Country Music: Too Dumb for New York?

After last week’s announcement that New York City would host next year’s Country Music Awards (cue Mayor Bloomberg in that great ten-gallon hat), the Times attempts to find traces of a country music scene in the Big Apple. Cue Columbia professor — hilarity ensues:

Adam Fox, an associate professor of music at Columbia University, has studied country music and its place in society. He has written three books on the subject, with a fourth on the way.

Mr. Fox said he considered the lack of a robust mainstream country music scene a positive because it allows for a variety of thriving subcultures, ranging from “hipster country” to “black Caribbean country.” He also says that country music does have stronger support in other parts of the city, including Staten Island, and in areas of New Jersey, where the music’s themes tend to resonate strongly.

In New York City, Mr. Fox said, “country music has risen and fallen with the fashionability of country in society.”

Over the years, some country music singers and their fans have had an uneasy relationship with New York. One song by the late singer Waylon Jennings, called “Too Dumb for New York,” includes these lyrics: “When you’re pushed and shoved and almost mugged/It ain’t no place to be/So I came to one conclusion/New York ain’t for me.”

In recent years, particularly after 9/11, country music has aligned itself with conservative politics, Mr. Fox said, adding that he was not sure that Manhattan and the Country Music awards make a good fit.

“There are more white, working-class fans to support a country scene in New York than most people think,” he said, “but they’re not concentrated enough to support a kind of scene you might find in Atlanta, Baltimore or Cincinnati.”

The international hand signal for “sliding inexorably into the abyss of elitism” involves holding one’s palm face down at eye level and tracing a steep slope in the air, adding an audible fading whistle for effect.

Richard III

It was good to read the lukewarm review of the Public Theater’s Richard III in today’s Times, if only because we were too late to get tickets to the sold out run.

And let’s be clear about why people wanted to see this production — the silly publicity photos gave the impression that the production’s main draw was the spectacle of 4 foot 5 inch Peter Dinklage — last seen in the cult hit The Station Agent — playing Richard III. Ben Brantley’s review sketches the scene:

Ascending the throne has never been more of a struggle for the title character of “Richard III” than it is in the production that opened last night at the Public Theater. This is not a metaphor. Peter Dinklage, who is portraying Shakespeare’s most villainous monarch, is 4-foot-5, and the throne of England was obviously designed for a taller king.

Brantley comes close — this close — to saying what we were thinking:

Mr. Dinklage’s size and silence in [The Station Agent] registered as an artful and natural expression of an outsider’s isolation, a mirror for feelings of the other major characters. So it made a certain immediate sense when it was learned that Mr. Dinklage would play Shakespeare’s old crookback, a man doomed from birth by physical appearance to regard himself as a misfit.

Of course, the casting also smacked faintly of a publicity-luring stunt, of another offbeat star du jour turning up his limelight via the stage.

Bottom line seems to be that Dinklage was generally good as Richard III but that the production wasn’t so good. Terms like “overheated amateurishness” and “embarrassing” are thrown around. Your sense of Ticket Schadenfreude* is preserved.

* “Ticket Schadenfreude” is loosely defined as the sense of satisfaction one feels after finding out that a sold-out show isn’t really worth seeing.

Music for Airports

The fallout from canceling the Terminal 5 exhibition continues. Brian Eno, whose “Music for Airports” was recently rereleased, was set to do a “lecture-demonstration” at the historic terminal apparently in connection with the exhibit. Not anymore:

On Monday the musician Brian Eno visited Terminal 5 of Kennedy Airport, the curvilinear 1962 futuristic building designed by Eero Saarinen for T.W.A. that has been closed since 2001. An art exhibition of installations designed for the space had just opened there, and Mr. Eno, whose 1979 ambient album “Music for Airports” was reissued this week, was preparing a lecture-demonstration.

He was in New York for appearances that included a dialogue with the filmmaker Todd Haynes last night as part of the Music and Media series at the Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Eno’s lecture at Terminal 5 was moved when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey shut down the entire art exhibition after a opening-night party damaged the building.

So some jabronis ruined our chances to actually hear “Music for Airports” in an airport. Agh! Buffoons! (The Times article says that he was testing some kind of demonstration at the space, but perhaps that was before the exhibit was shut down?)

Terminal 5

The Terminal 5 website explains that “Terminal 5 was closed by the Port Authority based upon the actions of guests on Friday, October 1.”

It adds:

In response to the NY Times article by Carol Vogel, please note the reporter failed to mention a primary comment by Ms. Ward, “Along with the Port Authority, we too are shocked at the disrepect of the landmark by the general public at the opening event. We too have a passion and dedication to the landmark that we have been trying uphold and we invite people to review the current state of the building.”

Unlike the comments issued by the Port Authority and JetBlue, we will continue to respect the agencies we have been working with on this project. All were involved on the planning of the event and the resulting incident was an unforutnate act of vandalism by the general public. We do not want to highlight failure of support by our contractors for security and cleaning or failed support by our sponsors to attend or be involved in the event in question. We will instead uphold a positive esteen for Kennedy Airport and all those involved in the planning stages of Terminal 5 who helped train us to handle the landmark terminal. If the Port Authority must discontinue the contract for Ms. Ward, she will allow the building to be supervised by another contractor so that the exhibition can remain installed.

Bummer

The art exhibit at JFK‘s Terminal 5 has been shut down. As the Post puts it, “Airport Art Trash Lands”:

A super-trendy art exhibit at JFK’s former TWA terminal was grounded by the Port Authority after guests at the opening-night party vandalized the landmark building, leaving it in shambles, officials said yesterday.

The PA revoked the permit for the much-hyped exhibit, called “Terminal 5,” after the famed Eero Saarinen structure was trashed by partygoers — who left behind pools of vomit, broken glass and hundreds of cigarette butts.

They also scrawled lewd graffiti on the walls and tried to break open doors and walk out onto the tarmac at the Friday-night party.

“It’s a gorgeous building that is a piece of art,” said PA spokesman Pasquale DiFulco.

“We couldn’t allow these conditions to exist inside it. We couldn’t stand by and let it continue.”

Terminal 5 was closed in 2001 after TWA was absorbed by American Airlines. It will eventually become a part of a new JetBlue complex.

The art exhibit, which was supposed to open Tuesday, had been set to run until the end of January.

The party had been open to the public and attracted hundreds of people, far exceeding expectations, said exhibit curator Rachel Ward.

She said she ordered the opening night bash shut down “as early as possible” when it became obvious the party was spinning out of control.

“The unfortunate events are a serious and unfortunate exception to what we have planned,” she said.

Ward said she hopes the exhibit, which had taken more than a year to prepare and cost thousands of dollars, will eventually be allowed to open.

“We are willing to make any required changes, modifications, increases in security or cleaning crews to get the exhibit open,” she said.

She said sponsors of the exhibit cleaned up the damage after the Friday fiasco and invited the PA to come and see what a good job they did.

“I share the Port Authority’s concern and shock at the public’s disrespect,” she said.

“I think I also share their passion for aviation and JFK Airport. My main goal was to open the landmark terminal to the public for daily hours. I’m trying my best to do that.”

Asked if the agency would reconsider its decision to close the show, DiFulco said only: “The permit is pulled and the building is closed.”

The show was to have displayed the work of 19 painters, sculptors, film makers, writers and other artists.