Art
Tate Britain’s important retrospective of Henry Moore’s work, opens today to reveal, say curators, his demons; that this is a man much darker, edgier and more complex than has been realised hitherto. It also reveals an unexpected twist to Moore’s career pattern; he is unusual in that even when his best work was behind him, in every subsequent decade he continued to make individual pieces of sculpture as original and powerful as any he had done; The “five-to-10 good years” phenomenon, appears not quite to apply, as noted in The Telegraph HERE. More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; and Times HERE.
Literature
Michael Morpurgo, the former children’s laureate, is spearheading a writing award for children that launches today. The award is a reincarnation of the much-loved WH Smith’s Young Writers’ competition, which more than a million children entered until it was discontinued 20 years ago. Previous winners included the biographer Hermione Lee, the playwright Neil Bartlett and the actresses Helena Bonham Carter and Kate Beckinsale, who won twice, for poetry and a short story.
Morpurgo said that the new award was aimed at children whose parents “do not go to literary festivals” and offers them a creative antidote to the culture of testing prevalent in schools:
“I know this sounds just like any other campaign, but it’s not… It’s about saying that children matter on a national scale. They make art and poetry just like anybody else does.” More in The Times HERE.
Advertising
In response to Ofcom’s ruling that the Curry’s sponsorship of The Simpsons on Sky1 breached broadcasting regulations, Sky has said it had sought Ofcom’s informal guidance on the campaign and was of the view that “Ofcom had confirmed the credits were compliant”. Ofcom has rejected Sky’s response, issuing a note to broadcasters reminding them that:
“Ofcom does not accept Sky’s view that, in advance of transmission, Ofcom had ‘confirmed that the credits were compliant’… Ofcom is a post-transmission regulator and has always made clear to its licensees that it does not offer pre-transmission clearance or compliance approval… Ofcom does not and cannot clear material prior to broadcast… Any [pre-broadcast] advice is given on the strict understanding that it will not affect Ofcom’s discretion to judge cases and complaints after transmission and will not affect the exercise of Ofcom’s regulatory responsibilities. More in The Guardian HERE.
Theatre
High praise indeed for the British theatre from the theatre editor of Time Out New York who writes of how the excitement over the transfer to Broadway from the West End of Enron, is mitigated by the shame that no one stateside had thought of it first. He argues “American artistic directors are shockingly unimaginative.” More in the Guardian HERE.
Librarians
As Marilyn Johnson explains in This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All HERE, a new generation of young, hip and occasionally tattooed librarians, calling themselves “guybrarians”, “cybrarians” and “information specialists”, and to be found blogging at sites like The Free Range Librarian HERE and The Lipstick Librarian HERE. Who else is going to help us formulate the questions Google doesn’t understand, or show non-English speakers how to apply for jobs online, or sympathize with your need to research the ancient origins of cockfighting? There’s a great Salon article HERE, finding answers to questions such as Aren’t libraries and librarians obsolete in the age of Google?/ What does a librarian look like today?/ and, perhaps most interestingly of all; is the library the last place, other than your home, where information comes free of charge and you don’t have to be ‘on guard’ against the big sell?
Journalism
The Pulitzer committee have decided that the National Enquirer will be eligible to be considered for their investigative reporting and national news reporting awards. The magazine’s executive editor, Barry Levine, who just a few days previously had been telling Pulitzer committee-members that they needed “to get their heads out of the sand”, is jubilant:
“That persistence, that old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting that we exhibited on [the John Edwards affair] story, at the end of the day, is what the Pulitzer committee recognised”
Washington politics blogger, Emily Miller led a grassroots campaign to lobby the Pulitzer committee and says:
“The National Enquirer is a supermarket tabloid, but the time has come for the media elite to admit that it has an excellent investigative reporting team, which broke the biggest political scandal of 2009.”
The Guardian notes that some serious caveats are in order HERE; and a Guardian journalist tells of how the Statesman:
“… shaped my journalistic ambitions. It teaches one to be cynical (yup), sarcastic (tick), and to believe that anyone who is a celebrity is definitely an idiot and probably full-on doolally” HERE.
