by Michael Janairo

Big Picture: The arts in our daily lives

Times Union Studio shot of Entertainment Editor Michael Janairo for his upcoming Unwind “Big Picture” Arts Column, shot on Wednesday, June 16, 2010, in Albany, NY. (Luanne M. Ferris/Times Union)

For two years now, I’ve had the privilege of working as the Times Union’s arts and entertainment editor.

The post offers a unique perspective on the ceaseless flow of TV, film, video games, classical music, pop music, jazz, visual arts, theater, opera, literature and festivals available to the Capital Region, as well as access to people who curate and create the cultural landscape — artists, administrators, publicists and audiences.

In this column, I want to add to the ongoing conversations about the arts in the Capital Region, and the conversations about the Capital Region in general. I believe too often the arts have been relegated to some fictional place outside daily life. I’ve often heard that the basic necessities are food, clothing and shelter, along with jobs to acquire those things and the laws to secure them. That kind of thinking, however, fails to value the basic necessity of the arts. The arts are the realizations of the imagination — of rich inner lives — which is crucial to what it means to be human.

My title “editor” doesn’t quite get to the heart of what I’m describing. A better word is culturalist.

By culturalist, I don’t mean the kind of -ist linked to a singular ideology (such as anarchist); rather, I see it as a mix of a profession (think dentist) and of someone who uses something (think guitarist).

Culture, however, is a weighty word. It has separate and distinct meanings in the realms of humanities and science: The culture of a city is quite different from the culture in a petri dish.

Or is it?

The culture of a community isn’t static. It is a living organism that requires care to thrive — or else it dies.

So if the Capital Region can be viewed as a petri dish, then what is its culture? I’m often asked that question when speaking with people outside the region. What I often say is the region is decentralized and has a bit of an identity crisis, meaning we have difficulty describing what it is (as opposed to what it is not).

Let me explain: We have no cultural center. Instead, we have great institutions in all directions such as Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown to the west; the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake to the north; Tanglewood in the Berkshires to the east; and Art Omi in Ghent to the south. The region’s four core counties, as well, have many major institutions such as SPAC in Saratoga, Proctors in Schenectady, EMPAC in Troy and The Egg in Albany.

Of course what I’ve named are just a few places, not an exhaustive list, and I apologize to all the worthy places I’ve left out. The point is that one defining characteristic of the Capital Region is that you need a car to explore the rich offerings of its wide geography.

The region’s identity crisis is perhaps best summed up by the nickname “Smallbany.” Sure, the Capital Region exists in the shadow of the huge metropolises of Boston and New York City. And Smallbany has self-effacing charm and it sounds accurate, especially when people realize they are linked by a lot less than six degrees of separation. But it unfortunately makes Albany seem like the center of things, when it isn’t.

The Capital Region’s identity crisis has manifested itself most recently in the online discussion about the Best of the Capital Region, especially in the arguments that pit local businesses against chain restaurants and stores. Some people have even expressed embarrassment over the presence of chains. (See for yourself at http://blog.timesunion.com/bestof2010 and read especially the comments about Best pizza and Best Italian restaurant.)

Why? People want the Capital Region to have a distinct culture and to think of themselves as unique. Any individual’s experiences are unique, but as a group placed together by circumstance and geography, it is difficult to stand out when we are already shaped by the might of the larger American culture.

The conversation about chain vs. local, however, is just one of the conversations going on now that help define our region — and ourselves. It is an ongoing conversation in which we can all take part. Join me.

by Michael Janairo

Here’s an interesting quote

Here’s an interesting quote that came to me courtesy of an e-mail listserve called You Cott Mail

Quote of the Day:

“True art is revolutionary”From “Die Kunst und die Revolution” [“Art and Revolution”], an essay written by the composer Richard Wagner in 1849, translated by William Ashton Ellis

“Almost universal is the outcry raised by artists nowadays against the damage that the [French] Revolution has occasioned them. It is not the battles of the ‘barricades,’ not the sudden mighty shattering of the pillars of the State, not the hasty change of Governments,— that is bewailed; for the impression left behind by such capital events as these, is for the most part disproportionately fleeting, and short-lived in its violence. But it is the protracted character of the latest convulsions that is so mortally affecting the artistic efforts of the day. The hitherto-recognized foundations of industry, of commerce, and of wealth, are now threatened; and though tranquility has been outwardly restored, and the general physiognomy of social life completely re-established, yet there gnaws at the entrails of this life a carking care, an agonizing distress. Reluctance to embark in fresh undertakings, is maiming credit; he who wishes to preserve what he has, declines the prospect of uncertain gain; industry is at a standstill, and — Art has no longer the wherewithal to live….Yet Art remains in its essence what it ever was; we have only to say, that it is not present in our modern public system. It lives, however, and has ever lived in the individual conscience, as the one fair, indivisible Art. Thus the only difference is this: with the [ancient] Greeks it lived in the public conscience, whereas today it lives alone in the conscience of private persons, the public un-conscience recking nothing of it. Therefore in its flowering time the Grecian Art was conservative, because it was a worthy and adequate expression of the public conscience: with us, true Art is revolutionary, because its very existence is opposed to the ruling spirit of the community.”

by Michael Janairo

Feeling stressed out, and then I remember I got to do this recently.

‘Float’ awakens a thoughtful experience

by Michael Janairo

Lamb patties on the grill

Lamb patties on the grill on Twitpic

(Source: http://twitpic.com/1ihf54)
by Michael Janairo

Page Turner awards

Uber-best-selling mega-author James Patterson has announced the winners of his second Page Turner Awards.

The 39 winners of the 2006 James Patterson PageTurner Awards will receive cash prizes totaling $500,000. Among the winners are libraries, schools, bookstores, and innovative individuals and organizations that go to extraordinary lengths to spread the joy of books and reading across the country.

by Michael Janairo

In the library of historic cookbooks

The Guardian has a fun story about a great cookbook collection.

Housed in his chefs’ academy in a quiet south-west London backstreet, the library is a modern space, lit by huge windows and with a ceiling high enough that you could imagine clouds forming. Nearly 6,000 cookbooks stretch along the shelves, taking in seven languages, half a dozen centuries and a staggering diversity of subjects. Some of the ingredients in Mosimann’s older books are fairly unappealing. Boiled cow’s udders jump out from Meg Dodd’s 17th-century book, Cookery: A Practical System of Modern Domestic Cookery, sliced and served with tomato or onion sauce, unless you would prefer them simmered and salted, served cold with oil and vinegar.

…

Among the earliest handwritten recipe collections in English was The Forme of Cury (cury meaning cooked food, derived from the French cuire – to cook), compiled around 1390 by a master cook to Richard II to show readers how “to make common pottages and common meats for the household, as they should be made, craftily and wholesomely”. A decade earlier, Guillaume Tirel, chef to the French royal family, produced the first known French cookbook, Viandier. Original copies no longer exist, although an 18th-century version of The Forme of Cury is available on Amazon and you also can download it free from manybooks.net.

England’s entry into the printed cookbook stakes occurred in 1500, when Richard Pynson – one of the first English printers – published The Boke of Cokery [sic], though it was thought to be lost until a copy reappeared in 2002 during a clearout by the Marquess of Bath at Longleat House.

by Michael Janairo

Mat Johnson: Debating Black Books

Mat Johnson continues to offer some interesting arguments and definitions on his blog, this time in a posting about the differences between high and low culture and their respective relationships to the marketplace.

Of interest is that he puts his reasons for trying to start a dialog at the end of the posting (which I include below). But the essay is worth a look, if only for his willingness to lay out the kinds of demands different kinds of writing have not only for their readers, but also for their writers.

Why I’m Bothering

Another thing that has come up repeatedly, from emails and other responses, is why I’m even bothering to trying to have a critical dialogue at all. For those that wonder, here is a list of my intentions for this dialogue:

1. To create an understanding of the difference between highbrow and lowbrow art in the African American community, and for an intellectual space for both of them so that they might better co-exist.

2. To make aspiring literary writers aware of the pitfalls between them and their goals.

3. To foster inter-community discussion about the current direction of African American literature.

4. To bring a discussion about quality of writing to the black commercial fiction arena.

5. To turn these resultant discussion into an anthology to be published by my new imprint, Niggerati Manor Productions ($39.95 hardcover). Then to come up with a nationwide speaking tour, charging college campuses another $8-12,000 a pop to have a live debate on their campus (think Carl Webber versus Edward P. Jones). Next, I’ll spin that off into a reality show on BET where 10 writers live together, struggling to get published, but one team is commercial and the other literary. We’ll kick one off each episode, with the tag line “You’re a hack!” This show will of course be hosted by LeVar Burton, the winner being published by Niggerati Manor Productions with us retaining the movie rights (because let’s face it, it’s all about the movie rights). Then it’s just sit back, and let the revenue streams pour in.

Now, dear reader, it’s time to test your critical thinking skills. Which of the above statements is false?

by Michael Janairo

Long live the real American hero

As you know, Captain America is dead.

But do you know who has earned the right to carry his shield?

Click here to find out.

by Michael Janairo

What is “Asian”?

The Complete Review links to an interesting article about the Man Asian Prize.

Here is the write-up about the prize from the organization itself:

This major new literary prize aims to recognise the best of new Asian literature and to bring it to the attention of the world literary community. A distinguished panel of judges selects a single work of fiction to be awarded the prize each year. Works submitted for consideration must not yet be published in English, although they may have been published in other languages.

The prize was initiated through Man Group plc, a leading global financial services firm based in London, and the Hong Kong Literary Festival, the premier event of its kind in Asia.

Here is the official Man Asian Literary Prize Web site.

The difficulty, of course, is that Asia is such a diverse region, including more than half the world’s population, stretching from Turkey to Japan. Complicating matters, is finding the right judges.

How far do Asians identify themselves as Asian, though? I cannot answer this question in historical or economic terms, but when it comes to literature, we have our barriers up. Even well-read Indians would find it difficult to name Korea’s greatest authors, Sri Lanka is not necessarily interested in the literature of Malaysia, Japan isn’t reading the best of Pakistani writing. And when we do read each other, we stick with authors who have been identified for us chiefly by curious Western readers in the media or in publishing. This is not such a bad thing—literature is an open community, and I don’t care who’s picking out the good stuff so long as the good stuff gets to me.

The Man Asian Literary Prize has its heart in the right place—it’s open specifically to literary fiction written in any Asian language that have not yet been published in English. This could do a lot to reverse the “Iceberg effect” that many writers suffer from—if you’re not published in English, you’re invisible to all but a small percentage of your potential readers.

But the controversy that’s grown around the 2007 Prize rests in the details. Nury Vittachi, the writer who came up with the idea behind the prize, has been effectively sidelined by Peter Goran, the prize administrator. Both men have played key roles—without Vittachi’s idea, there would have been no prize, without Goran’s flair for management, there would have been just a magnificent idea floating in mid-air. Without getting into the politics of the Prize, here’s the gist of the controversy.

Vittachi feels that an Asian prize deserves Asian judges.

The article is here.