HEAL THE PLANET
posted by James Reel
Classical music may be better for the environment than rock’n’roll. So posits Greg Sandow. I’m willing to believe it, whether it’s true or not.
Classical music may be better for the environment than rock’n’roll. So posits Greg Sandow. I’m willing to believe it, whether it’s true or not.
Well, not exactly fishing. I’m scrambling to finish up several writing assignments before departing Friday morning for a weekend of snorkeling, sea kayaking and cycling in La Jolla. Fine dining, too … mustn’t forget that. No doubt I’ll be writing some stray article in the car on the way to California (yes, during the shift my wife will be driving) and e-mailing it to the editor from the hotel. Free wi-fi is a wonderful thing. Back on duty Monday.
My contribution to the latest Tucson Weekly:
Live Theatre Workshop has mounted a funny, well-acted and well-directed production of a play that really should be kept in mothballs for another 25 years.Read the full review here.
George Axelrod's The Seven Year Itch is not only missing a hyphen; it's lost any relevance to the way real men and women relate to each other. The 1950s play--about a man, married for seven years, contemplating a dalliance with a sexy young neighbor--trades on antiquated gender stereotypes. Give it another quarter-century, and The Seven Year Itch could be enjoyed as an amusing period piece, as English Restoration comedies are today. But right now, we lack that distance. We're in an in-between period, when the play has lost its currency but isn't quite a classic. For now, it just seems old-fashioned.
On Friday I interviewed Simone Dinnerstein, a pianist who's getting more and more attention these days, first through her excellent recordings with cellist Zuill Bailey, and now through her very individual and fascinating recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Being a radio guy, I first asked her how to pronounce her name, and it's even more complicated than I thought. She pronounces her first name in three syllables, with a little schwa on the end, and the end of her last name sounds like steen. Now you know.
If you've been reading press reports about the Tucson Pima Arts Council's Pima Cultural Plan and would like to dig into it and see what it really says, here's the draft report. I haven't read it all yet, myself. What I have perused makes some good points, but I wonder how many people will buy its advocacy for a new bureaucratic infrastructure to boost local arts support.
Yesterday, UApresents, the university’s arts-presenting unit, announced that for the first time in years it was ending the season in the black. The surplus is $98,878, to be exact. The press release went on to promote events in the upcoming season.
What was missing from the announcement? First, mention that the surplus was made possible by raking in $500,000 from special fund-raising efforts, a feat that might not be replicated in the future. Without that money, the organization would have dug itself another $400,000 into the hole this year. Second, there’s the depth of that hole. Last September, UA president Robert Shelton temporarily forgave the organization its $1.2 million accumulated deficit, but stipulated that the money must eventually be repaid. Which means that even with the nearly $100,000 surplus this season, UApresents still has $1.1 million to go, besides meeting its annual budgets to come. No longer booking touring musicals was a good start—Broadway in Tucson takes care of that nicely, without losing tens of thousands of dollars on each show—but will UApresents ever be able to issue a press release celebrating the repayment of all its old debts?
James Reel's cranky consideration of the fine arts and public radio in Tucson and beyond.
