After years of looking for a solution to the traffic strangling Britain’s Stone Henge, a radical solution has bee proposed: do nothing. Instead of building expensive tunnels and the like, why not, asks a expert, find ways to encourage walkers and cyclists rather than cars?
Tag: 10.07.06
A Debate About Culture In LA
“We so often stack [L.A.] up against New York or London. But those cities have been around for centuries. We’re post-adolescent… I don’t think Los Angeles has found its philosophy yet towards culture.”
London’s Unimaginable Art Boom Keeps On Booming
“A 2004 study estimated that there were more than 400 galleries in London – probably the tip of the iceberg, as temporary spaces come and go and artists open their studios to sell direct. An Arts Council England report has estimated the contemporary art market as worth £500m – unimaginable even a decade ago. The London art boom will be seen at its most intense next week, when Frieze art fair flings wide its doors… And, just when you think London cannot take any more, still more commercial galleries appear.”
Alberta’s Legendary Indie Turns 50
This week, Edmonton celebrated the 50th anniversary of the opening of one of Canada’s most successful independent booksellers. “Hurtig Books proved virtually an immediate success, the only full-service, independently operated book retailer between Toronto and Vancouver. Within a decade, it was being hailed by many as the best bookstore in Canada and, after a couple of moves to ever-larger premises as well as the opening of two satellite outlets, had become one of the biggest book retailers in the country, perhaps even the biggest.”
Aggressive Superiority And Misplaced Enthusiasm? Great.
The whole standing ovation thing is just completely out of control, and most in the arts would agree. But is it possible that the automatic ovation crowd is actually becoming even more annoying than they already were? “No longer content to give standing ovations to performances that don’t warrant them, the ovaters have begun to question why others aren’t standing too.”
Objectivity Never Makes Anyone Happy
Richmond, Virginia is home to a new Civil War Museum that addresses head-on America’s divergent viewpoints on race, regional pride, and the war that very nearly destroyed a young country. To do that, the museum presents, without judgment, the views of what it sees as the three distinct players in the Civil War struggle: Northerners, Southern Confederates, and the African-Americans caught in the middle. But not everyone is happy with the museum’s willingness to present the Confederate viewpoint without explicitly condemning it.
Controversial To Past The End
It was four years ago this month that a plane carrying Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone and his family crashed in a remote northern town, killing all on board and putting a shocking end to what many American leftists had hoped would be a long and prominent political life. Now, on the eve of another crucial Senate election in Minnesota, a prominent St. Paul theater is mounting a play dramatizing Wellstone’s life. It’s a risky move – Minnesota is not the Democratic stronghold it once was. “Politicos’ reactions to the play have been muted because more attention is being paid to the coming elections than to the arts. But for those who are aware of the show, the late senator is proving to be as controversial in death as he was in life.”
In The Spotlight, Right To The End
Legendary Chicago actor Gene Janson, who crafted a decades-long career portraying “avuncular father figures, embittered academics and crusty old political types,” collapsed on stage and died last week. He was 72.
Call It An Active Retirement
Jonathan Miller is retiring from the world of opera. Again. Maybe. But regardless of his career status, he’s still one of the more fascinating interviews in the business. “Amid bomblets tossed at traditional opera audiences, the Metropolitan Opera, religious Jews (he is Jewish), American political culture, Belgian colonialists and German conceptualist directors, Mr. Miller weaves a narrative of his directing method: a focus on the ‘negligible detail’ and ‘subintentional actions.'”
Is New York In A Theatrical Slump?
“The fall theater season has kicked into high gear, but so far there isn’t a single musical throwing off real sparks. Broadway isn’t used to this: Every new season in recent memory has delivered at least one show (sometimes two or three) that’s captured New Yorkers’ imaginations – and plenty of their spending money.”