The Poetry Foundation, newly enriched by a major gift from an Indiana philanthropist, is using part of the largesse to fund a series of awards intended to raise the profiles of underrecognized poets. Some of the awards are so specific as to seem designed specifically for their winners – for instance, the “Emily Dickinson First Book Award, for an American poet older than 50 who has not yet published a book of poetry” – while others emphasize qualities frequently lacking in poetry, such as humor.
Tag: 10.07.05
The New Fortune Tellers
Wanted: futurist visionaries. Must be able to observe the larger culture around you and translate complex human interactions into wild, counterintuitive, and occasionally optimistic predictions about the future. Must be comfortable with corporate practices and be capable of expressing opinions as if they are indisputable facts. No experience necessary, but applicants should be able to convincingly act as if they’ve been doing this forever. Pay scale varies with results…
Why Not Let The WKRP DJs Host The Concerts While You’re At It?
The Cincinnati Symphony is trying to boost ticket sales with promotions meant to make the organization seem edgier and more in tune with today’s young adults (for instance, what 20-something wouldn’t love a temporary tattoo that says, ‘Get Your Beethoven On’?). This kind of thing rarely works, of course, but as long as the CSO is determined to try it, Chuck Martin has some additional suggestions for achieving hipsterdom. For one thing, concert halls need to be a far more nacho-intensive environment. For another, CSO music director Paavo Järvi is just crying out for a nickname, something like… ohhhh, how about P. Diddy?
Report: Silicon Valley Hurting For Culture
“A majority of regional leaders believe Silicon Valley is losing ground in its ability to attract a creative workforce, in part because of an inadequate cultural environment, according to a new survey. Fifty-eight percent of Silicon Valley leaders who participated in the survey — called the Creative Community Index — said their ability to recruit creative talent is dropping compared with other global centers of technology. They cited the lack of an energetic urban core and insufficient leisure and cultural activities as among key reasons… The perceived lack of cultural opportunities, however, apparently doesn’t mean a lack of interest on the part of the public.”
Wynn Sells Two Major Paintings
Hedge-fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen recently purchased two major works of art from Las Vegas casino owner Stephen Wynn, according to reports. “The paintings are van Gogh’s ‘Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat’ (1890) and Gauguin’s ‘Bathers’ (1902), and they once hung in the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas, which was founded by Mr. Wynn, and were included in a 1999 catalog of the gallery’s holdings.” The estimated purchase price for the two works was well over $100 million.
The Specialists
A new generation of young pianists is coming of age in New York. But rather than pursuing traditional avenues of classical music achievement and finding fame on the orchestral stage, many are opting for the far more specialized world of contemporary music. The result has been a renewed energy in the city’s new music circles, and a fiercely loyal following for the performers who choose the road less traveled.
The New Nyman
“No one divides the musical world quite like Michael Nyman. There are critics who shudder at the mere mention of his name. The public loves him; his score for Jane Campion’s film The Piano has become a fixture on [UK radio network] Classic FM… He has a whole team of agents and managers, he has his own recording company, and he lives in the heart of the Islington elite, a stone’s throw from Simon Rattle.” Now, Nyman is hitting the road, performing his own piano works for adoring throngs across Europe. “What’s surprising for anyone who remembers the blistering, relentlessly repetitive early Nyman is how soft and mellifluous the recent music has become… So can it be true that Nyman is really mellowing? Have all the old distancing devices been banished?”
Pinter’s Latest Miniature
Harold Pinter is 75, and not in good health, his esophagus ravaged by cancer and his famous voice “notably weakened.” But somehow, the playwright has willed himself to create a short but profound new radio play, which will receive its premiere next week on BBC Radio. “For Voices, Pinter has reworked five of his later plays – One for the Road, Mountain Language, The New World Order, Party Time and Ashes to Ashes – into a fragmented narrative on cruelty, torture and oppression, which is interrupted, accompanied and complemented by [composer James] Clarke’s mercurial score, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the soprano Eileen Aargaard and an Azeri singer, Fatma Mehralieva, among others.”
Fagin The Jew: Anti-Semitism’s Grip On Classic Lit
The role of the Jew in Western literature has far too often been as a malevolent, money-grubbing villain who exists mainly to be bested by the blond-haired, blue-eyed hero. And if that Aryan-Nordic hero can be a child, so much the better, as Charles Dickens knew well when he conjured up the primary antagonist for Oliver Twist. “There is almost no other character to compete with Fagin for the title of the most grotesque and villainous Jew in all of English literature. Of all the 989 characters who sprang from the pen of Charles Dickens, the evil old gang-master is one of his most vivid caricatures.” Even though modern morality has mandated that film and stage versions of the Dickens tale tone down the anti-Semitism, the disturbing stereotype is still pervasive.
Tehran Takes A Chance With Western Art
“The finest collection of 20th-century Western art outside Europe and America has been gathering dust in storage. Why? Because it’s owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran,” where artistic freedom is unheard of and heavy censorship is a way of life. In fact, the collection was very nearly sold off after Iran became an Islamic theocracy in 1979 and Western culture became the enemy of the state. “The art was saved, probably for commercial reasons, but it remained mostly unseen, while the museum put on edifying shows of religious and revolutionary art.” But now, the complete collection is on display at Tehran’s national museum for the first time since the revolution that brought the mullahs to power.