“More than $9 billion worth of tickets were sold in North America in 2002, up about 10 percent over last year’s record. Even with higher prices, actual attendance was up at least 5 percent, reaching levels not seen since Eisenhower was in the White House. But let’s not pop those Champagne corks just yet. There are plenty of reasons for concern and doubt amid the hype and hyperventilating.”
Tag: 12.30.02
Rowling Tops Income List
JK Rowling was the UK’s highest-earning woman in 2002, earning £48 million “through the phenomenal success of her creation in book sales and the subsequent cinema box office hits.” That’s about six times more than Queen Elizabeth.
The Theme-Parking Of Our Museums
“So it’s boom time for British art. As cultural projects continue to appropriate sites left derelict by the decline of hard industry, there has never been so much museum space available.” Never so much pressure to mount that blockbuster show. Are our museums turning into entertainment theme parks of little substance?
Mies – Are You Fer or Agin’ Him?
A new retrospective of the work of architect Mies van der Rohe asks a critic to takes sides. How odd. “You can ask whether Mies was a good architect or a bad architect, an influential architect or not. You can ask whether he has been properly understood and whether he is still relevant today. But to ask whether you are for or against him seems strangely irrelevant, a harking back to half-forgotten battles of an earlier generation.”