IDEAS
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How Do You Manage Creativity? A number of big media companies have been ousting top executives and replacing them with money guys. "This trooping of grey faces into the unruly media world marks a distinct change of mood. Talk of 'vision', 'synergy' or 'new paradigms' is out; the daily grind of evaluating and improving operating performance is paramount. Show business doesn't attract leaders who know how to listen properly or leave people alone. But when you manage creative people, you must intrude carefully."
The Economist 01/17/03

Mickey Mouse, From Behind Bars So how does Mickey Mouse feel now that the US Supreme Court has refused to spring him into the public domain? Jesse Walker asked him: So yeah, they created me. But they don't want to let other people build on me when they make their own creations, the way they did when I was born. And now I'm locked up for another stinking 20 years! Do you have any idea what it's like to have to greet kids at Disneyland every single day, always smiling, never slipping off for a cigarette? Reason 01/17/03

The New Class System "There is a big academic debate on social class as opposed to income. There are sociologists who argue that social class is in decline in regard to lifestyle, consumption factors and politics as coherent, meaningful groups." One study finds that "lumping people into big groups like the 'working' or 'middle' class on the basis of their incomes ultimately had little to do with what they bought, what they watched or whom they voted for. Rather, cultural and political similarities are more likely to be found among people who are in the same profession or do the same type of work, reinforced first by educational training and then by work experiences." The New York Times 01/18/03

Putting The NY Public Library On The Web The New York Public Library is testing a database that will put images of much of its collection online. "At its inception, the Image Gate database contains approximately 80,000 images spanning a wide range of subjects. This number will grow as The Library digitizes more images; this phased rollout will end in 2004, when the site will include more than 600,000 images." New York Public Library 01/03

Exploring The Architecture Of Music "Since music is the only one of the arts that is designed for the ears rather than the eyes, we sometimes tend to forget that it is part of the corporeal world, since our sense of reality is so eye-driven. However, all sound must emanate from somewhere, which makes the notion of space in music the most down-to-earth of all of the components that go into the making of music. Thinking of music without acknowledging its spatial possibilities is sort of like the study of plane geometry. You can learn a lot of formulas and neat shapes, but the real world is 3D!" NewMusicBox 01/03

Pocket Guide To The Intellectual Property Wars Having trouble sorting through competing claims in the intellectual property wars? The Electronic Frontier Foundation issues a report called "Unintended Consequences" that documents the harm to the public interest since passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998. Among the documentation are examples of the chilling of free speech and scientific research, jeopardization of fair use, and the choking of competition and innovation." Electronic Frontier Foundation 01/03

Teaching As Intellectual Pursuit Shouldn't teaching be the subject of research? Not just what is taught, but how teaching works... "That is, teaching as intellectual work, which can be discussed, reviewed, critiqued, adapted, and built upon by peers. Part of that includes a belated recognition that the way people teach is related to what they teach; generic ideas on pedagogy have their use, but any serious effort to professionalize teaching in higher education, and to make it intellectually respectable as a topic of scholarship, has to be discipline-specific." Chronicle of Higher Education 01/13/03

Thoroughly Modern Jazz? Is jazz "modern"? "There has been no systematic discussion of jazz as a branch of artistic modernism, and jazz’s own 'modernity' has for all intents and purposes been taken for granted." A new book tries out definitions of modern jazz. Alfred Appel "believes that if modernism itself is to survive as an idiom of continuing interest, it will only be through the work of those artists who sought to be 'accessible' and 'tonic' rather than inaccessibly abstruse and hermetic, who drew their inspiration from vernacular culture, and who endeavored to speak not merely to the 'insular, marginalized' world of 'enthusiastic fans' but to a popular audience." Commentary 01/03

ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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Copyright Forever "In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright perpetuity. Public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful creative ferment." The New York Times 01/18/03

The Culture Minister With Lots Of Big Opinions Kim Howells, the UK's minister for tourism, film and broadcasting has been pronouncing on culture - that the Turner Prize winners are a disgrace, and that rap music incites violence. Does he "regret shooting his mouth off so regularly, or does he see it as his role to make challenging statements on cultural themes? "I haven't really been shooting my mouth off. What I'm concerned about is a coarsening of sensibilities. People think that makes me a fuddy-duddy." The Guardian (UK) 01/17/03

Copyright Extension - What We Lose Lawrence Lessig, who argued to overturn the extension of US copyright before the US Supreme Court, writes about the Court's rejection of his arguement. "Missing from the opinion was any justification for perhaps the most damaging part of Congress's decision to extend existing copyrights for 20 years: the extension unnecessarily stifles freedom of expression by preventing the artistic and educational use even of content that no longer has any commercial value." The New York Times 01/18/03

• What's Next "Some on the public interest side are tempted to lament what could be called the 'Dred Scott case for culture,' unjustifiably locking up content that deserves to be free. In fact, the ruling gives public interest activists both motivation and ammunition in the continuing battle against the excessive expansion of the power to control information and culture." Salon 01/17/03
• Truth About Consequences "Who got robbed? You did. I did. Who won? Endlessly greedy media barons will now collect billions from works that should have long since entered the public domain. Like public lands and the oceans, the public domain is controlled by no one - a situation that infuriates people who believe that nothing can have value unless some person or corporation owns it. The public domain is the pool of knowledge from which new art and scholarship have arisen over the centuries." San Jose Mercury-News 01/17/03

Big Greed Over A Lovable Bear Winnie the Pooh earns about a billion dollars a year for Disney - about the same as Micky Mouse. But the lovable bear "would no doubt scratch his fluff-stuffed head in disbelief at what's going on" with the rights to his likeness and stories. But the family that acquired rights from Pooh creator AA Milne in 1930, is "embroiled in an epic legal battle with the Walt Disney Co. over the merchandising rights to the world's most beloved bear." The family "accuses Disney of cheating it out of royalties for nearly two decades" and want their contract with Disney voided so "they can shop Pooh around to competing entertainment companies. Disney vigorously disputes the allegations." Fortune 01/03

Copyright Issues Back To Congress The US Supreme Court's decision not to overturn the Digital Millennium Copyright Act throws the issue back to Congress. "The ruling could fuel fair-use debates over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, digital-rights management systems and the regulatory mechanisms surrounding them. Some of the technological mandates being sought in Congress and at the FCC would put fair use in grave jeopardy." Wired 01/16/03

• Should Media/Tech Companies Be Determining Our Copy Rights? Earlier this week "representatives of the music and tech industries pledged to oppose government-mandated technology to stop consumers from copying copyrighted songs and video. Instead, the technology and music companies agreed to collaborate on creating their own technical solutions to preventing the swapping of copyrighted materials. Press releases announcing the deal called the agreement 'groundbreaking.' At least one news organization followed suit and labeled the agreement a 'landmark' in its headline." But is it a good idea to let the companies themselves decide which rights the public ought to have? Salon 01/15/03

Supreme Court Refuses Copyright Challenge The US Supreme Court, while conceding that a 1998 extension of the Copyright Act might not be good public policy, has rejected the idea that the law is unconstitutional. "The 7-to-2 decision came in the court's most closely watched intellectual property case in years, one with financial implications in the billions of dollars. A major victory for the Hollywood studios and other big corporate copyright holders that had lobbied strenuously for the extension, the ruling had the effect of keeping the original Mickey Mouse as well as other icons of midcentury American culture from slipping into the public domain." The New York Times 01/15/03

• For The Majority Read the majority opinion. US Supreme Court 01/15/03
• Justice Stevens' Dissent "If Congress may not expand the scope of a patent monopoly, it also may not extend the life of a copyright beyond its expiration date. Accordingly, insofar as the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 112 Stat. 2827, purported to extend the life of unexpired copyrights, it is invalid." US Supreme Court 01/15/03
• Justice Breyer's Dissent "The economic effect of this 20-year extension - the longest blanket extension since the Nation's founding is to make the copyright term not limited, but virtually perpetual. Its primary legal effect is to grant the extended term not to authors, but to their heirs, estates, or corporate successors. And most importantly, its practical effect is not to promote, but to inhibit, the progress of 'Science' by
  which word the Framers meant learning or knowledge." US Supreme Court 01/15/03

Top Editor: Serious About Reinventing New York Times Culture Coverage Howell Raines, the executive editor of The New York Times, has made it his mission to reinvigorate the paper’s cultural coverage. "He called the culture section the 'crown jewel' of the paper and added: 'It is as much a part of our signature identity as the foreign report'." Already the changes have begun...
New York Observer 01/15/03

• Kantor To Head NYT's Arts & Leisure? Word is that "Jodi Kantor, New York editor of Web magazine Slate - has emerged as the top candidate to become editor of The New York Times 'Arts & Leisure' section." Kantor is 27 and has been at Slate for four years. The move signals NYT executive editor Howell Raines' seriousness about a new direction for the paper's culture page. New York Daily News 01/15/03

Some Public Interest In The Copyright Wars? Is progress being made in the battle over making copyright as "public-friendly" as possible? Perhaps. "Technologically speaking, at any rate - tomorrow is not on the side of the copyright control freaks. Information doesn't want to be free, but customers definitely want it to." And "at long last, tech companies are speaking up against the threat not just to their customers' rights but to their own ability to innovate and sell products. The entertainment people are hardly discouraged. They have far more clout than any other parties in this war, and they've used it." San Jose Mercury-News 01/13/03

The Rap On Learning "Teachers nationwide are using rap - the street-savvy, pop-locking, rhyming creations of Shakur, Geto Boys, Run-DMC and others - to teach history and English. Some colleges are even training future educators to weave rap into high school lessons. To some parents and teachers, the idea of mentioning Grandmaster Flash in the same breath as T.S. Eliot is wack. They reject the notion that rap, with its raw language and vivid depictions of violence, has anything in common with literature. But those who use it to teach say rap can be intellectually provocative, shedding light on the grand themes of love, war and oppression in much the same way as classic fiction." Los Angeles Times 01/14/03

Big Arts Cuts In California May Shutter Some Arts Groups California state budget cuts will mean a 50% drop in grants to arts groups statewide, from $16.4 million to about $8 million. Although the state arts agency budget is a "relatively modest item among the $20.7 billion in cuts proposed by Davis for 2003-04, the effects, would be dramatic among nonprofits that have already seen donations falter from foundations, corporations and individuals. 'People will have to close their doors. Artists will lose their jobs'." Los Angeles Times 01/14/03

Britain To Review Censorship Laws The British government is undertaking a review of the country's censorship laws. "It's very hard to escape the concern that violent videos, violent films, violent music, violent games do influence some of the more impressionable minds. I think there's a case for reviewing whether we should regulate more rigorously. There's certainly a coarsening of attitudes." The Telegraph (UK) 01/14/03

Tracking Down Those Arts Stats...(I Know There's Something Real There Somewhere) So - more people attend theatre in Los Angeles than buy tickets for professional sports. It's the kind of statistic that gets tossed around by those wanting to prove the relevance of an artform in the larger culture. But is it true? A LA Times reporter tracks down the truth. The real statistic isn't really about theatre. And it's an old one. Still, it originated from an actual study... Los Angeles Times 01/13/03

DANCE
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Martha Graham Is Back "Nearly three years after financial difficulties and litigation sidelined it, the ensemble re-emerges on Tuesday, when 24 company members and 4 students will resurrect 17 of Graham's ballets — from the all-woman 'Chronicle' and 'Heretic,' created in the 1920's and 30's, to 'Phaedra,' Graham's 1962 exercise in lust and lies, and the ubiquitous 'Appalachian Spring' — in a two-week run at the Joyce Theater." The New York Times 01/19/03

Houston Ballet Names New Artistic Director It's 33-year-old Australian choreographer Stanton Welch. He's "son of two of Australia's most celebrated classical dancers, Garth Welch and Marilyn Jones. He danced with the Australian Ballet for 10 years and has been a resident choreographer there since 1995. He has set works on many of the world's major companies." Welch has named his mentor, Maina Gielgud, as a member of his artistic staff. Houston Chronicle 01/16/03

• Australian Star "Welch, who is considered by many to be Australia's most successful choreographer since Robert Helpmann, will be the fourth director of the Houston Ballet. His predecessor, Ben Stevenson was director of the company for 27 years, during which he built it into the nation's fifth-largest ballet troupe with an annual budget of $US13 million." The Age (Melbourne) 01/16/03

Pacific Northwest Ballet Makes Cuts Facing a $500,000 deficit, Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet has made some cuts. "The majority of cuts will be made by a two-week unpaid leave for administrative staff; the cancellation of two performances for each of the company's mixed bills in March and April, and the postponement of a new work by Kent Stowell, PNB co-artistic director and principal choreographer, in April." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 01/15/05

Why Is There So Little "American" Dance? In the 40s, "Rodeo" took the dance world by storm. So what's happened to dance with "American" themes? Some "observers might be puzzled that ballet repertories today do not have more works on American themes at a time when American companies and dancers are respected all over the world. Could it be that some dancers and dancegoers still secretly regard ballet as essentially foreign? For them, Americana may seem uncouth..." The New York Times 01/12/03

MEDIA
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TV - Medium Of Unfulfilled Promise Ah, television had such promise when it first came on. But years later, that promise is largely unfulfilled. "The main problem with television is its continual belief that what's next is better, not what's happening now. Look at any programming on any network and the number of trailers, promotions and other self-justifying shreds and patches dominate the shows they surround. It's rather like watching nothing but opening and closing credits." The Age (Melbourne) 01/18/03

Down Mood As Sundance Opens The mood is not positive as this year's Sundance Festival opens. "Though Sundance continues to be the most important platform for American independent film and the one place where the entire indie world comes together to make deals and to take stock, there is a widespread sense that the market for independent film financing is depressed." The New York Times 01/16/03

• Thumbs Up For Sundance Pessimism? At Sundance? Well, maybe so, but you won't hear any booing from Roger Ebert's seat. "I have just spent an hour with the 2003 program for the Sundance Film Festival, and I am churning with eagerness to get at these films. On the basis of track records, this could be the strongest Sundance in some time -- and remember, last year's festival kicked off an extraordinary year for indie films." National Post (Canada) 01/16/03

Ma Bell, Now On Your TV! Cable television rates are skyrocketing around the US, as service providers continue to be consolidated into a few, gigantic companies. What used to be an industry of diverse local monopolies is becoming an uncontrollable corporate behemoth with the authority to raise rates, yank channels, and gouge consumers at will, says Monica Collins. “The average household cable bill has climbed to $70 a month for television that used to be free.” And while countless lawmakers have called for Congressional hearings on the way the cable industry conducts itself, that public airing of gripes never seems to happen. Boston Herald 01/16/03

Sundance's Raison d'Etre The Sundance Film Festival has its critics, of course. Indy producers complain that the Utah-based festival has become too enamored of big-budget Hollywood types in recent years, and big-budget Hollywood types grouse that they can't get a film shown there unless it stars Parker Posey. But Kenneth Turan thinks that Robert Redford's festival has found its niche, and it has little to do with budget size: Sundance is the place for films which just don't seem to fit anywhere else, and its organizers have never abandoned their effort to keep the event fresh and exciting. Los Angeles Times 01/15/03

UK Movie Tix Selling Well A slew of high-budget US films has propelled 2002 UK movie ticket sales to a 10% increase over 2001, despite earlier fears that the World Cup would cut into cinema attendance during the crucial summer blockbuster period. The increase came even as the rest of Europe experiences a decline in sales and interest, and coincided with what many are calling a 'renaissance' of British film. BBC 01/15/03

Agreement Could Be Better, Say Consumer Groups A number of consumer organizations and digital rights groups are complaining that yesterday's landmark agreement between the recording industry and the computer industry concerning copyright protection and digital piracy doesn't go nearly far enough in protecting the rights of consumers to do what they wish with content they have legally purchased. The activists hope that Congress will press forward with the Digital Media Consumers Rights Act, proposed last year, but the new agreement was struck with the understanding that Congress would agree to keep government out of the issue. Wired 01/15/03

Maori Protest Tom Cruise Movie Filming Maori elders have told the makers of a £70 million film starring Tom Cruise that they cannot film a New Zealand volcano crucial to the script because it is sacred. Spokesmen for several of the region's Maori tribes have complained that 'there has been no financial recognition of their interest in the mountain'." The Telegraph (UK) 01/13/03

Korean Movie-Watching Soars Following trends elsewhere, Korean movie attendance was up in 2002, and 47 percent of all tickets sold were to Korean-made movies. After 9/11 2001, "foreign films saw a rise of only 6.6 percent while Korean films saw an abrupt increase of 96.8 percent. A total of 78 films were produced domestically, and foreign sales came to approximately $15 million. The average Korean saw 2.27 films last year, the most since 1975." Korea Times 01/15/03

Koreans Protest Bond Movie Koreans - North and South - are objecting to how Koreans are portrayed in the latest James Bond movie. "The MGM hit proves that the US is the 'headquarters that spreads abnormality, degeneration, violence and . . . corrupt sex culture,' said North Korea's Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland." The Age (Melbourne) 01/15/03

PBS Sanitizes Language For "Gin Game" Broadcast "The Gin Game", D.L. Coburn's 1978 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, has some salty language. But really - compared to your average movie these days, it's rather tame. But "in a bow to any skittish affiliates, PBS plans to provide alternate editions of the production: original as well as one that deletes some of the swear words uttered." Chicago Tribune 01/14/03

Big Tech And Big Music Strike Deal Technology companies and the entertainment industry have been fighting over whether laws ought to be enacted preventing requiring anti-copying hardware in machines. Now leaders of the two industries have made a deal. "Lobbyists for some of the nation's largest technology companies will argue under the new agreement against efforts in Congress to amend U.S. laws to broaden the rights of consumers, such as explicitly permitting viewers to make backup copies of DVDs for personal use or copy songs onto handheld listening devices. In return tech companies - Microsoft, Intel, Dell, etc - will actively campaign against digital piracy. Dallas Morning News (AP) 01/14/03

A Matter Of Rights - Why Movies Aren't Online Even if they wanted to put movies online, movie studios aren't able to, and it's not likely to happen for a long time. Why? "Clearing rights to movies is the biggest single hurdle to Internet video on demand today. The studios would like to give us more, but can't clear the titles. There are strange clauses attached to almost every film because the Internet either wasn't contemplated or the contracts were loosely worded." CNet 01/13/03

Adfotainment - Did You Not Expect It Would Come To This? As consumers are increasingly finding ways to rocket past commercials, TV "advertisers are demanding to have their products and brands integrated into shows, to be part of successful entertainment rather than just to sit disconnected alongside it." Major networks are happy to oblige. "They approach the advertisers just as often as they are approached." Sydney Morning Herald 01/14/03

A Movie Critic's Lament "These are rotten times to be a movie critic. In a bad economy, an independent voice delivering judgments on a multibillion-dollar industry that represents a tremendously lucrative source of ad revenue is likely to be perceived as a detriment. It has become increasingly common for critics to be pressured by their editors (who themselves may be under pressure from the sales department) to change their opinions. Pressure that no paper would think to bring to bear on their Op-Ed writers is routinely applied to movie critics. This has nothing to do with the quality of a critic's writing but solely with the content of their opinions, the area where a critic is supposed to be given free rein." Salon 01/13/03

Violent, Violenter, Violentest A new genre of movie features extreme violence and gore. "The Big Disturbing Set-Piece Scene Of Violence has become its very own raison d'être, irrespective of its place in any supposed narrative order. It's the one scene that will have them running for the exits, the one that will kick-start the controversy, and the one that will ultimately immortalise the movie. 'We've reached a point where there is excessive pressure to show us what we haven't seen before, with or without - but increasingly, without - dramatic or narrative support'." What's behind it? The Observer (UK) 01/12/03

MUSIC
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Preserving A Voice In The International Machine "The extent to which musicians from a particular ethnicity involve themselves with Western producers and Western tastes has sometimes led to hysterical fear, fear in the musical realm akin to that of the anti-globalization forces in the political and economic realms. The fear is of the obliteration of the world's indigenous peoples, languages, economic and political independence, culture and, yes, music. All that will remain will be a faceless, gray, corporate anonymity, McDonald's meets Orwell in the land of synth-pop. Except, at least in music, it hasn't worked that way at all." The New York Times 01/19/03

Opera Companies Go Back To The Tried And True In response to a tighter economy, more and more opera companies are turing away from adventurous fare and returning to audience favorites. "You have to consider what the public wants, because they have every opportunity to choose not to go. This isn't a court theater – this is populist entertainment. We're trying to appeal to a broad general public." Dallas Morning News 01/19/03

Colorado Springs Orchestra Refuses Conductor's Resignation When the Colorado Springs Symphony filed for bankruptcy last week, Lawrence Leighton-Smith, the group's music director, quit, as he had said he would. But the orchestra says it won't accept his resignation, and that he is obligated to stay on by terms of his contract. Meanwhile, the orchestra has refused to distribute parts to its players for next weekend's concerts while musicians have refused to sign a cost-cutting agreement. Kind of difficult to have a concert without music scores. Denver Post 01/19/03

Music Companies Need To Reinvent So far, recording companies' main strategy to fight digital copying is to sue file trading companies and try to develop copy protection. But this is the wrong track. "In the past they have sold a physical product, like a CD. In the shift to an electronic, globalised world, why spend money putting digital information on a CD when almost everybody has access to these digital bits through broadband networks? The goal should not be to sell one million CDs but have one billion people download and pay one cent every time they listen. What they would be better off doing is enticing the customer to become a loyal evangelist of their product rather than p---ing them off by cutting off their free product." The Age (Melbourne) 01/19/03

Does Pop Music Cause People To Kill? So rap music is responsible for gun violence in the UK? If that's true, what about all sorts of other music and pop influences? "What is concerning is that, in focusing on hip-hop and gun crime, our great and good are overlooking myriad other horrors caused by pop music. Gun culture is only the tip of a vast iceberg of malaises for which pop is responsible - an iceberg upon which the ship of state might very well founder beyond salvage." The Guardian (UK) 01/18/03

Some Hope For The Calgary Philharmonic The bankrupt Calgary Philharmonic has received pledges from the city and the Province of Alberta contingent on the Canadian government kicking in some money as well. "The orchestra has been under bankruptcy protection since Oct. 15 and did not perform for 45 days last fall. In December, it released a business plan that includes pay cuts for musicians and fewer concerts this year." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/17/03

Why We're Buying Less Music So CD sales are down. A good deal of the decline has to be from consumers burning their own discs. But there are other reasons too: "We have brilliant new video game platforms, brilliant surround sound and brilliant wide-screen TVs all emerging in the last two to three years at very affordable price points. Music has come up with absolutely zero as a compelling alternative to those new technologies." Boston Herald 01/17/03

Oundjian To Lead Toronto Canadian-born violinist and conductor Peter Oundjian will be officially introduced today as the new music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The TSO has been director-less since Jukka-Pekka Saraste quit in something of a quiet huff in 2001, and in the two years since, the orchestra has struggled with massive deficits, the threat of bankruptcy, and an ongoing dispute between the musicians and orchestra management. Oundjian, who took up conducting after an injury drove him from his place in the Tokyo String Quartet, is widely considered to be a rising star among North American conductors. Toronto Star 01/16/03

SF Opera Cuts Concerts, But Not Brain Cells The San Francisco Opera, forced by budget constraints to trim its season, unveiled the revised schedule of performances this week, and the results are at least somewhat encouraging, says Joshua Kosman. While the number of productions may be down, the company "has refused to compromise on some of [its] more adventurous programming decisions. The season will open Sept. 6 with the company premiere of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's 1947 collaboration The Mother of Us All, and will also include productions of Busoni's Doktor Faust, Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen." San Francisco Chronicle 01/16/03

And Joni Begat Anne, Who Begat Celine, Who Begat... What is it about Canadian women and their dominance of the American pop music scene? From Joni Mitchell to k.d. lang to Alanis Morissette to Avril Lavigne, Canadians produce an astonishing percentage of America's favorite music. Is it the simple purity of the Great White North, as contrasted with the over-produced, predictable offerings coming out of market-driven L.A. studios? Is it savvy Canadian marketing infiltrating the Yankee sensibility? Is it just a big coincidence? Um, yes. All of that, and probably a few more things we haven't thought of yet. National Post (Canada) 01/16/03

In Search Of The Center Of Music "New music right now — and in fact, or so I'm thinking, most likely the entire music world—is best described with the old story of the blind people and the elephant. You know the drill. The blind people approach the noble beast. One touches its tail. "This is a rope," he says. The next one reaches out a hand, and finds the elephant's trunk. 'It's not a rope,' she says. 'It's a snake!' And so on, till they're lost in confusion." NewMusicBox 01/03

Classical Action - This Year's Grammys The Grammys have not enjoyed a good reputation among classical music critics. But there are a few encouraging trends developing with this year's nominations - The influence of independent labels continued. "Across 12 categories, independent labels garnered 32 nominations this year and the majors 29, versus 31 for independents last year and 29 for the majors." Also, writes Bradley Bambarger, this years nominees reflect "an impressive percentage of modern and rare repertoire figures across the field." Andante 010/08/03

Is Jazz Abandoning Instrumentals For Popstar Vocals? Jazz musicians, listeners and critics - take your pick - often seem embroiled in one kind of feud or another. Sometimes they're over finicky little things; other times they're deep-seated and deadly serious. In either case, however, they're often odd, out-of-the-way sorts of quarrels, reserved for insiders alone. But right now, that's just not true." The topic of the day? Singers. Jazz singers are selling big time, all out of proportion to traditional jazz. Singers like Diana Krall and Norah Jones are posting popstar-size sales. One question - are jazz labels abandoning instrumentalists in hopes of hitting the next big thing? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/14/03

Andras Schiff On Coughing Audiences Pianist Andras Schiff has a sore spot for those who come to his concerts and cough: "Luckily I was in a good disposition, so I just very quietly stood up and said, 'Could we now make a coughing break. Please feel free to cough,' and I just walked off. I was told by friends that this person got very red and left the hall, and after five minutes I came out and started again, and all went beautifully." The Telegraph (UK) 01/14/03

Big Jazz Bands Meet In Toronto "Running a big band in a world with no patience for jazz requires an odd combination of benevolence and ego. To survive the economics of dividing jazz's subsistence wages among 15 or more musicians, you have to really love music at the same time you have to be convinced the world needs to hear your tunes..." National Post 01/13/03

Death Of HipHop? I Don't Think So... HipHop is 30 years old. But to read many critics, you'd think it was on life-support, if not already measured for the coffin. Hmph! "For music critics, the only assignment greater than proclaiming the arrival of something new and great is announcing the death of a once sacred cow. But, in this case, it is both lazy and, more importantly, wrong." National Post 01/13/03

Big Changes Ahead For Big Music Cracks in the music recording business are becoming more obvious as there is a growing recognition that senior recording execs are out of touch with new realities. "The industry is now selling 100 million fewer CD's and cassettes than it did in 2000. According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks album sales, 681 million were sold in 2002, down from 785 million in 2000. At the same time, music-swapping on the Internet, perceived as a major threat, continues to grow. The industry's immediate problem is that although costs must be cut, the biggest costs of all — talent and marketing — are the toughest to rein in." The New York Times 01/13/03

Bail-Out For Winnipeg Symphony (WSO Sold Only 40 Tickets For Opener) Three levels of government bailed out the Winnipeg Symphony on Friday, amid rumors of financial mismanagement and a $1 million deficit this season (added to a $1.8 million accumulated deficit). "For its gala season opener in September, the consultant reports, the WSO sold only 40 tickets at full price when the Centennial Concert Hall had a capacity of 2,223. The WSO claimed 1,456 tickets were sold, but 1,230 of these were freebies." Toronto Star 01/12/03

MP3 - Learning To Listen In A Different Way Sure, portable MP3 players are convenient, but they also change the way you listen to music. "Play with these portable gadgets enough, and you find yourself listening more actively, thinking like a DJ - seeking the mind-bending segue or the track that kicks things into another gear, savoring this surreal mix-and-match moment in which historical artifact rubs up against disposable remix. You start to imagine all sorts of new-frontier ideas - kiosks in airports offering custom mixes (by Moby, Nikka Costa, anybody) or an hour's worth of music from unknown talents selected by some veteran coolhunter." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/12/03

Down Days For Jazz The jazz business is in a bad way right now. "The talent level has never been so high. But jazz economics are at a nadir not seen since the late 1960s, when Miles Davis, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock's Headhunters and John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra went electric and brought fusion to rock-oriented baby boomers. In this attenuated climate, jazz sales accounted for about 2% of the total market, mostly from back catalogue and new product by singers like Diana Krall and Norah Jones, who helped their labels stay solvent by going platinum." New York Daily News 01/12/03

PEOPLE
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Mikhail Baryshnikov Talks About His New Arts Center "There should be a kind of discovery of the unexpected here [New York]. After all, this city is the most cosmopolitan of American cities and should be able to attract and display emerging talent. Otherwise, we lose creative artists to countries that are able to fund the arts more generously, and with each loss the inner life of our city is poorer. Just like a person, a city without an artistic life is a pretty dismal thing." The New York Times 01/19/03

Yerba Buena Director Resigns "John Killacky has resigned as director of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts after six years. Since becoming the Yerba Buena center's executive director in 1997, Killacky has consolidated the institution's local and national reputation as a showcase for adventurous visual and performing arts and for community involvement." San Francisco Chronicle 01/17/03

Fugard Hones In On Writing South African playwright Athol Fugard has been involved in all aspects of theater - as director, as actor, and most important as prlaywright. He used to insist on directing the first production of his new plays. But "starting in June this year, when I turned 70, I made a resolution to stop directing. And a few years ago I decided to stop acting. There's so much I still want to write, so many stories to tell if I'm going to climb into my box at the end - or into my urn, I guess, since I'll be ashes." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 01/17/03

Getting Used To Stardom Ever since Salvatore Licitra stepped in to fill the shoes of an ailing Luciano Pavarotti at the Metropolitan Opera last year and brought the house down with his powerful tenor, he has been tagged as the Next Tenor. These days, preparing for his Carnegie Hall debut next week, Licitra is starting to adjust to being a star, but thankfully, he's not speaking in cliches yet. He complains that Pavarotti never even called to wish him luck on the night of his unexpected Met debut, and jokes that being a tenor has its downside - all the operatic tenor characters, he insists, are "stupido" or "son of a beetch." New York Post 01/16/03

Life After Laureate - Quincy Troupe Begins Again Quincy Troupe, who had to resign as California's first Poet Laureate and from his teaching job at the University of California, San Diego last fall after it was discovered he had lied on his resume, has settled into a new life. "I think I did the admirable thing by resigning, but that wasn't enough for some people. They wanted me to bleed. You wouldn't believe the hate mail that I received. The (racial slurs) I was called. I didn't do anything that cost anyone a dime. It wasn't fraud. I didn't do what the people at Enron did. But some people wanted my head." Sacramento Bee 01/15/03

Oberlin Prof To Head Up Smithsonian Division "Sharon F. Patton, a scholar and the director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, yesterday was named director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art... The museum was founded by Warren Robbins in 1964 as a small private enterprise on Capitol Hill. Under the Smithsonian mantle, it became part of the largely underground complex of halls near the Smithsonian Castle Building. It has 7,000 objects of traditional and contemporary art, the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives and the Warren M. Robbins Library." Washington Post 01/15/03

Nobel-Winner Mahfouz In Egyptian Hospital Naguib Mahfouz, 91, the first writer in Arabic to win the Nobel prize for literature, is in intensive care in a Cairo hospital. "We took him to hospital with a heavy flu which made his breathing difficult and he was admitted as an emergency to the resuscitation unit. His memory has been a little disturbed by the fever, [but] thank God, he is doing better." BBC 01/13/03

PUBLISHING
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What Books Sold In 2002 There were some changes in the types of books that made the bestseller lists in 2002. Of 120,000 books published last year, 421 books made the bestseller lists, "down a bit from the record set in 2001, when 433 books made a first landing. The previous high was 385 books, back in 2000. The only weekly list that had more players in 2002 was hardcover nonfiction, where a record 90 books made an appearance, breaking the record of 83 books set in 2001. There were 126 hardcover fiction first appearances last year, down just one from the record 127 in 2001." Publishers Weekly 01/13/03

How The Book Industry Has Changed "After 20 or more years of consolidation and commercialization, the book publishing industry and most of its components — authors, agents, publishers, marketers and retailers — have resigned themselves to the businesslike, margin-driven culture of the industry today. Even if some still pine for the gentlemanly days of gentlemen editors, most are too busy trying to get the attention of Oprah Winfrey or NBC's 'Today' show to waste time on nostalgia." The New York Times 01/18/03

True Lies - The Novelist's Responsibility Do novelists have a responsibility to make their fiction true? That is - is it permissible to change historical dates of events to fit the stories you tell, even if they're the historical dates or events aren't "accurate"? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/18/03

That's Rich - Frank Goes Back To A&E So is Frank Rich's move from the New York Times' Op-ed page to the A&E section a promotion or a demotion? “Knowing that I had no interest in running a department and never had," Rich says, NYT editor Howell Raines said "he would exploit my ideas to advise him and a new culture editor.” Which makes Erlanger the manager and Rich, essentially kibitzing, a sort of “nanny-in-residence” to the former Berlin bureau chief, as one Times reporter put it. New York Magazine 01/13/03

Random House Ousts Editor Random House has relieved Ann Godoff of her "duties as publisher/editor/patron saint of serious writers.
To some, Godoff's send-off signals another loop in the downward spiral of literary publishing; to others it's strictly a business decision - the division under her guidance was not making enough money." Washington Post 01/17/03

• Random House Purge - End Of An Era "The decision by Random House Inc., a division of Bertelsmann and the largest consumer book publisher in the world, to merge the Random House Trade Group with its sister unit, Ballantine Books, startled the literary world. The Random House Trade Group, along with its internal rival, Knopf, was one of the few publishers that combined literary prestige, financial resources and marketing power." The New York Times 01/17/03

US Government Demanded Borrowing Records From 545 Libraries Last Year The American Patriot Act allows the US government to require public libraries to hand over patrons' book-borrowing and Internet-surfing records to investigate terrorist leads. "It also prohibits library staff from publicizing law enforcement requests for such materials." A study of 906 libraries by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign finds "that in the year following the Sept. 11 attacks, federal and local law enforcement agents visited at least 545 libraries to inquire after patrons' records." And were records turned over? About half the bibraries complied with the orders. Wired 01/16/03

Growth In Used-Book Sales Let's look at the used-book business. Since 1993 the used-book business has grown substantially. But "between 2000-2002, there was a 4.8% decrease in the number of open shops." Why? Though the business continues to grow, the internet is accounting for more sales. Bookhunter Press 01/03

The New Harry In June The latest installment in the Harry Potter series will be on sale June 21. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be released on a Saturday so that young fans do not have to skip school to buy it on its first day. More than a third of a million copies of the last Potter book were sold on its first day of release in July 2000 as Potter mania swept the UK." BBC 01/15/03

The New Yorker's New Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman has taken over as fiction editor of The New Yorker. So how is her style different from Bill Buford, who just left the job after nine years? "We—probably 80 percent of the time— agree. And so in those 20 percent of stories it feels as though there's a different reason for each one. But it's never that he likes men writers and I like women writers. We both are drawn to different things in different stories. So I'm sure that things will start to feel a little different. But I'm actually looking forward to finding out how. And also, you know, neither of us works alone. There's a whole department and we do sit around and discuss things endlessly and argue about them." Book Magazine 01/03

State Of The Book Biz - Circa 2002 What sold? Familiar names..."John Grisham, James Patterson, Danielle Steel, Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark had a total of 15 books on last year's hardcover fiction charts; that's 16.6% of all available slots in the course of the year." The five biggest publishers accounted for 77 percent of all books on the Bestseller lists... Publishers Weekly 01/13/03

National Book Critics Circle Awards Nominations This year's shortlist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards is announced. "Reversing the usual trend, the critics' picks were better known than the National Book Awards, which are voted by fellow writers and were awarded in November." The New York Times 01/14/03

THEATRE
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Broadway In Moscow? Will big Broadway American musicals find an audience in Moscow? Results so far have been mixed. "These shows represent the risky yet enticing prospect of introducing blockbuster American musicals to the land of Stanislavski and Meyerhold. But the results have been so different that no one can really say whether it has been a good idea or not." The New York Times 01/19/03

In Boston - So Many Theatres, Too Few Plays Boston has plenty of small theatres. But fewer tenants to fill them in a down economy. "The economics of producing plays means theater companies have to be creative, not only in their choice of work, but in their venues and the way they attract an audience. How this ripples down to the works audiences will see in the future remains to be seen." Boston Herald 01/19/03

Theatre Cancels Show When Critic Decides To Attend Preview When the George Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey found out that the New York Times was sending a critic to review a preview performance for its new show, the director decided to cancel the performance. The theater's staff contacted all 166 ticket holders for the performance to tell them of the cancellation. Says the director: "When it became clear to me that the artistic process was going to be violated and that trust between the press and the theater was going to be violated, I had to put a stop to it. I had no recourse. I could not turn this individual critic away from the performance; that would be discrimination. But I could stop the performance." Home News Tribune (New Jersey) 01/17/03

Formerly Illegal Theatre Takes The International Stage "Back in 1987, when Evgeny Kozlov founded his experimental Do-Theatre, the company was illegal and ran around Soviet Leningrad performing clandestine, movement-based theatre wherever they could, which was mainly outdoors. Now the internationally celebrated troupe is running around the globe presenting shows with two separate touring companies." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/17/03

What's What In Tony Race Do you count "La Boheme" a musical? Original musical? What about the all-dance "Movin' Out," Twyla Tharp's dance celebration of Billy Joel songs? For Tony nomination purposes, the committee has ruled, "Boheme" is a "musical revival" and "Movin' Out" a musical... Hartford Courant 01/16/03

National Picks Up 20 Olivier Nominations London's National Theatre was "showered with 20 nominations" for Olivier Awards. It's a tribute to departing director Trevor Nunn, who's reign at5 the National has been controversial. Still, "Nunn himself has very oddly been overlooked for best director despite pulling the strings on Tom Stoppard's trilogy The Coast of Utopia, A Streetcar Named Desire with Glenn Close and the ecstatically received musical Anything Goes." The Guardian (UK) 01/17/03

Bourne Pulls Out Of Disney "Mermaid" Star choreographer Matthew Bourne has pulled out of choreographing Disney's stage version of "The Little Mermaid." A disney spokesman: "There was the time it would take to do [Bourne's] vision vs. the timeline we're on, and I don't think they matched up. . . . I want to work with Matt; I adore him and think he's really smart. [But] it's just not going to be on Mermaid." TheatreNow 01/16/03

Tough Times For Off-Broadway While business on Broadway has been brisk this season, commercial off-Broadway "remains mired in gloom". Some of Off-Broadway's best theatres are dark after shows failed. "The troubles have persisted for several seasons, aggravated by the Sept. 11 attacks, rising ticket prices, thin profit margins and a string of expensive financial failures." Nando Times (AP) 01/16/03

Getting Around The Idea Of Chekhov "Unavailable to account for himself, Anton Chekhov has become the invention of his admirers, who may variously prefer him tentative or exuberant, skittish or implacable, walking as delicately as a girl or tough as old boots. Some get excited about the new Chekhov, now that those old-maidish Soviets have got their hands off him to reveal new warts on the familiar face; all this does to others is to prompt a smile. For what, I think, could be more natural for a man with delicate physical difficulties in a barbarous age than to complain daily to his sister about water closets? What more obvious for a consumptive whose euphoria turned erotic at inconvenient times than occasionally to turn down some discreet alley in a Siberian town? Thank God for the loss of sanctity." The Guardian (UK) 01/15/03

Costly Bite - "Vampires" Closing On Broadway "Dance of the Vampires" opened on Dec. 9 to "lukewarm reviews and mediocre daily sales. The producers had hoped to fight the show's poor critical reception with new television advertising, but the last two weeks proved particularly difficult, as the weekly box office take dipped below $500,000. (The show's weekly running costs are about $600,000.) At $12 million, 'Vampires' ranks among the most expensive losers in Broadway history, taking its place alongside famous flops like 'Capeman' and 'Carrie'." The New York Times 01/15/03

Plan To Subsidize West End Theatre Tickets A plan by the mayor of London to spend £350,000 on subsidizing theatre tickets for Londoners, is being welcomed by the theatres. "Just one third of the 12 million people who pay to see plays, musicals, dance and operas in London's theatreland actually live in London. The tickets, which can cost up to £40, are being offered at reduced prices of £10, £15 and £20 between 15 January and 29 March." BBC 01/15/03

VISUAL ARTS
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Art In Vacant Places San Jose realtors trying to fill vacant storefronts in downtown were tired of looking at empty windows. So they came up with the idea of getting artists to show their work there. "People walk by and some of them like something and some of them hate it, but at least they're talking about art." San Jose Mercury-News 01/19/03

A Brilliant New Plan For An Arts Library "Here's a good cause for the New Year: a design by Enríque Norten/TEN Arquitectos for the proposed Brooklyn Library for the Visual and Performing Arts. Sleek, curvaceous, colorful and alive, this is New York's first full-fledged masterwork for the information age. More than any other recent New York project, Norten's design captures the spirit of the contemporary city." The New York Times 01/19/03

Picasso In Dispute Heir Claims Looted Painting "Last month, Thomas C. Bennigson, heir of the Holocaust survivor who lost control of a Picasso painting during World War II, sued Marilynn Alsdorf for $10 million, after negotiations between the parties broke down. The case has sparked claims and counterclaims regarding the painting's history, the nature of property law and the moral obligation of art collectors and dealers. And it has pitted Alsdorf against one of the most prominent art recovery organizations in the world, the London-based Art Loss Register, which first reported that the Picasso had been looted." Chicago Tribune 01/19/03

Institution On The Edge The Royal Ontario Museum is undergoing a massive reinvention. But "move inside and dig around for a couple of weeks and you discover an institution at a dramatic point of transformation, teetering on the brink of either spectacular triumph or spectacular failure. Curators decry their inability to fend off embarrassing professional gaffes, and tensions are running high as they contemplate the implications of the museum's dramatic building program." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/18/03

French Government Plan To Encourage Arts Sponsorship The French government is putting together a plan to encourage arts sponsorship and the creation of foundations. The government released figures showing that "France has few private donors and a pitiful number of foundations (only about 1,000, compared with 2,000 in Germany, 3,000 in England and 12,000 in the USA)." France spent $1.3 billion in 2001, or 0.09 per cent of GDP, compared with $230 billion (£142 billion) on the other side of the Atlantic, i.e. more than 2% of GDP. The Art Newspaper 01/17/03

Toronto's Art Gallery Of Ontario Makes its Move For 103 years, the Art Gallery of Ontario has been a middling player on the global art scene. It has built a respectable international reputation and a loyal local audience by mounting innovative shows, such as a Yoko Ono exhibit, and by specializing in such areas as Canadian art. Its Canadian paintings include windswept pines, moody lakes, and rugged mountains by the Group of Seven, the landscape pioneers whose works are now Canadian icons. The museum has a solid collection of European art, and its grouping of sculptures by Britain's Henry Moore is considered one of the world's best." Now it's been given a major collection and is into planning for a new Frank Gehry building. Christian Science Monitor 01/17/03

Art In Groups "As more artists work collaboratively or in art collectives, the stereotype of the lone artist in a garret is fading. In place of the romantic ideal of the figure sweating in front of an easel is a growing teamwork ethos, particularly among young artists. As a result of a greater focus on the process than the product, 'do-it-ourselves' now seems more hip than do-it-yourself." Christian Science Monitor 01/17/03

When David Sat For Lucien Last summer David Hockney sat for a portrait by Lucien Freud. "Britain's two greatest living painters spent 3 months in each other's company, Freud sitting for Hockney for four hours before he became the subject of Freud's gimlet eye for considerably longer: 120 hours." The Guardian (UK) 01/16/03

A Fake Van Gogh In Oslo Museum? Is a famous Van Gogh self-portrait in Oslo's National Museum a fake? One expert says he can prove it. "The main arguments for it not being a Van Gogh are, first, it does not resemble other of his self-portraits and an x-ray examination has shown there is another painting beneath it - though this is not very unusual, and proves little." Aftenposten (Norway) 01/16/03

End Of A Historical Line Art historian Sir Ernst Gombrich was "the last member of a formidable dynasty of philosophers and historians who, beginning in central Europe during the nineteenth century, devoted themselves to discovering the deep structures of human culture." Gombrich's narratives describe "the progress of art as a slow, successful conquest of the difficulties of perception. The problem with this view is that the tide of taste runs in absolutely the opposite direction..." Yale Review Of Books 12/02

Hell, No, We Won't Go! (But We'll Draw A Bit, If You Like) Where there is war, or the threat of war, there will always be anti-war protest, and a new exhibit examines the movement from an artistic perspective. From Vietnam-era posters depicting the My Lai massacre to T-shirts decrying the Bush administration's current Iraq policy, visitors can trace not only the recent history of American political demonstration, but the way in which contemporary sensibility informs the art of such protest. In Vietnam, shock value was front and center, but today's anti-war movement seems to rely as much as anything on the cynical humor often ascribed to Generation X. Los Angeles Times 01/15/03

The Archaeological Cost Of War One unintended casualty of the US government's preparations for war in the Middle East appears to be an extensive list of archaeological excavations scheduled for the region. "In any normal summer, dozens of excavations are conducted in Israel, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Yemen and elsewhere, tempting thousands of professionals and volunteers with the exotic mysteries of antiquity and the prospect of significant discovery." And it's not just the timing of the digs which are at risk: archeologists fear that a war could irreparably damage countless artifacts, just as the 1991 Gulf War did. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 01/15/03

Take That, New York! And the winner of the heated competition to be the only American city to be allowed to exhibit the Dead Sea Scrolls this year is... drum roll... Grand Rapids, Michigan? As a matter of fact, yes, and it may be more appropriate than you think. Grand Rapids, while certainly far from being a bustling metropolis, is a deeply religious community, and the exhibition, which will bring fragments of 12 manuscripts from the famous Scrolls to a local museum, is expected to draw visitors from all over the Rust Belt area of the Midwest. Curators hope that their coup will be a reminder to the arts world that people everywhere can appreciate art and artifacts - even people who don't live in New York or Chicago. Detroit News 01/15/03

Curators - The Season Of Their Discontent Curators are not a happy lot these days. Indeed, they're "the embodiment of demoralization, resentment, anxiety, stress, and alienation over what was happening in his or her museum." There is a mounting chorus of voices "articulating this critical disconnect in art museums. The gap is not necessarily between curators and their directors—though in some institutions that exists as well. Mostly the conflict is between the dramatically changing role of the art museum and the mounting pressures imposed by those changes on the people who have traditionally been the custodians, students, and interpreters of the art objects inside their institutions." ArtNews 01/03

Vying For The Richest Museum Prize Museums big and small across the UK are battling for the first £100,000 Gulbenkian prize. "The prize is worth almost £40,000 more than any other. It was intended to create a buzz in the museum world on a par with the Turner and the Booker prizes in visual arts and literature. The list is scrupulously balanced in scale and geography from Cornwall to Dundee." The Guardian (UK) 01/14/03

The Art World's Most Powerful - A List The British magazine ArtReview has made a list of the 100 most powerful people in the art world. "British collector Charles Saatchi is No. 1; Ronald Lauder, who just opened his own museum in New York, is No. 3; and No. 9 is former Sotheby's chairman and major stockholder Alfred Taubman, who is spending an enforced vacation at Uncle Sam's spa, convicted of price fixing." Only one artist cracks the top ten... San Francisco Chronicle 01/13/03

My Life As A Critic Village Voice art critic Jerry Saltz seems a little overwhelmed by by his job as an art critic. "It is a thrilling, humbling, weird business. You go to shows, sometimes as many as 40 a week, looking, always looking, and thinking, 'Is this the show I'll write about? Is this the one?' It's like wondering who you'll marry. You're constantly dangling the line of your responses into the stream of exhibitions. For better or for worse, shows usually choose you." Village Voice 01/013/03

Material Breach - Moden Art Falling Apart Modern art materials are falling apart in their cases and storage closets. "As the most adventurously made art ages, inherent vice has overtaken collectors and museums largely unprepared for its ravages. Fat is melting. Cellulose nitrate is powdering. Rubber is disintegrating. Nettles are crumbling. Dried mud is flaking and blowing away. The contemporary art conservator must be open to ingenious and humble solutions, not just technically sophisticated ones." Washington Post 01/12/03