Threat to Western Civilization Alert — The Art Newspaper reports this morning that Elton John plans an outdoor concert in St. Mark’s Square in Venice. Though John’s people are assuring the city that crowd control measures will prevent anything like the mob scene that accompanied a Pink Floyd concert there in 1989, local and …
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Idolwatch: Crooned In
My weekly American Idol review has been posted; AI served up something for Grandma last night, bringing in the legendary Tony Bennett for the weekly ritual of “mentoring” (i.e., having his advice generally ignored by) the singers. My picks this week? I’m going with a bottom three of Phil, Haley and–less confident on this one–Gina, with …
Pollocks — Or Maybe Just “Pollocks” — for Sale?
Curiouser and Curiouser. The New York Times reports today that Alex Matter, who announced two years ago that he had found a previously unknown horde of small Jackson Pollock drip paintings, has quietly sold some of them to the New York gallery owner Ronald Feldman. The Times says Feldman bought some entirely and holds others jointly …
Howard’s End
I ordinarily wouldn’t report on an exhibition that has just closed, but it wasn’t until last Friday, its final day, that I was able to get up to New Haven to see the show at the Yale Center for British Art of Howard Hodgkin’s work since 1992. It was predictably captivating, and I can’t resist putting out a few thoughts. (And if you …
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This Week on Tuned In: Good News and Bad News
The bad news is, I’m on vacation, and posting will be limited. Possibly limited to this post.
Oh, sorry, that was the good news! In fact, there is no bad news! Well, I did volunteer for American Idol reviewing duty again this week, and there may well be a Lostwatch post, so you’ll have to suffer through that. I’m sorry.
I’ll be back …
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Renaissance, Fair
Jonathan Hession/Showtime
Showtime’s The Tudors, which debuts this Sunday, tries to show us that the life of Henry VIII was one of great passions. The series, however, does not inspire great passions. The idea was good enough: to re-tell the story of Henry and Anne Boleyn, but turn the clock back to Henry VIII as a virile, fiery, …
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Dead Tree Alert: Sleeping with the Fishes
HBO
In the print TIME this week, I preview the first two of the last nine Sopranos episodes ever, debuting on HBO April 8. The spoilers in this piece are not very spoilery, but if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, you may want to bookmark this and save it. Or, you know, forget I ever wrote it. Here’s a (nonspoilery)
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The Rogers Report
When I was done with what I had to say about Richard Rogers it looked longer than a blogpost to me, so I put it up in all it’s multi-illustrated glory directly on time.com instead.
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Sligh, Dogged
Chris Sligh may not have won American Idol this season, but he has a legacy. Two, actually. First, he broke my mammoth two-weeks-in-a-row run of predicting American Idol’s ejectees. Second, he proved that, while there are definitely patterns to American Idol voting and a history to learn from, you can’t just strategize your way to the …
Department of Amplification
I don’t think it’s a confusion she intended to create, but I notice that art blogger Lee Rosenbaum has a post today that could leave the mistaken impression that I broke an embargo yesterday by reporting in advance of the official announcement — it comes later today — that the architect Richard Rogers had won the Pritzker Prize.
Not …
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Lostwatch: Razzle Dazzle!
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched Lost yet, stay very still for eight hours, until the feeling of numbness passes.
ABC/ Mario Perez
Last night’s was a really cool episode of Lost. That is a different thing, however, from a really good episode of Lost. The installment in which the show explained–then killed off–the much-loathed …
The Pritzker Goes to Richard Rogers
Tomorrow the Hyatt Foundation will announce that this year’s Pritzker Prize, architecture’s most visible honor, will go to Richard Rogers, the British pioneer of high tech, designer of the furiously imagined Lloyd’s of London headquarters in London and co-designer (with Renzo Piano) of the Pompidou Center in Paris.
Lloyd’s of London …
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CBS News Destroys John Edwards to Save Him
I’ve had MSNBC on in the background while I write, and they seem to be devoting practically the entire morning to American Idol. So Tuned In’s going to step into the breach and cover the 2008 presidential race.
Following up on Katie Couric’s controversial interview with John and Elizabeth Edwards, CBS has released its own poll showing …