What’s the greatest English-language novel of the last quarter-century? A recent survey of American literary experts says it’s Toni Morrison’s Beloved, but in the UK, the poll went in an entirely different direction. “In the novel, as in everything else, there are Anglo-Saxon and American attitudes. We celebrate a literary tradition of astonishing variety. They want to believe in the Great American Novel, the classic exemplar, the last word. We don’t really believe in the last word, prefer not to be told what’s best and would rather make our own discoveries. They subscribe to the pursuit of (literary) happiness.”
Tag: 10.08.06
Career Moves In Reverse
“At 41, Sylvie Guillem is reinventing herself. Having become perhaps the most celebrated ballerina of her generation, she is now becoming a contemporary dancer. As they exit their 30’s, most dancers try to minimize risk to extend their time on the stage. But ballet’s reigning diva is embracing it. Only a handful of ballerinas make it past 40, so Ms. Guillem, bored by the classics and determined to test new forms and her own limits, is exploring her options while she still has them. And she is doing so by performing the most physically demanding movement of her career.”
Is String Theory Tying Science In Knots?
String theory, a complex equation-based way of viewing the universe, has been in vogue among the world’s top scientists for decades now. But in the last few months, a growing chorus of voices within the scientific community has begun to claim that not only is string theory likely inaccurate, its relentless promotion as the only viable theory of unification is hurting science as a whole.
Aiming High
“She controls a vast international art empire, and numbers Clinton, Kissinger and Bianca Jagger among her network of powerful friends and supporters. Next week she opens a multimillion-pound art institute in London, designed, she says, to make the world a better place. Welcome to the world of self-styled cultural philanthropist Louise T Blouin MacBain.”
A Diamond In The Rough Is Still Stuck In The Rough
“Every institution, from an opera company to a private foundation to a major newspaper, should have an articulate mission, a reason for being. But a performing arts institution needs a performing arts space that enables it to fulfill that mission.” In other words, quality architecture is as important as a quality performance.
It’s Official: Trekkies Have Too Much Money
Auctioneers at Christie’s New York were stunned this week when a 78-inch model of the Starship Enterprise that had been expected to sell for around $30,000 instead went for $576,000. There appears to be no truth to the rumor that the winning bidder attempted to pay for his new acquisition with his mom’s credit card.
Great Shell, But The Inside Could Use Work
Blair Kamen says there’s no question that Daniel Libeskind has designed a gem of a building in Denver. But how does the new wing do as a showcase for the art it was built to house? Well… “It is a startling, sometimes over-the-top piece of architectural sculpture, a surprisingly sensitive shaper of urban spaces and a disappointingly spotty art museum in which basic functional problems have not been adequately solved, like how visitors, especially those who are blind, will move around without conking their heads on the architect’s insistently tilting walls.”
Pinning Down A New Lit Genre
“A ‘new wave fabulist’ is a writer who has transcended the conventions of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, lifting the traditional genre form into a new literary realm. Any effort to narrow down the category much further than that would be like trying to nail a raindrop to the wall.”
Harvard Masterpiece Gone Wrong
Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room is a masterpiece. But “the Woodberry, along with the rest of Lamont Library, re-opened this fall after a renovation. You can walk into the room today and you’ll see what appears to be a perfectly nice place, pleasant and forgettable. Harvard has carefully preserved a lot of what was here before. Nothing is gone except, well, everything.”
Star Focus – Where Are They?
The century is still young, but Richard Cork wonders where the new art stars are. “Looking around, I can find no equivalents to the precocious titans who, precisely 100 years ago, overturned all existing ideas about the future direction of art.”