“The rabbit-out-of-the-hat success” that was New York City Opera’s season opener “was begun in late February, weeks after George Steel was appointed general manager and artistic director amid suspicions that he knew little about running an opera company.” But “so far, his decisions aren’t wrong.”
Tag: 11.12.09
Nigeria’s Achebe Says He Isn’t Father Of Modern African Lit
“It’s really a serious belief of mine that it’s risky for anyone to lay claim to something as huge and important as African literature … the contribution made down the ages. I don’t want to be singled out as the one behind it because there were many of us – many, many of us,” said Chinua Achebe, who given the label by Nadine Gordimer.
Exam Software: Bad Prose, Churchill; You, Too, Hemingway
“The wartime leader had a style that was too repetitive, according to the computer being tested for the online marking of school qualifications. It rated Churchill as below average in the equivalent of an A level English exam.”
A First For Tate Britain: A Female Director
Penelope Curtis, 48, “the curator of the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, takes the helm from Dr Stephen Deuchar who will leave the gallery in December after 11 years in the role. The Oxford modern history graduate is an established scholar and author with an interest in 20th-century British art.”
Gore’s Current TV Shifts From User-Generated Content
“Current TV’s retrenchment shows the difficulty of grafting the freewheeling culture and sensibilities that have thrived over the Internet onto established mediums like television…. [J]ust as advertisers have shied from supporting websites that feature amateur video, so too they appear no more willing to support user-generated content on TV.”
Most Late-Night TV Watchers Are Women, The Writers Men
“In the 1980s, [David] Letterman pioneered the kind of college-age male humor that dominates late night. But now, his audience is almost 55 percent women; [Jay] Leno’s is more than 53 percent, and [Conan] O’Brien’s just over one half. Yet the writing room and sensibilities of the show itself remain largely male.”
Digital Media’s New Health Hazard: Secondhand Smut
“[T]he increasing popularity of laptops and handheld devices, and the prevalence of wireless Internet access, means there’s a greater chance of becoming a bystander to a complete stranger’s viewing proclivities.” Skeeved-out bystanders say they’re not prudes. “The trouble was knowing that they couldn’t escape [the porn], not until the plane landed or the Metro doors opened.”
Barbara Kingsolver: No, Really, I’m Not A Political Novelist
“There goes Kingsolver, inserting Nicaraguan contras into ‘Animal Dreams,’ a father-daughter story about Alzheimer’s. There she goes again, talking about Native American tribal rights, smack dab in the middle of ‘Pigs in Heaven.’ … ‘I never quite know what people mean by political,’ says Kingsolver, 54.”
At NY’s Scruffy Downtown Galleries, Art Is Selling Again
“The global financial crisis punctured the art bubble last year, drying up cash and driving up caution. Now the tide seems to be turning for young galleries of the East Village and Lower East Side,” which “can afford to charge less” than Chelsea galleries “because they have smaller staff and lower rent.”
A Warhol Goes For $43.8M, And Art Market Dares To Hope
“Five bidders vied for Warhol’s 1962 ‘200 One Dollar Bills’ at the Sotheby’s sale last night,” where competition for the painting “underscored returning buying confidence to the art market, pummeled a year ago by the world financial crisis.”