FlyOver: March 2007 Archives

I've been toodling around the Web today, trying to add the arts pages of newspapers around the Inland northwest to my list of bookmarks.

I say, "trying," because I've been thwarted at nearly every stop, and simply saddened at others.

Top story under the catch-all "Entertainment" link at the Idaho Statesman today? This story, about a certain restaurant's cheese steak. Local arts stories -- or, I should say, the one local arts story -- is buried on the page below the AP entertainment wire feed.

Meantime, over at the Spokane Spokesman-Review site, I just find myself plain lost. As best I can tell, their only online arts stories are consigned to the blog entries of their correspondents at their hipster online feed, "7". And most of those entries are little more than calendar listings and such. There's good arts writing there (and I know there's good writing at the Idaho Statesman as well; my old pal Dana Oland is there and she's no slouch!), but it's not just hard to find; it's almost impossible.

The same is true elsewhere -- including at my own paper, the Missoulian, where you'll find some of the arts coverage under the "Entertainer" link (IF you can find the Entertainer in that endless list of section links); and some of it simply in the daily news section. It just depends how it ran in the paper.

I know that there's tons of stuff happening every week in Spokane and Boise -- the biggest cities in this sparsely populated part of the world. I know, anecdotally, that some of it is pretty interesting.

And now I know how frustrating it must be for people outside of our newsrooms to find out what that stuff is.

In a recent post at Category305.com, Juan Carlos Rodriguez offers poignant commentary on the soullessness of Miami's Calle Ocho Festival.

Over at the Louisville Eccentric Observer, Elizabeth Kramer catalogs the range of local art inspired by the war in Iraq, and makes a strong case for more of it.

Who would imagine that you'd find 3,000-year old art and a world-class collection of ancient medical texts in the home of a retired doctor in Missoula, Montana? Or that he would be so eloquent in explaining his fascination with art that depicts birth defects? In an installment of the ongoing, multimedia Art at Home series at Missoulian.com, collector Bruce Beckwith talks about his peculiar passion.

Cincinnati residents will soon see a wave of new murals around town, thanks to a $400,000 civic project sponsored by the city, Proctor & Gamble, and UBS Investments.

Studies, studies, and more studies: the Berkshire Economic Development Corporation thinks it has a blueprint for developing local arts tourism; the Rand Corporation has come to the conclusion that Philadelphia could use more centralized coordination of local arts marketing efforts; and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts has pegged the economic impact of artists in the state at $205.2 million dollars.