I love The New Yorker; it is an elegant riposte to European snootiness about the US. If anyone ever speaks slightingly about Americans I refer them to this erudite and amusing magazine - it tends to stem the casual racism. Over on the Points of View message board I've been asking for suggestions about The Culture Show - what we cover and how we do so; the responses have been very interesting. Some people would like us to be doing more traditional high art; some want coverage of more cutting edge, eclectic things; while others dread a solemn, stuffy approach. The New Yorker feels like a publication which has to cover a similar range of tone and subject matter. In the you can read about John Stuart Mill, illegal logging or music producer Timbaland: some may object to some of the sillier or (at the other end of the scale) more lengthy articles but the variety seems to be the point.
The cover of The New Yorker from October 2008
Next month sees the start of the New Yorker Festival and although I will not be in attendance, it has in previous years been possible to watch many of the events on the website. You can with Sigur Ros, Errol Morris, Orhan Pamuk, Judd Apatow and others. This year's line-up includes Haruki Murakami, Guillermo del Toro, Art Spiegelman and Hideo Nakata. The last of these events (a panel discussion about horror) has prompted a blog entry by Ben Greenman about the . His choices are good - I think that Texas Chainsaw Masacre and Night of the Hunter are brilliant, and very frightening, films while Mulholland Drive is an interesting choice. My top five would include Don't Look Now and The Shining (obvious, I know) but - despite the fact that I think David Lynch is one of the directors most adept at the horror genre - I'm not sure that I would put a single film by him into this category. Although I only saw Inland Empire once I did find it very scary (and funny), so perhaps I would add it to the list. Unfortunately, I'm unable to say this via the New Yorker's blog as it doesn't seem to accept comments - a quite baffling approach. A blog without comments is far stranger than a magazine without a letters page, and I would say that a publication such as the New Yorker could be doing more online with its readership. Am I wrong? Do you find it a refreshing novelty that you can't comment?
There's so much hype about shows in the big galleries and theatres that sometimes I like to turn up to something I know nothing about - this is how I became acquainted with some of the theatre companies and directors whose work I've enjoyed most, like and the . It's a tendency that can prove dangerous, however, because sometimes the reason you haven't heard of something is because it just isn't very good. On Saturday I headed down to the Bargehouse, a Victorian warehouse that had been decked out by new company for a 'multi-artform' event, . Over the course of two hours, music, art and performance were supposed to draw the spectator into a magical world but I'm afraid that I didn't last anything like that long.
Having wandered through the magical spaces created by in Faust and Shunt's I know how compelling such experiences can be, unfortunately Down the Rabbit Hole felt more like an art college degree show than an immersive event. Much of the Bargehouse was flooded with light, which made it difficult to maintain the necessary sense of being removed from the everyday world, and where rooms had been draped in black or mocked-up as tunnels the feeling was more Santa's Grotto than Wonderland. I suppose that this was a reminder of just how difficult it is to produce this sort of event, and that putting something on for three days means that the costs are likely to be prohibitive.
On Wednesday night I was lucky enough to attend a screening of the first episode of , a new version of the classic apocalyptic drama. The of the same name was written by the creator of the Daleks, , and made quite an impact. Broadcast in 1975, it went out in an era of fuel shortages, three-day weeks and terrorist bombings, all of which probably encouraged people to wonder how they would cope if the electricity went off and didn't come on again. Survivors probed that scenario to chilling effect by showing an outbreak of a plague that kills most of the world's population. The small numbers of people who live through the crisis have not only lost their friends and family but also need to find out how to get food out of the ground rather than from a shop. Is it just me or does this series feel like it's harnessing the zeitgeist, as food and fuel prices rise, and environmental catastrophe is never far from the news agenda?
I've only seen the first episode of the original series, so any comparison is based on a first impression, but there are already some interesting divergences between the two. While many of the original characters appear in some form or other in the 2008 Survivors, they are obviously part of a very different society: Abby Grant, an upper-middle class lady who lunches, has been transformed into a version played by Julie Graham, who works and doesn't have a live-in housekeeper; while shifty working class Welshman Tom Price has morphed into the more charismatic (and ambiguous) Max Beasley.
Ian McCulloch as Greg Preston and Carolyn Seymour as Abby Grant in Survivors (1975)
If this makes the original series sound like a hideous parade of stereotypes it absolutely isn't. On the strength of the first episode, the seventies version of Survivors was bleak and brilliantly written; it was simply a product of its time. The first image we see is Abby Grant playing tennis (on her own court, naturally) and the camera pans back to show that she is playing against a machine. The point isn't laboured, but in this single image we see the extent to which everyday interactions are dependent on machines and electricity. I now have the first series of the 1975 Survivors on DVD (courtesy of my friend, and all-round television expert, Paul) and am looking forward to its dark delights and ethical dilemmas over the coming weeks.
Many people remark on the pessimism of Bacon's pictures, but this doesn't translate into apathy or melancholy. If (as is often said) depression is anger turned inwards, Bacon's work is anything but depressed - anger, desire and violence are all on show and the effect is invigorating. It's worth mentioning that Tate have a rather good of the exhibition that features images, text and video (from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, but that's by the by). All of the pictures I mention below are on the Tate site, in fact there's so much supplementary material that I'd recommend looking at the site after the exhibition. Also worth a mention are the full radio and TV programmes on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Archive site - the collection includes interviews with Bacon, documentaries on his career and a study of reactions to his work.
Back to the show. The first room contains a very simple painting that stayed with me throughout the exhibition, Study from the Human Body (1949). It shows a naked man stepping through a gap between floor-length grey drapes; the figure's back is to us and he moves into pitch darkness without any sign of fear. Although the painting is straightforwardly figurative when compared to the other images in the room, it is unmistakably by Bacon - the feeling of looking at an imagined space (the edges of a platform or outlined square can be seen through the curtains) and the latent power of the figure are striking and typical. Bacon's self-declared impulse to, "lift the image outside of its natural environment" is evident, even in this seemingly spare painting. I had the feeling of stepping into Bacon's world as the figure steps into the blackness.
On Saturday I dropped into the on impulse to watch Walter Salles' latest film and found myself drowning in a sea of Wire fans. I was at the epicentre of The Wire Weekender; that's the whole of season five, watched over two days and sprinkled with stardust in the shape of Q&As with the series' creator David Simon and star Dominic West. As I fought my way down to my screening I was tickled to see Simon holding court, surrounded by fans clutching (no doubt now signed) copies of his book Homicide. I don't know that I would have the stamina for an entire series in two days, but it was delightful to see David Simon chatting away beside the popcorn concession.
As for Linha de Passe, it's the tale of four brothers who live in a poor area of Sao Paolo with their mother, who works as a cleaner, and who is pregnant for a fifth time. The brothers are all pulled in different directions: one is a talented footballer; another is a reformed criminal who has found God; the third is a motorcycle courier drifting into crime while the youngest is obsessed with finding the identity of his father. Well-paced and convincingly acted, the film is enjoyable but unremarkable, and suffers from the stories of the brothers being forced to a simultaneous crescendo in the final scenes. Not bad, but not in the same class as other portraits of modern Brazil like or Bus 174.
This , written and directed by Joanna Hogg is a low-key, melancholy pleasure. Anna (Kathryn Worth) tags along with old friend Verena (Mary Roscoe) and her large family during their summer holiday in Italy. We first see Anna alone at night, illuminated by car headlights as she drags her small case towards the villa where the family are staying - it's an image that prefigures what we discover about her emotional isolation. The family initially seems the epitome of middle class ease and affluence and forty-something Anna falls under the spell of their bonhomie, spending most of her time with the younger members of the group. Her awkward friendship with the teenagers and the sexual tension between her and the young and attractive Oakley (Tom Hiddleston) puts Anna into conflict with Verena and causes her to reflect on the choices she has made during the course of her life.
is an evocative film, it dwells on the pleasure of sitting outside on a warm night, of flirting, of driving too fast with music blasting. Conversations ebb and flow as they do in reality and some may find the pace of the film frustrating, but scenes often dwell as much as on what is unsaid as what is being talked about. There is an extremely effective scene where most of the characters sit around the pool in the sunshine, while off-screen we hear a father and son have a violent argument. This is Joanna Hogg's first feature film and as well as daring to let things unfold gradually, she has chosen a look that matches the dreamy quality of the story. Oliver Curtis, cinematographer on Unrelated also worked on Chris Newby's bizarre , which had a similar sheen.
Not everyone will find Unrelated to their taste, but it is a film of good performances, quiet intelligence and occasional jabs to the heart.
We're back now and blearily getting ready for a new series. The starting date is still a reassuring two months away on November 18th. As we gear up, do get in touch and let us know what and who you'd like to see on the programme. I can't promise we'll deliver on everything you suggest but we really want and need your suggestions. I think otherwise there's a risk that we'll drift into covering the slightly predictable and the heavily hyped...
I'm always struck by how fascinated the media, and TV and the arts media is by anniversaries. Do they matter? Who decides which anniversaries are important and which can be overlooked? The 400th anniversary of is coming up in December. turns 250 in January. The 500th anniversary of is coming up next year. And all sorts of cultural venues will be marking a Super Anniversary throughout 2009: Purcell having been born in 1659, Handel dying in 1759, and Haydn dying in 1809. And in January it'll be 50 years since Berry Gordy set up an obscure record label in Detroit called Motown...
So which anniversaries should we cover? Some? None? All of them? Just the ones which really resonate and affect powerfully our cultural life today? Or just the ones which the rest of the media might overlook?
Get posting and let us know. I promise to read all responses, and see if we can get some of the ideas onto the programme. And next year we might do an item marking the First Anniversary of this blog.
I have to admit to being bemused by the and sometimes to ITV's drama series . Jemima Roper stars as Amanda Price, a modern day devotee of the works of Jane Austen who finds herself living in the world of Pride and Prejudice. A cursory glance around the internet suggests that most of the reviewers have dismissed the programme as a Life on Mars rip-off, which might be part of the reason why it was commissioned, but underestimates the prevalence of such time travel and parallel world stories in science fiction. And this series is science fiction - although with a more female bent than often is the case.
I'm not claiming that Lost in Austen is great art, but it is a well-acted and enjoyable series which imagines what the result might be if a reader were to enter the book and tried to influence events. I can think of plenty of novels (like Philip K Dick's where the characters inhabit a world in which Germany and Japan won WWII), and books and films that rework existing fictional characters (too many to mention, but there are , including Pemberley and An Assembly Such as This) but I'm struggling to think of existing stories that are transformed by outside intervention in this way. My friend Karen has alerted me to the comic fantasy series Thursday Next by , but I can't think of any others. Let me know if any occur to you.
Back in 2004 I visited Brick Lane for an event that was part funfair ride and part meditation on fear and displacement. was conceived by , who studied as both a dancer and artist, and (drawing on her Eastern European roots) wanted to create a piece that evoked the experience of being a refugee. Warned sternly not to put our hands outside the carriage, we were rattled into the darkness where a series of tableaux showed mysterious and entrancing scenes that mixed physical theatre with music and illusion. I remember it very fondly, and was pleased to hear that the show is returning, in a revised and enhanced form, and will be given a permanent home in . Open in time for Halloween, apparently.
I've never thought about perfume very much. In fact, if I'm honest, I had formed the opinion that it was a scam to sell luxuriously packaged bottles designed to fill a present-shaped hole in the shopping bags of men and grown-up children. This probably stemmed from the moment in the mid-1990s when perfume started giving me a headache. The fragrances that I'd used before then, Beautiful by Estee Lauder* and Lancome's Tresor**, suddenly seemed insufferable and I gave up on perfume. A new book, , by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez has caused me to reconsider and once I've manage to shift the terrible cough I've had since tramping around in the rain at the Edinburgh Festival, I will repair to some boutique or other to give the artful mixing of molecules a second chance.
The first section of the book consists of short, zesty pieces about the chemistry of perfume, the characteristics of masculine and feminine scents and the reason why there has been little perfume criticism in the past. According to Tania Sanchez, the Internet has transformed discussions of perfume, crediting a lot of her education in perfume to "the twenty-four-hour-a-day pajama party that is ". Where magazines had feared to alienate advertisers through criticism, the Web both brought discontinued and rare fragrances within reach and allowed people to say what they wanted.
One of the challenges for people producing websites is to ensure that we find what we want quickly and easily. The ideal is that we receive suggestions from sources we trust, and that our experience of the web is improved by alerts and recommendations that are tailored to our tastes. The reality is that occasionally we come across a recommendation that is laughable; when this is the case it is usually because somebody has paid to have content pushed at us. This is not an unusual occurrence, but yesterday I came across two corking examples of supposedly targeted advertising.
When searching on Amazon for information about book Looking Back at Francis Bacon (a little preparation ahead of the ) I was amused at the inclusion of a link that I "may be interested in" :
Mmm, "Real dry cured bacon" is just what I feel like after leafing through some of the artist's bloodier work. This is nothing, however, when compared with what I "may be interested in" if I for about the hunger striker Bobby Sands:
My main concern on coming out of Hunger is obviously going to be how to emulate the trim figure attained by those plucky hunger strikers. I know that advertising allows websites to be produced without charging for content, but it does damage my impression of a site if I'm being jolted into incredulous laughter.
Has anyone else spotted particularly jaw-dropping examples of commerce elbowing in on culture?
The programme for this year's has just been announced, and I have the usual encyclopaedic booklet on my desk, just waiting to be pored over and scribbled on. High profile productions, such as and Oliver Stone's film about Dubya, simply entitled '', sit alongside smaller productions from all over the world. Sandra Hebron, artistic director of the festival, said that downbeat reports from the recent did not mean that we were looking at a lean year. Hebron claimed that the fact that awards aren't the focus of the LFF gave the programmers more scope to look at films released throughout the year and allowed them to choose what they thought were the strongest works. Her summary of the main themes emerging from this year's festival was "Politics, History, Memory", although she was quick to assure us that there was plenty of variety on offer. It's difficult to form an opinion about a film from a brief sequence in a 30-minute showreel, but I suppose it's worth mentioning what caught my eye. Michael Winterbottom's new film stars Colin Firth as a man who moves to with his daughters after the death of his wife; Palme D'Or winner , set in a school in Paris, looks like the rebellious, sparky older sister of documentary hit Etre et Avoir; and Steve McQueen's Hunger promises to be one of the festival highlights. Other British films which were given a place on the showreel were band drama , futuristic tale (which features a character who bears more than a passing resemblance to Watchmen's Rorschach), and Shifty, a story of young men with criminal connections living on the outskirts of London. Let us know what's going on your wishlist ahead of tickets becoming available.
What a delight to see Elbow win the award - they were in some ways the uncool option, neither young prodigies nor enigmatic experimenters. It was great to see them receive the award for what was simply a really good album. While you're waiting for the video of their Mercury performance to become available (ooh, it's just up)...
...take a look at our recording of The Fix. Are you pleased or indifferent about the result? I have to admit to being disappointed at the change in the awards format - in previous years I've enjoyed watching most of the acts perform ahead of the announcement and I felt short changed not to be able to enjoy the full package this time. Watching brief snatches of each of the nominees performing made it feel more like all other award ceremonies ie dull. Surely the Mercury Prize is about listening to the music, rather than just rushing to award the gong. The more of a chance we have to listen to acts like Rachel Unthank and The Portico Quartet the more I feel like the prize does its job of honouring the best albums of the year, rather than one single winner.
Tomorrow night sees the final of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two's crash course in conducting, Maestro. It's been good fun, and has concentrated on the music rather than the celebrities - a definite plus in my book - but I wanted more of an insight into why a performance was good or bad. An action replay of a couple of moments where the student conductor was performing well or badly, plus commentary, would have been extremely instructive. The idea is not an obvious crowd-pleaser, but it might have been a good option for the red button or website for those who are as interested in what makes for a good conductor as who gets through to the next round. My vote's with Goldie. The winner will conduct the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Concert Orchestra at the London version of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Proms in the Park.
If the series has awakened an interest in conducting then visit in London on Thursday 2 October for the final of the . Taking place every two years, the competition not only awards the winner £15,000 but even more impressively grants them the role of assistant conductor of the for a year. Only members of the EU can enter, and you need to be under 35 - just in case you are considering putting in an application.
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The cover of The New Yorker from October 2008
Image of Goldie © ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ/Mark Allan