[contextly_auto_sidebar id="6xLprSnZT28agTDtPzklXpRf7UUnEW1W"] SOME days all the planets line up and a visit to a museum really can offer "fun for the whole family." That's what happened at the LACMA a few days ago, where the ups and downs of exhibit schedules meant a show of samurai armor, another of Hudson River school 19th c. painting, and another of German Expressionist Cinema. I spent … [Read more...]
Is Opera Really “Dead”?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="bkv13k1YwsUOJ9oOZ89GQDYLY1wM0rF3"] WELL, of course it's not, but another story has gone up recently arguing that the entire art form is finished. The focus of the piece is that the opera repertoire has been stuck in the 19th century for way too long -- that it doesn't move forward, with new work, anymore. That would indeed be damning, but looking closer, we see that … [Read more...]
The Commodification of Cool
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="cA06WrBWrX1QdeSrOH4sa9wEJQ8lEH07"] READERS of this blog know that one of my primary concerns is the way economic shifts -- especially as they affect rents and the costs of living -- have direct and profound meaning for the creative class. So I want to go back to The New Republic story on Berlin and other "cool" cities But the greatest risks posed to the “next … [Read more...]
Are We Really in a Gutenberg Moment?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="n4bv9MRmUDoFtO6zdRvCDUwfVj0rxy5C"] OFTEN these days, we hear that the shift from the analog world of print to the online and digital world resembles what happened when Gutenberg's printing press reshaped Renaissance Europe, crushing Catholicism, spreading literacy and perhaps democracy, and overturning old ways. People who frame our current transition this way often … [Read more...]
Where Does the Creative Class Go After Brooklyn and Berlin?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="yn9axOyZHqiOw8ewg8ssVPhGCVhfNenL"] RECENTLY we've been hearing that artists and writers are being priced out of Brooklyn, and the search for "the new Berlin" -- an affordable city for creatives -- is on. (Krakow? Vilnius?) And is Portland getting better, or worse? A number of stories have tackled the issue from different angles. (It all reminds me of the Talking … [Read more...]
Do Adorno and Benjamin Still Speak to Us?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="BzVPwGiB459dyUluIjJVpzR7FI0D0eim"] THERE's an excellent Alex Ross essay in the latest New Yorker on the Frankfurt School and the rise and fall and perhaps rise again of its reputation. Ross leads this way: In Jonathan Franzen’s 2001 novel, “The Corrections,” a disgraced academic named Chip Lambert, who has abandoned Marxist theory in favor of screenwriting, goes to … [Read more...]
German Writers Stand Up to Amazon
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="hPvvYov9l3ydhtOyPeAaXmviWmWA6lEM"] WHETHER opposition to the online octopus is growing and spreading is hard to tell, but some of the anger we've seen in the US literary community seems to be driving authors in the German-speaking world as well. A New York Times story reports that more than a thousand German-language authors have written a letter of protest. The … [Read more...]
LA Artists of the ’60s at LACMA
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="pFkvNxQ3v2mm1VEKfWCa48kouHd3cwqj"] FOR the next few weeks, we have an unusual and probably accidental correspondence: Two important but often unseen artists of Los Angeles' great 60s flowering are up at the LACMA. For admirers of John Altoon -- one of the original Ferus Gallery bad boys -- and Helen Pashgian, a pioneer of the Light and Space movement -- it's a rare … [Read more...]
Bambi Kino at Taix
Just a quick post to say, Saturday night I went out after my bedtime to see Bambi Kino, a newish band formed around the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance in Hamburg and with the goal of recreating those raw early years. ("Slow Down" is here.)I've seen some great shows recently -- Sonic Youth, Pavement, Belle & Sebastian -- but in its very different way this was as thrilling. Even … [Read more...]
The Beatles Come to Hamburg (Again)
Almost exactly 50 years ago, the Beatles came to Hamburg's tawdry Reeperbahn district and, dressed mostly in black leather, transformed themselves into the best rock band in the world. Later this month, a group of American indie rockers will play the band's old club, the Indra, to commemorate the raw, fast, very early Beatles.Named for an X-rated movie theater where the Liverpudlians stayed when … [Read more...]