider what it has heard. Did they pull it off? If there is a threat to the place of serious music in the future it comes not from the possibility of composers ceasing to compose – they won’t, for better or worse – but from a dilution of that excitement. If orchestras don’t adapt, if concert halls and opera houses don’t find ever more ingenious ways of competing against other attractions, they will wither on the vine.”
Women Dominate Awards, Judge Says: “Men, Wake Up!”
The judge of a national writing prize has ordered men to “wake up” after all of the £3,000 awards went this year to women. With eight of the nine contenders on the New Writing Ventures awards for emerging literary talent being women, the outcome was always unlikely to be otherwise.