Thin-Crust Cultural Heritage

Even though one in three of Italy’s pizza makers isn’t Italian, the UNESCO  Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage has named Neapolitan pizza an Intangible Cultural Heritage.

“The art of the Neapolitan ‘Pizzaiuolo’ is a culinary practice comprising four different phases relating to the preparation of the dough and its baking in a wood-fired oven, involving a rotatory movement by the baker. The element originates in Naples, the capital of the Campania Region, where about 3,000 Pizzaiuoli now live and perform.” — UNESCO

Kennedy Center Honors Celebrity Fundraising

Tonight CBS will telecast the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors, a 90 minute video distillation that will seem every bit as long as the 3 hour live event held earlier this month. Video broadcast rights to the ceremony probably earn the Center as much as a middling college team gets for a third-rate football bowl game telecast. Frankly, a Bake Sale for the Arts would be more interesting to watch.

“It takes ingenuity to make the Kennedy Center Honors more mortifying with each passing year,” observed Frank Rich:

Sweden’s New Museum

Sweden, land of August Strindberg, Jenny Lind, Ingmar Bergman,  Yngwie Malmsteen, and Birgit Nilsson, will have a new cultural institution this spring. The ABBA Museum opens in Stockholm on May 7th.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Kennedy Centers Honors Celebrity Fundraising Opportunity

Tonight CBS will telecast the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors, a 90 minute video distillation that will seem every bit as long as the 3 hour live event held earlier this month. Video rights probably earn the Center as much as a middling college gets from a second-rate football bowl game broadcast. Frankly, a Bake Sale for the Arts would be more interesting.

Crime on the Menu at Waffle House

There was an unappetizing breakfast special at Waffle House restaurants in Georgia and Alabama this summer. 18 of the 24/7 restaurants were robbed. The alleged perpetrators have been caught, but these culinary fixtures of the roadside South are often scenes of excitement. The 1,600 eateries are open all day, every day, and are often the only businesses open when taverns close. They only take cash, and most are beside the highway, a quick exit route. That’s a fast-food recipe for crime.

All this has been re-hashed and dished up by a major newspaper in a Waffle-House-free zone, the New York Times. Southerners are not taking this lightly:

Drama at La Scala

Daniel Barenboim got an ovation even before he conducted Wagner’s Die Walküre at Milan’s La Scala last Tuesday. It was after he addressed Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who was in the royal box:

“In the names of the colleagues who play, sing, dance and work, not only here but in all theatres, I am here to tell you we are deeply worried for the future of culture in the country and in Europe.”

Mr. Barenboim also quoted Article 9 of the Italian Constitution, which directs the government to promote culture and protect the nation’s artistic heritage.

There was an equally impassioned performance in front of the historic opera house earlier in the day as caribinieri beat and gassed protesters, hundreds of cultural workers and students from across Italy. The protests were in response to proposed drastic cuts in government funding for education and the arts.

Sociologist’s Totems

“The lyrics of contemporary popular song, of rock and rap and country, are the ones which reflect the immediacy of our world, much as theater songs did in the first half of the twentieth century. They are the sociologist’s totems.”

Who wrote that?

Robert Christgau? Simon Frith? Todd Gitlin? Peter Wicke? Robert Palmer? Lester Bangs? Paul Friedlander? R. Serge Denisoff? Greil Marcus?

Day of the Dead – El Día de los Muertos

 

The Day of the Dead (El Día de los Muertos) or All Souls Day is November 2st this year, a Tuesday. Here in Washington, DC the Mexican Cultural Institute (Instituto de México, 2829 16th Street, NW) has a traditional Altar de Muertos, which also commemorates the centennial of the Mexican Revolution.

The day is well-appreciated on the Web. Start with Carlos Miller and the staff of the Arizona Republic; for more detail, see Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead by Stanley Brandes.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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2010 Smithsonian Folklife Festival

The 2010 Smithsonian Folklife Festival begins today on the National Mall. The free event is a highlight of Washington’s summer. Dates: June 24 to 28 and July 1 to 5.

This year, visitors can experience the cultures of Mexico and the DC area’s Asian Pacific American communities and peek into the workings of the Smithsonian itself. There are special evening events, including this Saturday’s concert by Haitian artists Boukman Eksperyans and Tines Salvant (Saturday, June 26, 6PM). Be sure to pick up a program book and learn more about the people you meet and what you see, hear, and taste.