Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts » Places

Seeking Solitude in Venice

Michael Miller — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 07:12:50 +0000

It's been some years since I've been in Venice, and I found the state of the Piazza S. Marco disturbing. I was appalled by the huge ads for clothing and champagne which dominated both the Piazza and the Piazzetta — now the subject of a formal protest published in the Art Newspaper ("Ads of Sighs," The Art Newspaper, Friday, October 8, 2010), to which the mayor of Venice, Giorgio Orsoni, has given a reply worthy of Glenn Beck

Australia Says No, Thanks: the Election of 2010

Alan Miller — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:43:17 +0000

Three weeks after deposing Kevin Rudd, as though ticking off another item on her to-do list, Julia Gillard called a federal election (one of only three winter federal elections in Australian history). I can’t summon the heart to give much of an account of the five week campaign which followed, especially since the twist in the story only came once the votes began to be counted. You really had to be here. The campaign was truly godawful, a complete extinguishing of the hope which had seen Kevin07 elected three years before. Both major parties pandered to the same focus groups in the same few marginal electorates. They peddled small bore middle class welfare and indulged trumped-up fear; they blandly appealed to the most disgracefully narrow-minded tendencies in the darkest marginal corners of the Australian electorate, the people who fear their leaf blowers will not be powerful enough to defend their McMansions against Taliban invasion. It was easy to to believe that the entire country had become, as one correspondent to the Sydney Morning Herald wrote, a Boganocracy.

Unforeseen Unforeseen Circumstances: The Fall of Kevin Rudd

Alan Miller — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:53:56 +0000

For a White House in need of a few moment’s levity, recent events in Australian politics might have provided an opportunity for a bit of fun. A meeting was planned between the Australian prime minister and President Obama after the G20 meeting in Canada next week. A supreme prank could have been devised whereby the president’s aides agreed not to mention Australia and somehow deprived their boss of any news thereof, surely not too difficult with more pressing business at hand. On the day of the meeting, the Oval Office door would have opened and instead of his good mate Kevin Rudd, in would walk a smiling redhead, Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard. Alas this prank will never come to pass. Obama thankfully seeks out his own news, and in any case after this week of extraordinary upheaval in Australian politics, the newly sworn in Prime Minister Gillard is far too busy to travel overseas.

Barangaroo Revisited: ‘And Here’s a City I Prepared Earlier…’

Alan Miller — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:58:20 +0000

Barangaroo developer Lend Lease has released a revised plan for the site. The fact that it is an improvement on their previous proposal is like saying Burger King is better than McDonalds, perhaps true, but surely there are better hamburgers in the world. Sydney city councilor John McInerney is probably right to suggest that Lend Lease has pulled an inverted bait-and-switch of the ‘propose something outrageous and the less outrageous thing you planned all along will seem reasonable’ variety. Ironically, by improving some of the original design’s worst excesses -- for example, the “exclamation mark” hotel has been reduced in height and does not project as far into the harbour -- its fundamental flaws are more glaring than ever.

Maximum Stupid: Sydney’s Big Barangaroo Blowup

Alan Miller — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:00:08 +0000

"The Master Plan suggests an architecture that, despite its scale, will not overshadow any of the spaces that are, in and of themselves, naturally beautiful. The exception to this is the library and hotel pier. A reference to tall ships that once docked at the harbour's edge and the hotel and library are expressions of the magnificent ability for a building to almost walk on water. This architecture will provide necessary markers in their own right." -from the Barangaroo Public Display, March 2010

The Short, Fast Life of Jonathan Van Allen

Nancy Salz — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:05:05 +0000

Jonathan Van Allen’s family and staff had no time to grieve. The day after he was killed in an early morning, one-car accident they had to put on an elegant wedding reception at a restaurant that would soon be Jonathan’s third in South Berkshire County.

Season’s Greetings from the Berkshire Review for the Arts

The Editor — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:18:55 +0000

Season's Greetings from the Berkshire Review for the Arts.

Commentary: Here and There… of Anthropology at Home and Abroad

Michael Miller — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:33:06 +0000

The ethnographic films of Robert Gardner and anthropology in general resonate quite powerfully with me, although I've hardly ever had a chance to become broadly or deeply acquainted with either. My first encounter with Gardner's Dead Birds, his best-known work, made a deep impression on me, not only because of the film itself, which was reason enough, but because of the odd circumstances in which I first discovered it.

Some True Things Arranged Deceptively – a Screenplay

Alan Miller — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:19:45 +0000

A jumbo jet full of PASSENGERS waits to pass through customs, passports in hand. They are in between, not yet present in any country. At the end of the corridor an automated dispenser of hand sanitizer welcomes them to the United States and to Los Angeles, such as it is. A few passengers exchange anxious glances with the impassive and, for some, unfamiliar machine.

The line does not move.

Eventually a DIMINUTIVE WOMAN approaches the machine, hand extended. The dispenser BUZZES and a tennis ball-sized dollop of hand sanitizer appears in her hand. She returns to her place in line, staring at the impassive white bolus in her palm, more anxious than before.

The line begins to move.

Acis as Genius of Cannons

Gilbert Blin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:04:30 +0000

In the summer of 1717, after the highly successful performance of his Water Music for the King of England, Handel left busy London and went to take up residence at rural Cannons, a few miles from the English capital. The composer, temporarily unable to have his operas produced, was answering the invitation of one of his patrons: James Brydges, the Earl of Carnarvon, who would in 1719 be elevated to the title by which he is best known: the Duke of Chandos.