IDEAS
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A New "Self-Tuning" "Microtonal" Piano? A British composer claims to have "revolutionised" the design of the piano. The instrument has until now relied on "only 88 notes from their 88 keys. This limitation has made the piano's 'fixed tuning' unable to cope with the differing scales of Persian, Chinese and Indian music. Mr Smith's device could open up whole new markets for the instrument in places where it has previously been seen as an expensive piece of western furniture. The innovation threatens to make professional piano tuning defunct, since players will be able to perform 'user-friendly' corrections to their instrument themselves, possibly while they are playing." The Guardian (UK) 02/01/03

The Brain's Last Stand? "Far from being a step towards machine intelligence, as theorists had hoped in the 1950s, building a world-class chess computer has proved to be surprisingly easy, thanks to the plummeting price and soaring power of computer chips. Rather than emulating the complex thought-processes of human players, computers simply resort to mindless number-crunching to decide what move to make. Throw enough microchips at the problem—Deep Blue contained hundreds of specialist chess-analysis chips—and it does indeed become trivial. Quantity, as Gary Kasparov noted after his defeat, had become quality. He demanded a rematch, but IBM said no." Now he's getting another chance. The Economist 01/31/03

How Do We Perceive Art? "One of the hottest topics of academic inquiry in recent years has been the relationship between art and cognition. This interest is a natural outgrowth of the cognitive revolution that began in the early 1960s, producing a growing body of knowledge about cognitive processes. Little of value is likely to come of all this ferment, however, without a fundamental reassessment of what exactly is meant by the key term, art, in relation to cognition. Scholars must begin by asking themselves whether that term can coherently encompass all the modernist and postmodernist innovations of the past hundred years." Aristos 01/03

Are People And Machines Cozying Up? "A scan of recent academic titles reveals an abundance of books drawing on what might be called 'the cyborg concept' - the idea that people and technology are converging and merging, perhaps even already inextricably fused. What was once a speculative notion about the shape of things to come has become a normal part of the conversation, at least in some quadrants of scholarly life." Chronicle of Higher Education 01/27/03

ARTS ISSUES
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The 50s Boring? Really? The 1950s were boring. Dull. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. The mythology about the 50s is that it was a decade "so constricting that the '60s had to come along to blow things up." And yet - look at the art that was created then. "The '50s produced an amazing body of art, one that we revisit time and again not for kitsch or nostalgia, but for the sense of excitement it conveys." Boston Globe 02/02/03

NEA's New Poet/Chairman Confirmed The National Endowment for the Arts finally has a new leader, after a year. Outspoken poet (they seem to be everywhere these days) Dana Gioia takes over in February after being unanimously confirmed for the job by the US Senate. "The NEA has been leaderless for too long. I am looking forward to a strong chairman who understands the values of artists, because he is one, and who understands the role of cultural policy, and above all who will invigorate the agency." Washington Post 01/31/03

British Culture Minister Says UK Should Be More Like Germany England's culture minister has written an article in a German newspaper saying England ought to be more like Germany when it comes to culture. "England has a great cultural tradition past and present. (But) perhaps in Britain we simply lack the passion of the Germans to debate culture. We shouldn't be so shy about talking about culture. British politicians should not be shy about giving culture a high priority in public debate. "Germany is one of the biggest cultural powers in Europe. Britain too. So I hope that the courage that Germany has proved itself to have in the debate about grasping cultural identity will also rub off to some extent on to your English cousins." The Telegraph (UK) 01/29/03

Gioia Confirmed As New NEA Head Poet Dana Gioia has been unanimously confirmed by the US Senate as the ninth Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. "Leading the National Endowment for the Arts is a great privilege and an enormous responsibility. Both the arts and arts education face many challenges at present, and the Endowment has much to do." NEA Press Release 01/29/03

Scottish Arts Exec Calls For Arts Funding Inquiry After a disappointing announcement of flat funding for the arts by the Scottish government, "the chairman of the Scottish Arts Council has called for a public inquiry to stave off financial catastrophe in the arts and to nurture the sector for future generations." The Scotsman 01/29/03

Delusions Of Greatness What do we mean by greatness? "The distinction is easier to identify in the performing arts than scientists might credit. Greatness is by definition rare, and fast becoming rarer. Perhaps because so much of the art of interpretation is fakable on film, the magnetism of high performance has been dulled and mediocrity can pass, on first impression, for mastery, while genius is obscured by cheap gesture. Since human nature abhors a vacuum, greatness gets bestowed on whoever catches the public eye." London Evening Standard 01/29/03

Big Cuts In Scottish Arts The Scottish government's new budget hacks away at arts budgets. The Scottish Opera, "which has had a number of financial crises in recent years, said it was 'dismayed' last night to receive, in real terms, a budget cut and it is expected that it will have to cut the number of operas it has planned. All three of the other national arts companies, and the National Theatre plan, also emerged as cultural casualties in the new budget announced yesterday." Glasgow Herald 01/29/03

Standing Complaint Standing ovations have become the automatic response for all too many performances. Doesn't matter whether they've earned it or not. "This un-thought-through enthusiasm has become - pardon the expression - a knee jerk response. Call it ovation inflation, it is yet one more example of our society's tendency to supersize every experience, emotion and commodity." OpinionJournal.com 01/29/03

Art Or Money - Can't We All Just Get Along? The struggle between the vision of art and the business of art is neverending. But in tighter economic times, the battles seem more dramatic, more public. "What conclusion can be drawn from this eternal square dance between the powers of money and the powers of art? Artistic directors can't be slaves to money, but they can't be defiantly unrealistic, either." The New York Times 01/28/03

Tuition Hikes Could Discourage Arts Studies Critics say that the British government's plan to raise university fees for students will make arts courses unaffordable. Students will be encouraged not to study the arts because their earning potential after graduation is lower. "The colleges will find themselves in a dilemma because arts courses - with expensive materials and practical tuition - are inevitably costly to run, and yet by charging more affordable fees to attract more students, colleges stand to get less government support." The Guardian (UK) 01/27/03

Scotland's Arts Crisis Scotland was supposed to be in the middle of a "Golden Age" for the arts now. And yes, theatres and concert halls are full. But underneath there's a crisis. "Devolution was supposed to herald a golden age for the arts in Scotland, but there has been no cultural renaissance. Plans for a Scottish national theatre have stalled, numerous arts organisations are being forced to cut their creative output to make ends meet, and there are fears of a talent drain to England, where regional theatre is benefiting from £25m worth of government funding." The Guardian (UK) 01/28/03

Arts Are More Than "Targets," "Benchmarks" and "Outcomes" Where is Scotland's vision for the arts that is creative? As far as the government goes, "the dead hand of Treasury control has fallen on the arts, subjecting it to the same criteria that it applies to every other branch of public spending. A presumption has grown up that culture can answer to 'targets' and 'benchmarks' in the same way as hospitals and schools, that unless creativity can be measured against 'outcomes' and 'deliveries' then it does not deserve to be funded." Scotland On Sunday 01/26/03

DANCE
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Martha Graham Company - Putting A Life Back Together The 26 dancers of the Martha Graham Company are back, finishing a week in New York. They "expect to go on tour soon, to engagements that are being negotiated and should be announced in coming weeks. With a current annual budget projected at $7 million, the company is seeking at least $3 million in outside funding. Next week, the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance is moving from various Manhattan locations to a building on East 63rd Street where Graham had taught for many years. The property was sold during the company's financial crunch of the 1990s, and repurchased recently." Baltimore Sun (AP) 02/01/03

Boston Ballet Makes Cuts Boston Ballet got great reviews, sold 600 more season tickets and posted a small surplus. But the company's longterm finances have been shaky, and so the company is cutting staff and canceling some performances at the end of this season. "We are not treating this as a one-time emergency. We're trying to look very closely at how we do business, how we can create greater efficiencies while enhancing our artistic quality." Boston Globe 01/31/03

Russian Dance Legend Dead "Natalya Dudinskaya, one of the last surviving legends of Soviet ballet, died aged 90 on Wednesday. No other dancer could compare to her lightning-fast cascades razor-edge precise steps. Her dancing technique was once labeled 'choreographic bel canto,' a reference to the classic Italian vocal school demonstrated at its best by singers such as Maria Callas." St. Petersburg Times (Russia) 01/31/03

Inside Nureyev Robert Tracy was Nureyev's lover for seven year before Nureyev's death, and for the past 10 years has refused to talk about his friend. Now he is. "He heard Nureyev talk in private about his anxieties over his fading youthfulness, about the women he had slept with, about his longing to have fathered a son. On January 6 1993, Nureyev died at the age of 53 from Aids, a diagnosis which was kept secret until the morning after his death. Tracy has never accepted this diagnosis. He believes his friend, like other gays, was the victim of poisoning by governments." The Guardian (UK) 01/30/03

Is Ballet Child Abuse? "The ballet world in France – and beyond – is still quivering with indignation about a report leaked last month on the ill-treatment of children at the dance school of the Opéra National de Paris. The report said that the boarding school, one of the oldest classical dance schools in the world, operated a regime of 'psychological terror'. Injuries were ignored; anorexia was common and even, implicitly, encouraged. The pupils, aged from eight to 18, known affectionately as 'little rats', lived under a permanent threat of expulsion to goad them beyond their mental and physical limits. The report has provoked an interesting and passionate debate in France. Is the Paris Opéra school cruel to children? Or is it classical dance itself that is cruel?" The Independent (UK) 01/28/03

The World's Largest Contemporary Dance Center "The Laban Centre for Movement and Dance - is the sort of building that forces a smile. It comes from the wonderful optimism of an organisation that, in the unprepossessing surroundings of New Cross, has grown to become the largest school for contemporary dance in the world, has found £22 million to create a new building, chosen to stay in Lewisham and had the nerve to commission one of the world's most interesting architectural practices to design something that will be a beacon for south-east London." The Telegraph (UK) 01/28/03

Copyright "Screwup" Made Martha Graham Company Possible Again The Martha Graham Company is back performing again, only because of "the highest-profile intellectual-property screw-up in history." Graham didn't protect her copyrights properly, and after her heir Ron Protas tried to prevent the company from using Graham's work, it was discovered that some of the choreographer's most well-known work was now in the public domain. "Graham's oversight has ultimately proved to be the saving grace of both her company and her legacy." Washington Post 01/27/03

America's Oldest Ballet Company Turns 70 "San Francisco Ballet this year marks its 70th anniversary, which makes it this country's oldest professional ballet company. The great tradition of American ballet today boasts not only the American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, but also vital and unique major companies from Boston to Miami, from Houston to Seattle. San Francisco Ballet paved the way, and, 70 years on, it is still a major force in American culture." San Francisco Chronicle 01/26/03

MEDIA
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Hollywood's New Plots - Government Get The Bad Guys It wasn't so long ago that Hollywood's favorite movie was the little guy against the bureucrat - the rogue CIA, the power-hungry FBI, even a misbehaving Congress or White House. But that's all changed. "Big and small screens are awash in portrayals of honorable officials struggling to hold back a menacing tide. "The old, tired and hackneyed representation of us as a bunch of rogue operatives, with everything dark and gloomy and sensational, that doesn't wash any more." The New York Times 02/01/03

Companies Stepping Away From PBS Underwriting Exxon Mobil has spent $230 million in the past 30 years underwriting PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre". No more. "The company wants to target its messages in the environmental realms that more closely align with its businesses. It's a message public broadcasting executives are hearing frequently these days." Many companies "are saying they simply have no extra pocket change in the down economy for image messages - the only thing that public television's strict rules allow - that aren't directly tied to getting consumers to buy a product. That puts PBS, and local stations that air its programming, in an increasingly difficult situation." Los Angeles Times 01/31/03

Aussie Movies Earned 5 Percent Of Aussie Boxoffice In 2002 The Australian Film Commission reports that Aussie films earned $41.8 million at the box office last year, representing 4.9 per cent of the total Australian movie market. "The figure is down on both 2001 and 2000 figures, which came in at $63.4 million (7.8 per cent) and $54.2 million (7.9 per cent) respectively." The Age (Melbourne) 01/30/03

Gross Is Fine - Just No Stealing Paintings As reality TV shows get grosser and more extreme, is there any idea the networks won't go for? Apparently yes: "We had someone who wanted us to break into the Getty Museum and steal a painting,' says the creator of such shows as World's Funniest Hypnotist. Bad ideas like the Getty heist could give a black eye to the whole reality genre, he says, which he believes has a lot of quality entertainment life left in it." Christian Science Monitor 01/31/03

Computer-Generated Potter Elf Based On Russian President? Was the computer-generated elf Doby in the latest Harry Potter movie based on Russian president Vladimir Putin? "A Russian law firm is reportedly drawing up legal action against the special effects people who dreamt up Dobby, arguing that the ugly but caring elf has been modelled on Mr Putin. The Kremlin and Warner Bros, producer of Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, have declined to comment but the controversy has stirred emotions in Russia." London Evening Standard 01/28/03

Sundance - What's It All About? Does the Sundance Festival mean anything at the box office? "It's like lemmings off a cliff. Year after year, we love tracking which films everyone is circling, but are any of these films really going to succeed? I hope so. But that's the exception, not the rule. Of the 16 films acquired and released out of last year's exceptionally busy Sundance bazaar, only five broke $1 million at the box office."
Village Voice 01/28/03

Performers' Unions Discuss Merger The main American actors' unions are discussing a merger. The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are metting to decide if a combined union would give them more clout. "Shifts in our business dramatically impact SAG and AFTRA's strength at the negotiating table as well as their ability to protect and improve members' interests." Backstage 01/27/03

Splendor Wins Sundance "American Splendor" wins the grand prize at the Sundance Film Festival. "The movie tells the story of a Cleveland file clerk named Harvey Pekar, who wrote a famous series of comic books documenting his boring life and discontented psyche." Chicago Sun-Times 01/27/03

MUSIC
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Cuba - Capital Of Jazz "Cuba is producing musicians of Herculean technique, many of whom have applied their intensive classical training to the art of jazz - and thus have come to tower over their counterparts around the world. The last two generations have yielded larger-than-life jazz players whose mastery of their instruments and exalted level of musicianship enables them to conquer audiences wherever jazz is played. Exactly why Cuban jazz musicians sound consistently brilliant may be a mystery to the outside world, but in Havana it is no secret..." Chicago Tribune 02/02/03

Today Vs. Yesterday - Are Symphyony Orchestras Better? Are today's symphony orchestras better or worse than the orchestras of yesterday? The technical level of the players is better, but is the way they play together superior? The Boston Globe asked five prominent conductors to make comparisons. Boston Globe 02/02/03

A Grand Night For Booing Does an audience have the right to boo? Certainly there's a long tradition of it (and some would say not enough booing goes on) at the opera. But "at some point, doesn't loud booing cross the line from an expression of displeasure to a disruption of the performance? The issue was raised recently at the Metropolitan Opera during the season's first performance of Mozart's 'Entführung aus dem Serail'..." The New York Times 02/01/03

Oundjian - A Star Is Born? None of this waiting for years between appointing a new music director and the time he starts conducting your orchestra. The Toronto Symphony announced Peter Oundjian as its music director only last month. This week he gave his first concert. Were people excited? You bet. "Torontonians who, for the most part, have acted with severe ennui to the recent decline in fortunes of the Toronto Symphony" showed up in droves. "Roy Thomson Hall, which has often been half-empty for some of the greatest performers in classical music, was filled to overflowing for the free concert. The place was stuffed to the rafters, with lineups outside the hall and hundreds of people turned away. Hundreds turned away. When's the last time that happened for a TSO concert? Answer: never." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/01/03

Reinventing The Viola (And Isn't It About Time?) An instrument that resembles a Dalí-inspired melted viola is causing such excitement that there is a two-year waiting-list. Although the body is spruce and maple, the traditional ebony fingerboard is replaced by Formica to give it a lighter weight. Its eccentric shape also reduces the strain of arm and wrist stretching. The instrument, whose $12,000 (£7,300) cost is comparable to that of a normal viola, was made in America, at the Oregon workshop of David Rivinus. 'The only thing sacrificed is visual symmetry. Does the shape change do anything to the sound? No'.” The Times (UK) 01/31/03

Pakistani Police Hassle Musicians Pakistani musicians near the Afghanistan border say police are harrassing musicians. "Several artists in Peshawar, North West Frontier Province, said they have been arrested and treated unfairly by police on the request of hardline Islamic parties. They claim it is part of a move to crack down on the arts by a six-party alliance of religious parties." BBC 01/30/03

The New Castrati? There are, of course, no more castrati, male singers castrated in their youth so as to preserve their high, immature voices. And while no one would ever suggest a return to the barbaric practice, music historians have long lamented the loss of the unique sound such performers produced. In the last century, the parts originally written for castrati have been largely sung by countertenors, men singing in highly developed falsetto. But many of the most difficult Baroque castrato operas have been all but abandoned for lack of skilled enough performers in the countertenor range. Until now. Chicago Tribune 01/30/03

Tulsa Phil To Shutter Another small American orchestra is expected to shut its doors forever in the next few weeks. The Tulsa Philharmonic, the only full-time professional orchestra in Oklahoma, is struggling under a $1 million accumulated debt, and is not planning to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The orchestra has been playing concerts for 54 years. Channel Oklahoma/KOCO-TV (AP) 01/30/03

Houston Symphony Musicians To Strike Musicians of the Houston Symphony are planning a one-day strike Saturday, canceling a performance with guest soloist Midori. "The musicians said they scheduled the strike for Saturday because it's the day management intends to impose a 14 percent salary cut, raise health-insurance premiums and begin reducing the orchestra by five players through attrition." Houston Chronicle 01/29/03

New Music - Reluctance To Take Risks In the next six months in London there are only eight premieres by British composers. "That's eight out of roughly 500 works being performed by the country's symphony orchestras until the end of the season (not including repeat performances on tour). A minuscule proportion - about 1.6% of performed works, if you want to be pedantic about it. Why is new work so thinly represented? Largely, it is because orchestras are reluctant to take risks. Programming new work is expensive. You have to pay the composer..." The Guardian (UK) 01/30/03

Why San Francisco Opera Is Hurting What's the cause of the financial problems at San Francisco Opera and the resulting change in the way the company does business? Janos Gereben has done a little digging, and offers a list of contributing factors. San Francisco Classical Voice (2nd item) 01/28/03

Bad Trade-Off In Detroit For years, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has produced large-scale choral works with the assistance of a polished adult choir based in nearby Ann Arbor, Michigan. This year, however, that choir is absent from the DSO's schedule, and, in an apparent cost-cutting move, the orchestra is putting on performances of Mozart's Requiem with a 60-voice student chorus from a state university. The result, says critic Lawrence Johnson, is embarrassingly bad, and an insult to the DSO's audiences, which pay good money to hear professional-caliber performances. Detroit News 01/29/03

Piling On At The ENO "Music impresario Raymond Gubbay has attacked plans to axe jobs in the chorus and orchestra at the English National Opera. Mr Gubbay - one of the leading names in his field - described as 'absurd' and 'ridiculous' the ENO's proposals to reduce the number of 60 choristers and 83 orchestra members. His outburst followed chairman Martin Smith's admission the ENO had been saved from going into receivership by a £4.2m grant from the Arts Council of England." BBC 01/29/03

Colorado Springs Musicians Form Own Orchestra The musicians of the Colorado Springs Symphony Orchestra, locked in a months-long battle with their management over the decision to file for bankruptcy and demand heavy monetary concessions from the players, have formed the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, which they say will be kept in standby mode, ready to spring from the ashes should the CSSO fold. In the short term, both sides are waiting to see what will occur this weekend, when Ray Charles is scheduled to perform on a CSSO pops series. Charles is an avowed union member, and the musicians have placed the CSSO on the music union's "Unfair List." CSSO management is counting on Charles for significant ticket revenue. The Gazette (Colorado Springs) 01/28/03

Hard Times For Pittsburgh Symphony The Pittsburgh Symphony has a long and distinguished history. But the orcxhestra is in big financial trouble. "The leaders of the proud Pittsburgh Symphony are trying to portray its current situation as an opportunity, not a crisis. 'It's very clear that the symphony is at a defining moment in its history. It is time for new energy and new ideas. We have an opportunity for great change." The New York Times 01/29/03

English National Opera Barely Avoided Shutting Down Last Week The British government's emergency bailout of the English National Opera came just in time. "For some time the ENO has been chronically sick. The company would have died last week had the Arts Council not intervened." BBC 01/28/03

San Francisco Opera Slashes Operations Beginning in 2005, the company will cut its season from 88 performances of 11 or 12 productions to about 65 performances a year spread over nine productions. "The goal is to shrink the annual operating budget from around $60 million to $45 million. The Opera had a deficit of $7.6 million for the 2001-02 season and is predicting a $9.2 million shortfall this year. "This city is just not able financially to support a jumbo jet." San Francisco Chronicle 01/28/03

The Mystery Grammy Nominee Just how did a singer by the name of Eartha get nominated for a Grammy for Best Female R&B Artist? "The raw numbers tell quite a story. The albums from which Aaliyah, Ashanti, Blige and Scott's nominated songs were taken have sold a collective 7 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The total sales in SoundScan-surveyed outlets for Eartha's album, 'Sidebars': 52. You didn't hear her on radio, either. Her nominated song, 'I'm Still Standing,' did not appear among the top 1,000 songs played on R&B or adult R&B radio stations in 2002." USAToday 01/27/03

Music Licensing Plan Could Kill Pub Performances? A new music-licensing proposal for English pubs has musicians and pub owners protesting. "The bill is potentially fatal to the future of live entertainment of all kinds." It's described as "a central plank in the government's drive to tackle anti-social behaviour. Overnight, live music 'in any place' will be illegal unless a licence or temporary entertainment notice from local authorities is obtained, with all its attendant costs and red tape. This means everything from Christmas festivities to impromptu music sessions in small, out-of-the-way pubs will be liable to penalties of up to £20,000 and six months' imprisonment." The Guardian (UK) 01/28/03

Copyright Extension Discourages Performers The recent decision of the US Supreme Court to uphold the extension of copyright terms to 95 years might be a good thing for music publishers. Might. But it discourages performers, particularly small non-profit school ensembles, from performing music written in the past century. And that can't be good in the long run, even for publishers. Rocky Mountain News 01/26/03

Wrecking The Music Business - Plenty Of Blame To Go Around So now the music industry is going to go after people who download big quantities of music. "The RIAA says somewhere out there is a person who downloaded 600 songs in a single day. That's about 40 full CDs, retail value: $720. He or she is the one the RIAA is looking for - to make an example of them and put fans on notice that downloading is a prosecutable crime. The day of reckoning nears. Consumers must face the fact that they can't get music for free forever. And the industry needs to understand that it never would have lost all those customers in the first place had it not been so consumed with greed." Rocky Mountain News 01/26/03

PEOPLE
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Running An Opera Company, Focused On The Future Richard Bradshaw is conductor and administrator of the Canadian Opera Company. And right now he and his company are "so focused on the new facility that everything - from subscriptions to programming - is calculated around the projected opening of the opera house in the summer of 2006." So what's a typical day like, running a big opera company? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/01/03

Georges Sand In The Pantheon? In France there's a campaign to get writer Georges Sand reburied in the Pantheon on the 200th anniversary of her birth. "If Sand joins this Gallic dead white men's club - one that nevertheless includes a couple of men of color - she would only be the second woman among the 70-odd people buried there to be admitted 'on her own merits.' The first was the physicist Marie Curie (1867-1934) who was 'panthéonized' in 1995 with her scientist husband Pierre." OpinionJournal.com 01/30/03

Perlman To Go Under The Knife Acclaimed violinist and part-time conductor Itzhak Perlman will be undergoing rotator cuff surgery at a New York hospital in mid-February. Perlman sustained a torn rotator cuff as a result of years of wear and tear from playing the violin, an injury familiar to many musicians. The procedure is a routine one, but the popular soloist will be out of action for at least three months. Detroit Free Press 01/29/03

John Browning, 69 American pianist John Browning has died of heart failure. "Mr. Browning maintained an active solo career, if never quite at the most glamorous level, and with the name Cliburn dogging his own in many a review and article. Although he lacked nothing in bravura technique, his pianistic style was reserved, elegant and penetrating, more intellectual than overtly emotional yet eminently approachable." The New York Times 01/27/03

PUBLISHING
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Books - It Is After All, A Business Should we be surprised when a major publisher ousts a popular literary editor when sales gols aren't met? "In the fat times of the late '90s and into 2000-2001, publishers signed up the biggest author names for mega-millions in much the same way major-league baseball owners paid superstars in amounts equating to Monopoly money. The tough economy caught up to major-league baseball, and it's apparently hit the book business, too." The Star Telegraom (Fort Worth) 02/02/03

New Look Classics Last year Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" sold 2 million copies, big business for a book that has been around for a long time. The classics are big business for publishers, and classic editions of those books are getting facelifts. "The classics ain't what they used to be – in some cases, they're New and Improved. All this 're-branding' activity, all this new ink and paper, is going on in a corner of the bookstore that is widely seen as deservedly stuck somewhere behind the coffee bins. Who, after all, gets excited about a new edition of Herodotus?" Dallas Morning News 02/02/03

Those Pesky Poets Get Into More Trouble The White House "postponement" of a planned poetry event in February because of a planned protest by some of the invited poets is rousing lots of speculation. Some poets wanted to protest the war and resented the possible appearance of their support for war policies by their attendance. Plans to speak out againt a war with Iraq worried the White House and so the event was put off. Says one poet: "It tells you how little they understand poetry and poets, including the poets under discussion. It's a way to co-opt people, makes them look like they are interested in the arts without bothering to understand the arts." Boston Globe 01/31/03

• Poetic Protest "Most of the invited poets are vocal opponents of the Bush administration, including [protest organizer and Copper Canyon Press founder] Sam Hamill, an award-winning poet and publisher with a long history of protesting against U.S. military aggression." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/31/03
• Former Poets Laureate Add To Protest Former American poets laureate Stanley Kunitz and Rita Dove characterized the decision to postpone the event as "an example of the Bush administration's hostility to dissenting or creative voices."
  Yahoo! (AP) 01/30/03

Any Hope For The NYer Slushpile? Aspiring writers everywhere have submited fiction to The New Yorker in hopes of getting published. Indeed, the magazine gets some 4000 unsolicited manuscripts every month. So will submissions to the slush pile have a shot at getting into the NYer under new fiction editor Deborah Treisman? "Someone who’s submitting themselves directly to the fiction editor probably isn’t all that savvy about publishing and probably not about writing either." Hmmmn...guess not. The Morning News 01/29/03

White House Poetry Event Cancelled It was to be a poetry forum featuring some of America's top poets, the latest in a succession of literary and educational events hosted at the White House by former librarian First Lady Laura Bush. Past forums hosted by Mrs. Bush have been lauded as serious literary discussions, "often turning into lively debates." Apparently, though, executive branch officials thought this debate might turn a but too lively, and have cancelled the event after learning that several of the participants planned to use the spotlight to protest the Bush administration's Iraq policy. BBC 01/30/03

Not That Anyone Would Be Surprised If This Actually Happened... An Australian writer has penned a novel in which the shoe company Nike develops a marketing plan which includes the murder of 10 teenagers "who buy the company's latest shoes, to make it seem as though people are killing each other over the new product. The result is instant street credibility and record sales." Astonishingly, a major publishing house was willing to put out the satire, and perhaps even more shockingly, the real-life Nike swears it has no plans to sue the author. National Post (Canada) 01/30/03

Okri: UK Writers Need More Respect... Why is Britain sliding into "imaginative impotence"? Novelist Ben Okri says its because the country's writers have little status at home. "Our novelists and poets are unappreciated in their own land, beaten down with defeatism and saddled with an inferiority complex in comparison to their lionised American counterparts, the Nigerian-born author of The Famished Road claimed. 'It is all very well celebrating the dead, but we are deaf to what living writers are saying, particularly about the war situation we now find ourselves in'." The Guardian (UK) 01/30/03

An Encyclopedia Where Readers Are Editors "Last week, the English-language version of Wikipedia, a free multilingual encyclopedia created entirely by volunteers on the Internet, published its 100,000th article. More than 37,000 articles populate the non-English editions. Unlike traditional encyclopedias, which are written and edited by professionals, Wikipedia is the result of work by thousands of volunteers. Anyone can contribute an article - or edit an existing one - at any time." Wired 01/29/03

Low-Tech, Outdated, Expensive, And Still Going Strong In this age of corporate publishing monoliths and high-tech innovations such as on-demand publishing, is there any room left for those old, traditional leather-bound tomes that lined your grandfather's library? Boston's Harcourt Bindery thinks so, and its president is still running a highly profitable business by appealing to the indulgent side of the reading public. "In the world of handmade bookbindings in leather or cloth, tooled with gold, the line between classic and contemporary is hard to find. It's all based... on 'the economics of desire.'" Boston Globe 01/29/03

Tomalin Wins Whitbread Claire Tomalin wins the £30,000 Whitbread book of the year award for her biography of Samuel Pepys, "just as her husband Michael Frayn [also nominated] had predicted all along." The Guardian (UK) 01/29/03

Collins: Why Poetry Isn't More Popular Why don't more people read poetry? American Poet Laureate Billy Collins says he knows: "There's a waiting audience out there that was frightened away by Modernist poetry in school. You feel alienated from your own language, which is unpleasant. There's a syllogism at work here. The syllogism goes like this: I can read and understand English; this poem was written in English; I can't understand this poem." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 01/28/03

America's Hurting Libraries American public libraries are in a funding crisis. "We can no longer afford to be silent about the drastic cuts forcing libraries to close early, lay off experienced staff, eliminate periodical and book budgets and reduce programs and services. Library services have gone up dramatically as the economic downturn has kicked in. That is creating a funding nightmare." Washington Post 01/28/03

The NYT And Arts Coverage How will cultural coverage change at the New York Times under its new Arts & Leisure section editor? "You have a special burden when you are writing about the arts because your subject is all about creativity and narrative skill and wit and style and deep meaning, so you have to incorporate all those elements in your coverage, whether it’s straight reporting or criticism or something in between. You have to be a little showbiz about it, and I don’t mean that in a cheap or superficial way. On the one hand you are certainly not going to be competing with your subject, but you shouldn’t pale beside it either." Newsweek 01/27/03

Penguin Hires Ousted Random House Editor Only two weeks after she was fired by Random House, Ann Godoff has has been hired by Penguin as the president and publisher of a new book imprint. Will she bring over some of the big authors she published at Random House? "These are people who I have a longstanding relationship with and I would be surprised if we were not able to work together again at some time." The New York Times 01/27/03

Profit Shouldn't Be A Bad Word The shakeup at Random House in the past few weeks has many fuming about the health the quality book publishing business. But is that really what the message of this story is? So "the country's major publisher made no bones about what's important - profit. And, is that a bad thing? There's no reason why a quality piece of fiction can't make money, and so far, despite the schlock and superficiality found in the bookstores, publishers will continue to offer books worth reading because they sell, too." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 01/26/03

THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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The End Of Dinner Theatre? Classical dinner has vanished in cities like Chicago. It thrived in the 70s and 80s when minor Hollywood and Broadway stars looking for work would take to the dinner theatre circuit. Then the attraction was more the star than the play. "Now, a different story: Marginal TV stars can score a USA Original teleplay, or a one-shot movie on the Lifetime channel. 'There's plenty of work for all of 'em. That's why the star system doesn't exist'." Chicago Tribune 02/02/03

Nunn's Parting Shot - A £2.5 Million Gift Outgoing National Theatre director Trevor Nunn has made a surprise gift to the London theatres - £2.5 million. Nunn was severely criticized during his tenure when it was learned that he was making as much as £25,000 a week from the West End transfer of his award-winning revival of My Fair Lady. "But in a move that will silence his detractors, Nunn has given the theatre £208,000 this year as a first instalment of a legacy to support new work, with £2.3m more coming over the next two years. All the money he has earned from the transfer of 'My Fair Lady', as well as 'Oklahoma!', which is now on Broadway, will go back into the National's coffers." The Guardian (UK) 02/01/03

Music - Isn't That Why They Call It "Live" Theatre? Broadway is having a debate about musicians. Can they be replaced with a "virtual" orchestra? "I believe 90% of the producers want live theatre. "I don't worry about them. I worry about the 10% that say, 'I look at the bottom line. Look at how much I can save.' I understand the bottom line. It's a commercial venture. But theatre is based on certain compacts with the audience. But what happens if you change that contract with the audience? I think if you ask anybody that comes to the theatre, 'Would you like to see a show with music on tape or supplied by a virtual orchestra, and pay the same price'- I guarantee that producers won't lower the musical's price - most people would say, 'I'd rather have a live orchestra.' " Backstage 01/31/03

Hytner Explains How To Run A Theatre Nicholas Hytner on his qualifications for running London's National Theatre: "Of course I've never run a theatre, but I've always felt a bit of an impresario. I'm a director who's whored around, kicked around for the right offer - and I'm not talking money. If an affair has looked exciting, I've leapt in. Some of my best times have been at the National, going back to the days when I worked here when Richard [Eyre] was director. It's a good stage of life to be working hard. I'm hungry enough and confident enough to take it on."
London Evening Standard 01/30/03

Would Frequent-Goer Discounts Bring More People Into the Theatre? How about this for a plan? It works for airline tickets - People who buy their theatre tickets well in advance get big discounts. The founder of EasyJet, the discount airline, says: "I am sure that going to the theatre is as price-elastic as going to the movies. If you reduce the price, more people will go. Someone should try it with the theatre some day."
The Scotsman 01/29/03

Broadway Feeling The Chill Last week's grosses for several high-profile Broadway shows weren't just disappointing, they were abysmal. The extended cold snap blanketing the Northeast isn't helping what was already shaping up as a dismal season on the Great White Way, and buzz around the industry now has several big-money productions ready to fold in the coming weeks and months. New York Post 01/29/03

The National's Big Bold New Direction Nicholas Hytner's ambitious plans for London's National Theatre, anounced last week, are a big hit. "Doing stripped-down productions, 'with big, bold, simple strokes' and a minimum of costumes and scenery, is a way not just of bringing down prices and attracting new audiences, but ensuring that great plays are freshly considered in one of the world's most exciting theatrical spaces. Nor is he merely after the elusive 'yoof' to which our arts commisars are so enslaved." The Telegraph (UK) 01/29/03

The Sam Mendes Formula Diretor Sam Mendes has earned cachet for the plays he directed at Donmar Warehouse, the "flashy and successful London theatre" he co-founded a decade ago. He "knows, in his post-Peter Brook way, that the play is not the thing; the star is, no matter how ill-equipped he or she may be for the exigencies of the stage. He knows, too, that the theatre nowadays is to movies what jazz is to pop music: it has a certain cachet, but few prefer it to the populist-minded alternative." The New Yorker 01/27/03

VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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Robert Hughes Recalls His Afternoon With Albert Speer "Who was Roosevelt's architect? Nobody we can remember. Stalin's? No one cares. Churchill's? Silly question. But there is no doubt who Hitler's architect was: Albert Speer. Almost nothing of his buildings survives, either because they were not built or because they were demolished after 1945. Modern art has never had much political power, but modern architecture is a different matter. Architecture is the only art that moulds the world directly. Of all the arts, it is the supreme expression of politics and ideology. It marshals resources and organises substance in a way that music, painting and literature cannot. It is an art that lives from power." The Guardian (UK) 02/01/03

The V&A - A Prayer Not To Screw It Up As the Victoria & Albert Museum prepares to redo its Medieval and Renaissance galleries, one critic hopes planners don't botch the job like they did the new British galleries a few years ago. "If the faults of the British galleries were caused through inadvertence (by mistake, a remarkable bust is shown looking into a corner) that would be bad enough. But most of these faults are faults of policy: the downgrading of the individual object - whether in the fine or the decorative arts - is a matter of policy. It must have been, to be so systematic. So let's hope the policy has already had its day." The Guardian (UK) 02/01/03

Famous And They Make Art A surprising number of pop artists have also pursued second careers in visual art. "David Bowie, Ray Davies of the Kinks, and the late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia all pursued art before music. Joni Mitchell illustrates many of her album covers with Van Gogh-influenced self-portraits. The phenomenon is hardly limited to rockers. Crooner Tony Bennett has a second career as an artist. Jazz great Miles Davis began expressing himself visually late in life, but generated a compelling body of work." Christian Science Monitor 01/31/03

Foster's Plan For WTC Dead? Norman Foster's plans for the World Trade Center site have been all but rejected. "A team of architects rejected his proposal of two crystalline towers because they felt it would not be practical to construct or find tenants to fill. The architects' recommendation will go to the panel which will make the final decision next week." The Guardian (UK) 01/31/03

Liverpool Nominated For World Heritage Liverpool's historic waterfront has been nominated to be a Unesco World Heritage Site. "Liverpool's historic buildings are a proud reminder that this was a hugely important maritime and mercantile city on the world stage." The nomination is also thought to boost the city's chances to be chosen as the European Capital of Culture in 2008. The Guardian (UK) 01/31/03

The Rembrandt Behind The Paint Researchers have discovered a Rembrandt self-portrait that was altered by an assistant 300 years ago. "The original portrait from 1634, painted when Rembrandt was 28, was later painted over, apparently by a student in Rembrandt's studio. The student added earrings, a goatee, shoulder-length hair and a velvet cap to make it appear to be a Russian aristocrat. The restored portrait shows the Dutch master with medium-length curly hair, a slightly upturned mustache and a beret. In it, Rembrandt's portrait has the familiar round chin and gentle eyes of many other self studies." Nando Times (AP) 01/30/03

Chicago Art Institute Cancels Nazi Loot Show The Art Institute of Chicago has canceled a show on ths history of Nazi art looting. Why? "We had hoped to present the topic in a way that would be informative and beneficial to the public, but we realized that if we couldn't do it properly, given the importance of the subject, we should not proceed." Nando Times (AP) 01/30/03

American Museums Boost Education Spending "The nation's museums spent more than a billion dollars in 2001 to educate schoolchildren, according to a survey released Wednesday. The Institute of Museum and Library Services reported that the median museum expenditure on K-12 programs increased to $22,500 in 2001, from $4,000 in 1996. The survey showed that museums dedicate about 12 percent of their median annual operating budget on K-12 programs, up from 3 percent five years earlier." Rocky Mountain News 01/30/03

Comparing Rubens' Models For the first time in a century, in London's National Gallery Rubens' "Massacre of the Innocents" will be on a wall beside another Rubens, 'Samson and Delilah", dated by scholars as being from the same time, 1609-1610. "The juxtaposition enables visitors to play a 'spot the same models' game." Rubens saved money by reusing models from one painting for the other. The Guardian (UK) 01/29/03

The Art World Converging On Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has been a big hit since it opened in December. "Drawn by rave reviews in the press and by word of mouth, devotees of art and architecture are streaming here. More people turned up in one two-day period after Christmas than came in any entire month of 2001, when the museum was still in its 1954 building nearby. Taxis from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport bring passengers who have arranged layovers so they can spend an hour at the museum." The New York Times 01/29/03

Is UK Losing Its Masterpieces? More and more of Britain's great art treasures in private ownership are being sold abroad. "Experts fear that many other masterpieces in private hands will emerge on to the market and be sold to overseas collectors because owners are noticing the vast sums being fetched. Museums and galleries with paltry acquisition budgets are unable to compete." The Times (UK) 01/29/03

One Kind Of Art - Why Artists Specialize "Most contemporary artists remain specialists, and the reasons are plain to see. The intensity that we want from art usually emerges only when an artist knows a medium or a kind of structure or a certain vocabulary inside out. This has certainly been true in the past few months in New York." The New Republic 01/23/03

China's Fake Art Trade Enormous finds of art in China over the past decade have flooded the art market. But along with the legitimate finds, fakes of every description and sophistication have also appeared to tempt the gullible. "Most of those fakes come through Hong Kong, China's wildly capitalistic gateway to the world. Trying to quantify the trade in fakes is like trying to get your hands around an octopus. No one keeps records of the illegal trade." Seattle Times 01/27/03

Europe's Best Contemporary Art Museum? Here's a vote for the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, which just reopened after a renovation that took five years. "Thanks to the efforts of curators who followed the founder's own predilection for visiting studios and hanging out with some of the best and most radical artists, the museum has one of Europe's key collections of modern and contemporary art - several thousand works - from 1900 to the present day. It contains many familiar international names, from Joseph Beuys to Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter to Bruce Nauman. And it displays their works in particular contexts: Russian suprematism, Dutch plasticism, and among fellow artists that were collected with the individual sensibilities of a succession of curators. This is not a generic collection. It has character, and it is a museum of surprises." The Guardian (UK) 01/28/03

Britain Stops Export Of Raphael Painting The British government has ordered a temporary hold on the export of a valuable Raphael painting to allow a "last chance" effort to raise money to keep it in the country. "The National Gallery is campaigning to keep it in the UK after the Duke of Northumberland, one of England's wealthiest land and art owners, accepted a £32m offer from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles." BBC 01/27/03

The Forgotten Masterpieces A new book wonders about the wherabout of great works of art that for one reason or another disappeared and slipped from the pages of history. "Supreme among them is Michelangelo’s bronze version of David, a statue he worked on while carving his celebrated colossus of the same biblical hero." The Times 01/27/03

Blockbuster Time In Queens The Museum of Modern Art opens a blockbuster "Matisse Picasso" show in a couple of weeks. But MoMA is in a much smaller space (in Queens)than its longtime Manhattan home. Crowds "promise to be larger than anything the site has yet encountered, raising inevitable questions about how visitors will move through the building without clogging it and whether they will have room to appreciate the nearly 140 works by two of the 20th century's masters." The New York Times 01/27/03