The Frankfurt Book Fair dismissed “Peter Ripken, 67, who was the project manager for the trade show’s international center, blaming him for ‘persistent coordination problems in connection with this year’s guest of honor, China.'”
Tag: 10.22.09
Museum Strikers Stage Their Own Spoof Show
“Striking workers at the Canadian Museum of Civilization have mounted an outdoor exhibit near their picket line, spoofing an international show poised to open at the institution.”
Dallas Symphony Maestro Commits Through 2015-16
Dallas Symphony Orchestra music director Jaap van Zweden will be staying a while. “Now starting his second season here, and a huge hit with musicians, audiences and critics, the Dutch conductor has signed a four-year extension to his initial four-year contract.”
Can Fiction Be Crowdsourced? (Coraline As Case In Point)
“How is a good story invented? Is it yet another of those decision-based endeavors that can, according to the technotopian, freakonomical wisdom of our time, be performed better en masse than by the hopelessly antiquated individual?”
And Spider-Man Will Finally Get To Broadway When?
“‘Spider-Man’ had been scheduled to begin previews Feb. 25 and open in March, but [an executive involved in the production] said in an interview Thursday evening that there was ‘no way’ that rehearsals for the musical would begin on schedule later this fall.”
Uh-Oh, Barnes & Noble: The Nook Is So Good It Hurts
“[E]ven though the Nook offers improvements that trounce the Kindle, it is hard not to see the device as a doomsday machine that could destroy B&N’s beleaguered business. … The Nook will put pressure on a structural weakness in B&N’s business plan, toppling a flailing operation.”
Socialist Realism, Rehabilitated (Like Khrushchev)
“[In] a strange twist of history, just as the avant-garde art banned by the Soviet regime was viewed again, Socialist Realism, discarded so quickly in the late ’80s, may be going though its own renaissance. At least, that is the hope of the Jeschke-Van Vliet Art Gallery, located where the Berlin Wall once stood 20 years ago.”
Irving Penn: Portraits Of The Artist As A Lost, Grieving Widower
In one self-portrait made after the death of his wife of 42 years, “the artist is unrecognizable. He presents himself as a befuddled, perplexed married man” transformed by his loss. In another, “his face now seems to melt before us, the one eye left intact looking heavenward. What sound is coming from his abject, open mouth?”
‘Why I’ll Never Watch Another Lars Von Trier Movie’
Dana Stevens: “Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark were powerful, unsettling, transformative movie experiences, even if their endings came uncomfortably close to making the case for virgin sacrifice. … [But] after the infantile bludgeoning that is Antichrist, I feel no need to keep accompanying von Trier’s career at all.”
‘So What Is Lars Von Trier’s Problem, Anyway?’ (Maybe Not Misogyny)
“Glancing over the evidence, it’s easy to dismiss him as a sexist purveyor of art-house torture porn … Yet a strong case can be made that von Trier’s patented brand of female trouble is more richly complicated – or, at least, more compelling in its pathologies – than his detractors might admit.”