Week
of December 31, 2001-January 6, 2002
1.
Special Interest
2. Dance
3. Media
4. Music
5. People
6. Publishing
7. Theatre
8. Visual Arts
9. Arts Issues
10. For Fun
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1. SPECIAL INTEREST
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#specialinterest
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROTECTING
IDEAS TO DEATH: "Lawrence Lessig's passionate new book, 'The
Future of Ideas, argues that America's concern with protecting
intellectual property has become an oppressive obsession. ''The
distinctive feature of modern American copyright law,' he writes,
'is its almost limitless bloating.' As Lessig sees it, a system
originally designed to provide incentives for innovation has
increasingly become a weapon for attacking cutting-edge
creativity. Why, Lessig asks, does American law increasingly
protect the interests of the old guard over those of the
vanguard?" The
New York Times 01/06/02
GOING
FORWARD: Most novels are told in the past tense. But great
art, great thinking happens in the present dreaming of the future.
That's really the essence of modernism - using the past to build a
future rather than declaring the past and future as
cause-and-effect. The Globe & Mail
(Canada) 01/02/02
WRESTLING
WITH THE PIANO: A man decides that learning to play the piano
is his passion, and embarks on a long journey to get better at it.
"There may well be a psychoanalytical explanation for this
wanting to lose oneself in a private realm of musical expression.
Neurologists may one day find the answer in combinations of
peptides and amino acids; in the metabolic affinities between
specific neurons. They may also be able to explain to me why my
musical memory is so dysfunctional and why my brain is so
inadequately wired to my fingers. All this may one day become
clear. Until then I shall stumble on, feeling that the act of
playing the piano each day does in some way settle the mind and
the spirit. Even five minutes in the morning feels as though it
has altered the chemistry of the brain in some indefinable way.
Something has been nourished. I feel ready - or readier - for the
day." The Guardian (UK) 01/05/02
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2. DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#dance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BUILDING
A DANCE COMPANY: "Over the last 15 years, fed by the
elegant choreography of its artistic director José Mateo's Ballet
Theater has cultivated a distinctive ballet style, a critically
acclaimed repertory of original work, a school and 20-member
company. With performances of this season's Nutcracker,
which ended on Sunday, the troupe has opened this erudite
Cambridge's first home for professional ballet." The
New York Times 01/01/02
THE
EXAMINED DANCE: "The theoretical study of dance, using
the broad content and methodology of the humanities, is still far
less developed than in those other arts. And there is much less in
the way of rigorous dialogue among well-trained scholars in the
various theoretical disciplines." Aesthetics-online
12/01
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3. MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#media
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RECORD
MOVIE YEAR: The movie industry ended 2001 with its best year
ever. "Movie-ticket sales for 2001 will total an estimated
$8.35 billion by the end of New Year's Eve, up from last year's
record of $7.7 billion, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor
Relations. Factoring in an estimated 4 percent rise in average
ticket prices, admissions were up about 5 percent, the first
increase since 1998." Nando Times
(AP) 01/01/02
SUNDANCE
TURNS 20: "Sundance used to be shorthand for artistic
legitimacy, a way for filmmakers to place themselves firmly
outside the corrupt commercial imperatives of the studio system.
Then the studios jumped atop the bandwagon. As the Sundance
Institute celebrates its 20th anniversary with the start of its
annual film festival on Thursday, organizers are grappling with
how to maintain the fest's indie appeal and credibility, while
accepting the fact that the 10-day event has been co-opted by many
of the major studios as just another way to grab attention for a
movie." The Globe & Mail
(Canada) 01/05/02
THE
CAMERA LIES: When Michael Jackson appeared on a TV special
last fall, producers thought he looked too white compared to his
brothers, so they "color corrected" him on the screen.
Then they thought Whitney Houston looked too skinny, so they added
a little weight to her in post-production. "Over the past two
decades, the advent of digital technology and the increasing
sophistication of CGI (computer graphics interface) software has
radically transformed production of everything from feature films
and television shows to music videos and advertising spots. Now,
virtually anything is possible. 'If you can think it or dream it,
you can do it'." The Globe &
Mail (Canada) 01/05/02
WHAT
WAS THE YEAR'S BEST MOVIE? There seems to be no consensus
"best movie" of the year among American film critics.
Here's a list of critics' Top 10 lists for 2001.
Chicago Tribune 01/06/02
BALKING
AT THE BONUSES: Fans of DVD's have been attracted to the new
format in part because of "bonus" material often
included on the discs - interviews with cast and crew, and
behind-the-scenes scenes. But the "extra material could start
to disappear thanks to escalating costs and demands by talent and
guilds. Studios are balking at new fees for script use and star
participation, even as overall DVD sales surge and consumers
embrace "special edition" packages."
Toronto Star 01/01/02
THE
LOWLY WRITER: So TV writers' pay is getting cut because the
American networks are losing money? No one's getting rich here,
certainly not writers. "There are about 150 series per year
with about an average of 10 staffers each, or about 1,500 staff
writer/writer-producer, prime-time jobs per year. There are a
required two freelance scripts given out per series for a maximum
of about 300 freelance scripts per year. That's 1,800 possible
jobs being fought for by over 10,000 active WGA West members (not
including East Coast WGA members) and the additional how-many-more
tens of thousands more non-guild members attempting to break
in." Los
Angeles Times 12/31/01
THE
STAR IS A MURDERER? The Iranian movie Kandahar has had
rave reviews in the international press this year. "However,
it is now being claimed that one of the film's amateur actors is
in fact the prime suspect in a political assassination that took
place more than 20 years ago." BBC
12/30/01
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4.
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#music
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
US
ALBUM SALES TAKE A DIVE: "Album sales in the US dropped
by almost 3% in 2001 - the first year for a decade that has seen a
decline. CD-copying, internet swapping, a weak economy and other
popular forms of entertainment such as DVDs and video games have
been blamed... A recent industry study found that half of those
questioned had downloaded music from the internet in the last
month, and 70% of those had burnt songs onto CD."
BBC 01/04/02
GRAMMY
NOMINEES: The Grammy Award nominees are announced. Conductor
Pierre Boulez leads classical nominations with six. A complete
list of nominations is here.
The awards ceremony is February 27 in LA .
Los Angeles Times 01/04/02
- A
GOOD YEAR: Job well done, writes one critic about this
year's selection of nominees. "There haven't been many
times over the last four decades when it has been possible to
put the words 'job well done' and 'Grammy Award nominations'
in the same sentence, but this is one."
Los Angeles Times 01/05/02
- SIGN
OF CLASSICAL CHANGE: The most-honored classical release
this year - a live performance of Berlioz's opera The
Trojans, nominated for for best classical, opera and best
engineered recording, was not produced by a commercial
recording company, but by the London Symphony Orchestra."
Los Angeles Times 01/05/02
KERNIS
AT THE TOP: Composer Aaron Jay Kernis has been winning all the
music world's top prizes for composers, including the Grawemeyer
and the Pulitzer. He's also getting some of the most prominent
commissions by major orchestras. "He's capable of irony and
wit, but won't take cover behind those qualities. There's a lot of
passion to his writing, and what ties his disparate pieces
together are the grand gestures, the way he'll go for a big
romantic statement." Christian
Science Monitor 01/04/02
GRASS
ROOTS: American roots music (called "Americana" by
some) is find a swell of new fans. "Americans want to hear
the hybrid blends of folk, blues, country, rockabilly, and
regional sounds (zydeco, Cajun, native American) known as roots
music, Americana, or its punk-edged cousin, alternative country.
Theories regarding Americana's popularity abound - though it must
be noted that most of its practitioners disapprove of 'genre-fying'
music at all." Christian Science
Monitor 01/03/02
CHANGE
AT THE TOP: Many of the orchestra world's most prestigious
ensembles are about to get new music directors - a new generation
of conductors set to shape orchestral music for the 21st Century.
It's about time. Andante 01/02/02
WILL
OPERA SURVIVE? Gerard Mortier wonders about the future of
opera: "For years now, like vampires, we so-called managers
and artistic directors have been sucking fresh blood from film and
theater directing to secure a little more eternity for opera. I
have taken great delight in doing so. The experience was an
important one - it brought about refreshing new interpretations of
works. In the meantime, however, this process has itself become
clichéd, possibly even a pure publicity reflex. Will it be
possible to keep opera from becoming a dead language and gradually
disappearing from our so-called educational canon, just as Latin
and Greek are vanishing from our classrooms?"
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
01/04/02
A
NEW STANDARD OF SUCCESS? It is a strange phenomenon of an
uncertain time in the orchestral world that many top ensembles are
announcing year-end fiscal numbers that would have been considered
horrifying a couple of years ago, but can still be said to place
the orchestra well out of the danger zone inhabited by groups in
Toronto, St. Louis, and elsewhere. Case in point: the Detroit
Symphony Orchestra, which ran over $1 million in the red in 2001,
but is going ahead with a massive venue expansion plan and shows
no signs of making cuts. Detroit Free
Press 01/02/02
LA
SCALA CLOSES: La Scala's opera house closed its season last
weekend and now the house is closed for a major renovation. But
the closure has many worried. "La Scala's management says the
work will be completed in three years and that the house, its gilt
and glory fully restored, will be ready for opening night Dec. 7,
2004. 'Temporarily closed for repairs' has been the kiss of death
for some of Italy's other important opera houses. Their stories
are as melodramatic as Maria Callas' love life." Chicago
Tribune 12/31/01
KEYS
TO SUCCESS? Should classical music popularize itself like the
visual art industry has? "Classical music doesn't suit that
sort of hype. Its sedentary, spiritual quality tends to appeal to
older people. Unlike the visual arts, it demands communal
concentration - something most young people, raised on a culture
of soundbites, are not prepared to do. It can't be sampled at a
glance, it's not visually exciting. It also happens to be horribly
labour-intensive. Worst of all, classical music is in the throes
of an identity crisis, because its principal tools are 18th- and
19th-century creations, with a few 20th-century accretions. The
vast majority of orchestras and venues have failed to reinvent
themselves in a way that suits modern media." Financial
Times 01/01/02
TROUBLE
GETTING MUSIC: Many music fans looking for recent classical
recordings in stores before Christmas were stymied. Selection in
stores is lousy and distribution is limited. So where did all the
music go? "It must be said that the downturn in the disc
business doesn't herald the end of classical music. Box office
figures for live performance remain good to excellent here and
elsewhere. Yet veterans of the disc biz say it's rarely been
worse." Philadelphia
Inquirer 01/01/02
DOWN
YEAR FOR CONCERTS: On the American concert circuit, "the
top 100 concert tours sold 34.4 million tickets in 2001, down
about 7 percent from 37.1 million the year before, according to an
analysis by Pollstar magazine." U2 earned $109.7 million, the
second highest gross ever for a tour (The Rolling Stones 1994 tour
earned $121.2 million). Contra Costa
Times (AP) 12/31/01
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5. PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#people
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WHO'S
WHO OF SMART: A new book attempts to determine who America's
leading intellectuals are by counting media mentions. Dumb
methodology but great fun. "The top public intellectual by
media mentions in the last five years turns out to be Henry
Kissinger, followed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Sidney Blumenthal
comes in seventh, which of course undermines the entire
enterprise." New York Observer
01/02/02
PORTRAIT
OF THE ARTIST AS (HAPPILY) UNKNOWN: "Successful, of
course, is not synonymous with famous. For famous, you might
choose a name such as Riopelle, Thomson, Carr, Pratt or Colville.
But Eric Dennis Waugh has likely sold more canvases than all of
them - combined. In fact, he's sold more paintings, by far, than
anyone else in Canada (and in most other countries as well). Eric
Dennis who? Exactly." The Globe
& Mail (Toronto) 01/03/02
MESSING
WITH THE POPE: Last month the acting head of the National
Endowment for the Arts turned back two grants; one - for a
production of Tony Kushner's Kabul play eventually was
approved, but the other, for a retrospective of conceptual artist
William Pope, was not. Pope's work is hard to categorize.
"Combining performance, installation and sculpture, it is
formally exacting but improvisational, politically pointed but
comedic. Social inequality and consumerism are among his targets,
and although his work deals intensively with the issue of race, it
upsets preconceptions of what 'black art' should be." The
New York Times 01/01/02
EDWARD
DOWNES, 90: Edward Downes, famous to millions of opera lovers
as the host of weekly Texaco Opera Quiz heard during intermissions
of Saturday broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, has died at the
age of 90. Nando
Times (AP) 12/30/01
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6.
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#publishing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SURPRISE
WHITBREAD WINNER: "Patrick Neate has won the Whitbread
novel award with his second book, Twelve Bar Blues, beating strong
favourite Ian McEwan. The surprise winner receives £5,000 in
prize money and goes on to compete for the Whitbread Book of the
Year - worth £25,000 - alongside the other Whitbread winners and
the winner of the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year."
BBC 01/04/02
- NEATE
SURPRISE: "When my book was published it did not make
the barest ripple on the surface of the nation's literature,
so to win an award beating Ian McEwan and Helen Dunmore is
just absurd." BBC
01/04/02
CLUES
TO THE FRENCH MIND: A French poll listing of the 50 greatest
books of the 20th Century says some important things about the
French. First, about half of the books on the list aren't French.
Second - none of the English books were written before World War
II. And there are no important contemporary American authors
represented. "They still have a rather Francophone
understanding of English and American literature. As nothing, of
course, to American and British parochialism in respect of foreign
literature. But also I detect a kind of eagerness to be part of a
wider world. Many French people think that France must engage more
fully with the outside world: they are alarmed that the Anglophone
world is leaving them behind. This world of hundreds of millions
of English speakers seems in its unstoppable immensity to them to
be consigning France to a sort of museum culture."
The Guardian (UK) 01/05/02
BULLISH
ON PUBLISHING: The Dow Jones might have had an off year in
2001 (the index fell 7.1 percent), but publishing companies did
well with their stock prices. The Publishers Weekly index
tracking stock prices of 22 publishing companies rose by 10.3
percent. Book manufacturers and book retailers had a very strong
year while e-publishing struggled. Publishers
Weekly 01/02/02
SAVING
BOOKS: The Library of Congress has begun plans to de-acidify a
million books in its collection. "More than 150 years ago,
papermakers started using chemicals that made their product acidic
and thus more susceptible to decay." The Library has a
"plan to de-cidify about 8.5 million of the library's 18.7
million books, a move that is intended to add hundreds of years to
the life of the books." The New
York Times 01/01/02
A
BIZARRE YEAR: "The creepy revolution that has been
transforming the business most radically since the mid–90s or so
— the eradication of independent publishing houses and
booksellers by massive, international "mass–media"
conglomerates — has been the over–riding story of our recent
literary times, with each year bringing sickeningly deeper
realization of the impact of that take–over upon our
intellectual and spiritual lives, not to mention how much you pay
for a book, and who gets to write them. This year, however, that
story seemed to become, suddenly, old news, or at least news too
wearying to acknowledge anymore." MobyLives
12/30/01
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7. THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#theatre
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BROADWAY
DOWN: Broadway ended 2001 with ticket sales down by $22
million and selling 500,000 fewer tickets. "Broadway theaters
recorded $373,128,667 in sales for the season starting in June.
That represents 6,473,223 tickets sold. The equivalent figures for
2000 were $395,311,555 and 6,981,071 tickets."
New York Daily News 01/03/02
LONDON
THEATRE'S BIG CHEESE: Who's the biggest cheese in London
theatre? Andrew Lloyd-Webber tops The Stage magazine's annual
poll. "The musical maestro and West End venue owner heads the
list for the second year running. Despite a slow year for Lloyd
Webber productions, his company Really Useful Group is seen as a
hugely powerful influence and his reputation extends
worldwide." Director Peter Hall just makes the Top 20 list at
No. 20. The Guardian (UK) 01/03/02
HIGHEST-PAID
BRITISH ACTRESS IN HISTORY: Who's the highest-paid British
actress of all time? Now it's Jane Leeves, who has signed a £20
million contract for a new season of the US sitcom Frasier
as the "semi-psychic physiotherapist Daphne Moon - earning
more than triple the fees of Britain's highest-paid Hollywood
actress, Catherine Zeta Jones." The
Guardian (UK) 01/01/02
OUR
BEST PLAYWRIGHT? Okay, he's a little late, but John Heilpern
writes that Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul is the "best
play of the past ten years." "His new play is a
magnificent achievement on every challenging,deeply compassionate
level. It confirms Mr. Kushner’s place—if confirmation has
been needed - as our leading playwright, to whom attention will
always gladly be paid." New
York Observer 01/02/02
TOP
BILLING: "Sorting out the billing for a play is an
archaic and labyrinthine business, the rules of which are
understood only by a very few: but basically, the more famous you
are, the more you can hog the advertising and the light bulbs.
What all actors hope for is to get their name above the title of
the play on the poster. " The
Guardian (UK) 01/02/02
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8.
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#visualarts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
POLAROID'S
HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY: The Polaroid Corporation went bankrupt
last fall, and photgraphy enthusiasts are wondering about what
will become of the company's extensive collection of photographs.
"The collection, amassed over six decades, is a window on
American culture, an invaluable tool for anyone tracking the
evolution of photography, and a medley of photography's biggest
names." Los Angeles Times
01/06/02
EUROPE'S
BOLDEST CULTURAL PROJECT SINCE BILBAO? "One of France's
richest men unveiled plans for a modern art museum that promises
to be Europe's boldest cultural project since Bilbao's Guggenheim
and London's Tate Modern. Francois Pinault, whose collection
includes 1,000 works by such masters as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol,
Amedeo Modigliani, and Joan Miró, picked Japanese architectural
legend Tadao Ando to design the museum, describing the trapezoid
building as 'a spacecraft suspended on the River Seine'." The
Christian Science Monitor 01/04/02
SLASHED
PAINTING RETURNS: A Barnett Newman painting slashed by a
vandal in Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum four years ago has been
restored and rehung. "To the untutored eye, it is nearly
impossible to tell that the 8-by-18-foot dark-blue painting, with
a thin light-blue stripe, or zip, as the artist called this
signature element, on the right and a broader, more dominant
whitish zip to the left, had been repeatedly slashed with a small
knife. The damage by Gerard Jan van Bladeren — a frustrated
artist who told authorities he didn't hate all art, just abstract
art and realism — left conservators with one of the biggest
challenges of their profession: how to repair, seamlessly, a
large-format, basically monochromatic canvas."
The New York Times 01/04/02
PROTECTING
THE TAJ MAHAL: As India and Pakistan threaten war with one
another, "Indian officials are working on plans to camouflage
the white marble monument, should it accidentally come under fire
from Pakistani fighter jets." Yahoo
(Reuters) 01/02/02
AFGHANISTAN
PLEDGES TO REBUILD BUDDHAS: The new government of Afghanistan
says its will restore the giant Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the
Taliban last year. "The restoration of the Buddhas is one of
our top priorities, along with the revival of the media and
broadcasting sector." Times of
India (AFP) 01/02/02
MUSEUMS
RESIST WWII LOOT CLAIMS: Twelve major international museums
(including New York's Metropolitan) are resisting claims on two
dozen Durer drawings, which were looted by the Nazis in World War
II. The drawings were recovered by American troops after the war
and turned over to Prince George Lubomirski, who then sold them.
The claims center around whether the drawings were returned to
their rightful owners. The Art
Newspaper 01/01/02
WORLD'S
LARGEST ART: An Australian artist by the name of Ando has
created the largest artwork in the world, a
4.3-million-square-metre big image of Eldee Man. The work,
recently unveiled in time for Australia's Year of the Outback,
depicts a smiling stockman in scored earth on the Mundi Mundi
plains of New South Wales." National
Post 01/01/02
MAKING
SENSE OF ART: "Two obstacles face those who hope to enjoy
art without spending every waking moment contemplating it. One
obstacle is overabundance. Every spring an army of talent breaks
out of the art schools and tries to break into art, making the art
world a terrifying microcosm of the global population crisis...
The other obstacle is that much of what happens in any given year,
including 2001, strikes most people as crazy." For 20 years,
a Canadian magazine has been helping art fans cut through the
clutter. National Post (Canada)
01/03/02
FUSS
OVER WORDS: The new Memphis Central Library opened in
November. Outside the library dozens of famous quotations were
inscribed in stone, among them "Workers of the world,
unite!" "This phrase from the Communist Manifesto caught
the eye of two county commissioners and a city councilman, and in
these days of heightened patriotism a smoldering debate was
ignited on a popular radio talk show, in the letters and opinion
column of The Commercial Appeal of Memphis and in the three
politicians' own correspondence and phone calls. What is
appropriate public art?" The New
York Times 12/29/01
THE
STORY OF THE FAKE PICASSOS: Turkey has taken down four
paintings it had said were Picassos after they were proven to be
fakes. "The paintings' provenance had always been slightly
questionable. They were acquired by the state after undercover
detectives posing as buyers infiltrated an art smuggling ring. The
Turkish authorities concluded that the pictures had been looted
from Kuwaiti royal palaces during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in
1990." BBC 12/30/01
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9.
ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#issues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HELPING
ARTISTS, NOT CORPORATIONS: There are countless organizations
devoted to funding art, and millions of dollars are spent every
year by philanthropists doing their part to bring new works to the
world. But most of the available cash comes in the form of grants
that can only be applied for by incorporated non-profits, leaving
independent artists out in the cold. But in Pennsylvania, a
familiar foundation has begun devoting a good-sized chunk of
change to helping out the proverbial "starving artist."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
01/03/02
THE
IDEA OF GENIUS: "Do any artists deserve a transcendent
label? At one time such questions would have seemed somewhat
strange. Philosophers have argued about how to define genius, not
about whether it exists. But challenges to the idea's validity
have become commonplace in recent years. Genius has been judged to
be little more than a product of good marketing or good
politicking." The New York Times
01/05/02
CHANGE
OF VENUE: In the past decade new performing arts venues have
sprung up all over Atlanta. But some have not lived up to their
extravagant ambitions. "Now, facing serious deficits, an
unforgiving economy and a loss of creative leadership, two of the
biggest halls are confronting their greatest challenges. The
question is not whether they can survive, but whether, in a newly
competitive market, the venues can continue to be as experimental
in their programming." Atlanta
Journal-Constitution 01/06/02
OF
INTELLIGENCE AND MORALITY: A new book looks at the politics of
intelligent people. "It is now a commonplace - but for all
that still unnerving - that it was very often not merely the
stupid but the highly intelligent who gave their support to the
Hitlers and the Stalins of the last century. Anyone in search of
an explanation for this fact might therefore think it better to
look not to the quality of mind of these devotees but rather to
their character, their moral psychology. This is an intricate,
treacherous field of inquiry, and one for which we have no
particularly powerful philosophical idiom: since at least the 18th
century, philosophers have given over the matter to novelists, and
the older vocabularies - of corruptibility, of akrasia, or
weakness of will - no longer have broad intellectual
resonance." The New York Times
01/06/02
LINCOLN
CENTER SUFFERS MORE HITS: Lincoln Center's controversial $1.2
billion refurbishment plans got a double hit Wednesday when new
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg "suggested that the
project would have to be delayed" and that the city might
have difficulty in following through with a promised $240 million
contribution. Meanwhile, Lincoln Center's interim executive
director said she was leaving to head Philadelphia's new Kimmel
Performing Arts Center. The New York
Times 01/03/02
OLYMPICS
CULTURAL CHIEF RESIGNS: The director of the Athens Cultural
Olympics has resigned. The cultural event is to be held in
conjunction with the 2004 Athens Olympics. "The resignation
was the newest head-on blow to the 2004 Games organizers, who had
been dogged by infighting, bureaucracy and delays. The
International Olympic Committee has repeatedly warned Athens to
quicken its work if it wants to host good Games. The Cultural
Olympics, initially envisioned as similar to the ancient Greek
poetry and art contests that were held along with sports
competitions in Ancient Olympia, were one of Greece's strong
points in winning the bid for the 2004 Games."
Andante (Xinhua) 01/02/02
WHERE
ARE THE ARTISTS? The tragedy of Sept. 11 has made all of us
return to the human project of making sense of the world with new
vigor; but four months out from the bruising blow to the nation's
sense of security, there is little coherence to the sense being
made by our professional 'sense makers,' the nation's musicians,
playwrights, poets and visual artists." Washington
Post 12/30/01
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10. FOR FUN
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#forfun
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WARNED
OFF: Those warning notices theatres post in their lobbies
often seem so arbitrary or unnecessary. The New Yorker offers a
list of lobby notices it would like to see: "WARNING: During
this afternoon's performance, there will be a chatty women's group
from Great Neck seated directly behind you." The
New Yorker 12/31/02
UNTITLED
IMAGINATION: "These days, artists seem to have about two
choices when it comes to titles: Either you refuse to christen
your work at all - except as 'Untitled,' the artistic equivalent
of 'John Doe' - or you name it so obscurely, the title barely
hints at anything the work's about." Washington
Post 01/04/01
THINK
YOU KNOW ARTS? Think you know what happened in the arts this
year? Been following the papers and keeping up with your daily
dose of Arts Journal? Well, check out The Guardian's Arts Quiz and
see how well you score (AJ's editor took the test
and...ahem...only managed 11 right answers out of 20...) The
Guardian (UK) 12/31/01
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