IDEAS
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Wake Up... Now How Did You Do That? A new book examines the properties of human consciousness. "Scientists tend to concentrate on the locations, mechanisms and functions of consciousness. Philosophers, meanwhile, worry away at problems that used to be very old but, thanks to neuroscience, are now very new again. What has the mind to do with the brain? Is it true, as Descartes argued, that if I think, therefore I am? If so, what precisely does the thinking?" The Telegraph (UK) 03/16/03
The Best Art: Perceptions Over Ideas "Most debates about what is good or bad in art, desirable or undesirable, significant or insignificant are debates about preference. Theories are evolved to vindicate that preference and, like ideologies, are stultifying. The best artists are driven by their experience to reflect that experience. Few artists worth their salt begin work with a theory of art. If they do, they end proving theory rather than reflecting perceptions about experience. Perceptions are everything." The Guardian (UK) 03/15/03
Oops! Congress Accidentally Funds The Arts From the groundbreaking news organization that brought you such exclusive reports as "White House Pretty Sure Uzbekistan Diplomat Stole A Bunch Of Soap" comes stunning news concerning the U.S. Congress. It seems that the nation's top legislative body has accidentally approved a large amount of money to be spent on the arts. Members of Congress are, quite naturally, horrified by the revelation, with the Senate majority leader quoted as barking, "We approved what?" A House member was aghast at the implications of the funding allocation: "This means some limp-wristed NEA member will decide what qualifies as art rather than Congress or the president. Remind me never to skim a bill again, no matter how long it is." The Onion 03/12/03
Controversial Cleaning Cleaning art to make it clearer alters the work in a way some find unacceptable. "If one were to suggest that a Bach Cantata should be transposed and reconstructed to make it 'listenable' to a wide audience, many would find the proposition unacceptable. The same might be said of remaking T. S. Elliot's 'Wasteland' so that the poem would become 'understandable' to neophytes and school children. The situation surrounding a painting from the past is rather different in one crucial aspect, however. Re-writing Bach's musical score for a new redaction or Elliot's poetic structure for another less complex one does not affect the original text. The correct, uncorrupted text is still there and can always be consulted. Such is not the case with a painting which has been made more readable. The restoration operation requires that making the object more readable be conducted on the original, unique and only text itself." ArtWatch International
ARTS ISSUES
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Cleveland County May Propose Arts Tax Levy Vote The economy might be down, but Cleveland-area politicians are talking about putting a new tax of the arts on a Novermber ballot, hoping to raise $14 million to $18 million per year for the arts. "I think it's definitely time that we have to put our money where our mouth is with this particular industry. We're trying to team up the arts-levy request with another popular issue. We thought a combination request would be an easier sell." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 03/16/03
Art Matters When The World Goes Strange What use is art as the world looks to be headed to war? Aren't there more important things to be thinking about? "I agree that art is useless, but so is life, and it's precisely our awareness of the 'uselessness' of life that makes us want to struggle to give it purpose, and to give that purpose meaning. We're told that we're engaged in a Manichean contest between 'civilisation' and 'terrorism' to create 'a new world order'. If anything is to change, what we need is to understand ourselves better as well as understanding those who are different from us." The Guardian (UK) 03/15/03
What They Make - Arts Execs Are Well Compensated A survey of executive salaries in Minnesota arts organizations reveals that top executives are well-compensated. "Some who watch the nonprofit world wonder why arts administrators tend to out-earn their peers in other nonprofit categories such as those related to health, social services and education. In the Twin Cities in 2001, median pay packages for directors of top arts and culture organizations was $273,125, compared to $177,708 in education, $215,557 in health care and $123,984 in social services. 'These jobs are much tougher now than they were. It's difficult to recruit good, experienced people for director positions, and for critical marketing and development jobs. This narrows the pool and increases the salaries of really good people." The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 03/13/03
Cutting Back The Arts In The Twin Cities Minneapolis/St. Paul arts institutions are cutting back their operations in response to a downturn in funding. "The Guthrie Theater said it plans to pare its core staff by 10 percent or more within a few weeks. The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts said it has eliminated eight of its 68 jobs, half through layoffs. The Minnesota Opera Company will shorten its coming season, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will start closing earlier on Fridays next week. Last month, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra cut 10 administrative positions from a staff of 45. Other leading arts groups, including the Minnesota Orchestra and the Walker Art Center, have reduced staff size through attrition and job consolidation." The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 03/14/03
Making The Case For Arts & Humanities Chairmen of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities go to the US Congress to plead their cases for funding. "We cannot defend what we do not understand. But even as our country prepares for a possible war, numerous polls, studies and reports indicate that many students at both the secondary and university levels lack even a basic understanding of their country's past. From my perspective this is a national emergency." Washington Post 03/14/03
Star-Struck In LA Two enduring characterizations of Los Angeles - that it's unintellectual and star-struck are only partically true. There's no shortage of intellectual events featuring A-list names. But the attendees appear every bit as star-struck for the intellectual heavy-hitters as other crowds do for the movie stars. "The only thing wrong with intellectual life in L.A. is that people keep asking if there's intellectual life in L.A. The last remnant of provinciality is asking that question." Los Angeles Times 03/13/03
Israel's Artists Threaten Shutdown Israel's arts groups plan to shut down the country's cultural life June 1 "if the government does not restore funding for artistic productions. Israel, like governments around the world, is facing a budget crisis, and has made deep cuts in cultural funding. Jerusalem Post 03/12/03
Minneapolis To Close Libraries A year ago, Minneapolis was planning an impressive new downtown library, and trumpeting the value of the project to the city and the entire metro area. Now, the new library may be on hold, and city officials are planning to shutter four branch libraries for the remainder of 2003 in an effort to deal with the severe budget cuts being handed down by the legislature. Minnesota has a budget deficit of nearly $5 billion for the next biennium, and the state's largest city is facing massive cuts in services as a result. Closing the branch libraries is expected to save the city $2 million. The Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 03/12/03
The Fund-Raising Machine If it seems like performing arts groups are forever begging their subscribers and benefactors for money, it's only because they are. Ticket revenue doesn't begin to cover the cost of operations for orchestras, theatres, and dance companies, and the rest of the budget must be made up from endowment revenue (if the organization is lucky enough to have an endowment) and annual contributions. Most patrons don't really understand how the funding mechanism works, but in an era of budget cuts and fiscal crisis in the arts, it is increasingly important for the fund-raising machine to function smoothly and efficiently. Dallas Morning News 03/10/03
State Arts Funding - Going, Going... States across America are cutting arts funding. "To be sure, it is an extraordinarily difficult time for state budgets. In the mid- to late ’90s, the states enjoyed healthy revenue streams and almost universally cut taxes and increased spending, including on programs mandated by the federal government (like Medicaid and standardized testing). Now, as the economy enters a second year of doldrums, the states — 49 of which are constitutionally required to keep a balanced budget, unlike the federal government—are paying the price for their earlier optimism. Nor does the horizon look particularly rosy, thanks to the federal budget policy being pursued by the Bush administration. With the president calling not only for elimination of the dividend tax, but an acceleration of the 2001 tax cuts, states are not likely to see more revenue any time soon." In These Times 03/10/03
DANCE
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A New Home For British Dance The new $40 million Laban Center for dance opens in London. "It was nonetheless a daring gamble for a small, relatively unknown institution to embark on building what it claims is the world's largest purpose-built dance center. In the design competition Herzog & de Meuron was apparently chosen because it heeded the demands of the school. "We told them that the heart of our work is theater so the theater should be at the center. Of the six short-listed firms, Herzog & de Meuron was the only one to place the theater in the center of the building." The New York Times 03/17/03
Real Dance On Virtual Music Often live music is a preferable accompaniment for dance. But "most dance performances have no live accompaniment. For years, the not-for-profit dance industry has endured a battle between artistic ideals and financial practicality. The dance world has long been dealing with the same issues that were part of the recent Broadway strike. Budgets make recorded music a necessity." Chicago Tribune 03/16/03
Dance In The Desert Once again, Arizona State University's dance program has been ranked in the top ten dance study programs in the US. "A student can concentrate in performance, choreography, dance education or what we call dance studies, which can be anything from ethnographic study of dance to a combination of dance and business." Arizona Republic 03/16/03
International Ballet Fest Seems More Like Competition The Kennedy Center's International Ballet Festival has, in many ways, "been successful - the sold-out houses, the fodder for discussions of style, form and substance, the views of dancers and works we do not often see here. One hopes it will inspire more such collaborative events. But in some ways the festival has been indifferently executed. In the parade of excerpts that has constituted the bulk of the festival, excerpts performed without sets, out of context and lacking atmosphere, what has been missing is the very thing this festival was designed to highlight: artistic impact and style. Why did the Kennedy Center allow the companies free rein?" Washington Post 03/14/03
Pair Quits Boston Ballet After a couple of tumultuous years, things were supposed to settle down at Boston Ballet with the arrival of new artistic director Mikko Nissinen. But two dancers who have quit mid-season suggest that the controversies aren't over yet. Boston Herald 03/11/03
MEDIA
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Hollywood Makes A Discovery: There's Life After 40 Older actresses are finding better roles in Hollywood these days. "Actresses used to lament that turning 40 was a fast train from playing leading ladies to playing mothers. It still is, frankly, but forward-thinking screenwriters and sexually vital actresses are crafting complex mother characters more reminiscent of Grace Slick than Donna Reed." San Francisco Chronicle 03/16/03
More Cuts For CBC? According to a lobbiest group, Canada's CBC faces "layoffs in journalistic and production staff of between 400 and 1,200 are being predicted All in all, the public broadcaster would suffer nearly $30 million in cuts in fiscal 2003-2004, says the lobby." Toronto Star 03/16/03
TV - Down And Out On Staurday Night What happened to Saturday night television? Saturday night used to be the premiere night of the TV week, the most important night. But "it's been TV's most ignored and neglected night for years, the video equivalent of a landfill. Saturday now is where TV series go to live out their last useful seasons, or where they escape from to thrive on another night. Saturday night television has become so degraded that it no longer sustains a single original sitcom."
Washington Post 03/16/03
DVDs Rule - They Earn More Than VHS Or Theatres "Money measures success in Hollywood, and industry figures show just how successful the DVD format has become in its six-year history. People spent nearly $20.3 billion last year to buy or rent movies to watch at home. DVD accounted for 57 percent of that total or $11.6 billion, compared with $9.3 billion in theatrical ticket sales, according to various financial analyses. Money also means power, and DVD has become a major creative force in Hollywood, changing how movies are made by giving filmmakers a new and vast canvas on which to work." Denver Post 03/16/03
Unreal - Why "Reality" TV Can't Last Can the "reality TV" sensation survive? "Simple economics dictates the phenomenon will run its course. TV executives, apparently forgetting the law of supply and demand (not to mention the flameout of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'), have scheduled a record 42 new 'unscripted dramas' to bow before September. Nor can they afford to feed the phenomenon long-term: Studios make their real money in syndication fees, and no one wants to watch reality reruns." Christian Science Monitor 03/14/03
No Humans Were Used In The Creation Of This Screenplay New screenplay-writing software is so sophisticated, you just plug in a few sentences and the computer does the rest. "I mean, how hard can it be when the very first 'story box' in the program, which asks what your movie is about, offers this reassurance: 'If you do not yet know what your story is about, leave this question blank and return to it later'?" Christian Science Monitor 03/14/03
Seattle Public TV Station On The Rocks Seattle PBS station KCTS has limped along for years and has a small local presence. It's also having big money problems. The station is behind on its rent, has been contacting funders to try to cut deals for grants, and has been losing staff. A consultant recommended the station's president step down, but he hasn't. "The important thing is that the overall state of the station is in decline, and these are just symptoms." Seattle Weekly 03/12/03
- Infommercial This! It's pledge time again, and Steve Wiecking is disgusted by the programming fare KCTS uses to try to lure pledges. "KCTS supposedly has the world of culture at her fingertips—something she brags about all during her pleas for me to give her money—and what is she airing in order to con me into believing her high-toned hooey? Infomercials. She's helping hucksters sell their wares and then asking me to pay for it." Seattle Weekly 03/12/03
The Golden Age of Animation? Animation has come a long way in the last couple of decades. From the eye-popping (at the time) Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, through the pioneering computer work in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, to today's cutting edge 'toons like Pixar's Monsters, Inc., technology is changing the way animated films are made, marketed, and viewed. A new Oscar category devoted to the genre sprang up last year, and increasingly, audiences seem to be more accepting of the idea that cartoons aren't just for kids anymore. Denver Post 03/12/03
Public TV's Bait-And-Switch When American public TV holds pledge drives, it abandons regular programming and spews out entertainment or special-interest shows calculated to grab more viewers to watch and make a contribution. But "all this pledge-time stunt-programming is enough to make a longtime public-TV booster wonder if somebody has lost sight of its mission. It seems disingenuous, if not dishonest, like a bait and switch. Meanwhile, people who appreciate public-TV's staple programming have the option of griping through stress tips or another Andrew Lloyd Webber tribute for a week or more or slip-sliding over to the History Channel and C-SPAN, from which they may never return. Apart from being aggravating, this strategy seems self-defeating in the long run." Newsday 03/11/03
"Chicago" Takes Screen Actors Guild Awards The movie version of "Chicago" wins three of five 2002 Screen Actors Guild awards. New York Daily News 03/10/03
MUSIC
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Bob Moog's Back With The World's Greatest Synthesizer - But What's It Called? Forty years ago Bob Moog invented the first synthesizer. It defined electronic music in the 1960s. Now Moog is back with what he calls the greatest synthesizer ever made. It's his first instrument in decades. Only one problem: "British trademark law means that the 70-year-old creative genius cannot sell his synth under the internationally recognised brands of Moog Music or Minimoog, because they have been appropriated by an entrepreneur in Wales." The Independent (UK) 03/14/03
Why Sarah Vaughan Was One Of The 20th Century's Great Voices A reissue of Sarah Vaughan's recordings give insight into what made her one of the great singers of the 20th Century. Yet she was also careless about protecting her musical gifts. "Essentially, she was correct in her belief that miracles, like her voice itself, not only happen but, like diamonds, are forever. Or, at least, they should come with a lifetime guarantee. Her voice, which ripened with age into plummier, darker depths, really was a like a precious gift from heaven that just kept on giving. It kept on giving, in fact, right up until the lifelong, two-pack-a-day smoker died from lung cancer at 66 in 1990." Hartford Courant 03/16/03
Political Songs So As Not To Offend Where are the new anti-war songs? "We're in an age now when the record companies groom you not to say anything that [ticks] anybody off. The debate over activism and music is growing louder, with Friday's furor over Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines' remarks on President Bush. Earlier this week, she told a London concert audience she's 'ashamed' that Mr. Bush is a Texan, but late Friday she apologized after some radio stations decided to boycott the Chicks' music." Dallas Morning News 03/15/03
By Arrangement Only - Music In Other Guises Making arrangements of composers' music was a flourishing business up until the early 20th Century. But more recently the arrangement "is widely regarded as second-class music. At best it is tolerated, at worst disdained." What happened? "For the last 80 years, musicology has been increasingly successful in pressing the case for the urtext: an authentic performing edition in which, purportedly, the composer's original thought is perfectly preserved, every note is sacrosanct and the 'sonic surface' of the music is reproduced exactly as the composer envisaged it. A musical performance, by this view, should amount to the re-creation of a bit of history." The New York Times 03/16/03
Rochester Philharmonic In Financial Difficulty The Rochester Philharmonic is projecting a $550,000 deficit this season. But in the short term, finances are even worse. "An estimated cash shortage of up to $900,000 this fiscal year could jeopardize the RPO’s ability to pay its musicians and vendors as soon as next month. The RPO faced a similar budget squeeze last year, but $350,000 in administrative cuts paved the way for a modest surplus. This year, however, the ensemble has little left to cut." The Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester) 03/14/03
Making Out To Mozart? Really? Showing a little skin to try to sell recordings is one thing, but a new series of "classical" (and we use the term advisedly) recordings is right over the top. "Shacking Up To Chopin, Making Out To Mozart and Bedroom Bliss With Beethoven are the three albums in the Love Notes series. Each claims to be "the perfect addition to intimate moments" and boasts a selection of "teasing, tantalising and suggestive melodies with rapturous crescendos". They also promise to provoke "uninhibited passion", "loss of control" and "sleepless nights of the best kind". The Scotsman 03/14/03
Sell Off - Major Music Labels For Sale There are five major recording labels. And that number looks to be reduced in the near future. "In a sign of how bad things have become in the down-and-out music industry, most of the five biggest music companies are either up for sale or contemplating deals." Yahoo! (Reuters) 03/13/03
Royal Liverpool Orchestra Puts Itself On The Endangered List The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has declared a financial crisis. In a letter to all 76 players, musicians were told that "the gap must be closed by 2005-6 to secure a continued and viable future for the Phil. What we have become is not sustainable because it is not affordable. If the books are to balance, cuts will be inevitable, leading to possible redundancies among players and management. There are also fears that some players of less mainstream instruments may be offered part-time contracts." The Guardian (UK) 03/14/03
An ENO Rescue Plan That Provokes Questions The hard-up English National Opera has got a plan to reinvent itself and restore its finances. But Charlotte Higgens writes that "the filleted document that has been released prompts as many questions as answers. It is full of management-speak and empty of figures. The story that has hit the headlines is about redundancies. A hundred jobs out of 500 are to go. But will this deliver sufficient savings? Redundancy deals for 100 people could cost at least £2m. Freelance singers and musicians will be hired for the bigger shows, which suggests that there will be fewer of them when times get hard. Yet it is massive shows, such as The Capture of Troy, or Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, that ENO does especially well, and come off best in the Coliseum, London's biggest theatre." The Guardian (UK) 03/13/03
China Bans Four Stones Songs China has forbidden the Rolling Stones from performing four of the band's songs at concerts in China in April. "The songs were submitted to the Ministry of Culture for approval a few months ago. They simply said 'no' to those four songs. They didn't give a reason." The Age (DPA) 03/12/03
Orchestra Musicians In Hard Times Symphony orchestras are struggling across America. "After relatively flush times in the 1990s, the current problems of the economy are taking their toll. Ticket sales are down for some orchestras; corporate sponsors are withdrawing some support; and foundations, after watching the value of their portfolios drop for several years, are reducing the size of their grants. It's not helping that state and local governments facing large budget deficits are cutting back on their help for the arts." Christian Science Monitor 03/12/03
English Parliament Votes Down Licensing For Live Performances In Small Venues Parliamentary debate forces a whittling back a government plan to require small pubs to license live music. "Last night's defeat by 150 votes to 120 would mean that smaller pubs and restaurants would be able to offer live entertainment as long as their capacity was below 250 people and the entertainment finished by 11.30pm." The government's plan was bitterly fought by musicians who claimed the plan would have cut the number of venues for live music. The Guardian (UK) 03/12/03
English National Opera Faces Another Strike After Announcing Cuts Backstage staff of the English National Opera said they would go on strike, after the company announced that "up to 100 permanent artistic, technical and administrative staff will face redundancy - a fifth of the company. This figure includes the 20 chorus members threatened with redundancy under plans to shrink the chorus by a third." The Guardian (UK) 03/12/03
What Makes Baz Boheme Work On Broadway? Opera and Broadway have long tried to mix it up - but rarely with success. Somehow, despite the rising popularity of crossover, one can't escape the conventional wisdom that opera and Broadway occupy two distinct and conflicting worlds. How, then, is one to react to the surprise success of Baz Luhrmann's $6.5 million production of Puccini's La Bohème on Broadway?" Opera News 03/03
Fire Back - The Art Of Jazz Protest What's become of jazz protest? The question is old, but in an era of international emergency, it's relevant. So poet Amiri Baraka, playwright Sonia Sanchez, Columbia professor Robert O'Meally, and trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater are discussing dissent in jazz — and maybe exercising it — when Lincoln Center hosts "Jazz and Social Protest" on March 18. But dissent against what? And why? How successfully the panelists address jazz activism, and prescribe a course for it, might depend on how clearly they consider Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln's legacies..." Village Voice 03/11/03
Why'd They Forget About Bix? Bix Beiderbecke was a seminal figure in jazz. This week is the 100th anniversary of his birthday. So "where are the sort of commemorative CD reissue series that celebrated Armstrong's 100th birthday in 2001, or Duke Ellington's in 1999? The major labels, which rarely miss an opportunity to make a quick buck off sentimentality (not to mention recordings paid for nearly 80 years ago), have apparently missed this one." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/10/03
The New Classical Music? "Alongside the traditional classical realm of Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart, another scene is asserting itself - one in which unconventional repertoire is embraced, new music by living composers is emphasized and being engaged with the cultural present is a priority. This scene isn't entirely new. But it is deriving renewed energy from artists in their 20s and 30s who grew up listening to the British rock band Radiohead as well as Ravel. And the new sounds are attracting young audiences to a musical genre whose health seems forever at risk." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 03/08/03
PEOPLE
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Suzan-Lori Parks - Confidence To Find Your Own Way Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks' career is rolling at high speed. Last year she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama for 'Topdog/Underdog.' On May 6, Random House will publish her first novel, 'Getting Mother's Body,' about a family's quest to dig up the jewelry supposedly buried in the grave of one of its members. The first printing is 100,000 copies." And her new play? Her new play has a name that ensures no mainstream paper will ever publish the title.
The New York Times 03/16/03
The Making Of John Adams Composer John Adams, at 56, "is now old enough that the major works of his youth and early maturity are coming into focus as bright, certain lights from a confused and confusing time." Lincoln Center is showcasing Adams with a festival - its first devoted to a living composer. "There will be concerts, films and ballets in four auditoriums as well as the first New York performances of Mr. Adams's most recent dramatic score, the ebullient Christmas opera-oratorio 'El Niño,' at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Forget about Mostly Mozart: this is Absolutely and Adamantly Adams. The festival should help listeners recognize what makes Mr. Adams's music so special — and what made it so special right from the first." The New York Times 03/16/03
Robert Hughes On Trial Remotely When art critic Robert Hughes goes on trial next month in Australia charged with dangerous driving in a 1999 accident, he won't be in the courtroom. Instead he'll attend through a video link from the US. "Hughes' lawyer proposed the video appearance in January, telling the court it was uncomfortable for Hughes to travel because of injuries suffered in the accident." CourtTV 03/14/03
Elderfield Appointed MoMA Chief Curator - "Most Significant Curatorial Post In Modern Art" The Museum of Modern Art has appointed John Elderfield as the museum's new chief curator of the department of painting and sculpture. Elderfield "succeeds Kirk Varnedoe, who organized "Matisse Picasso" with him, in what is generally recognized as the most significant curatorial post in modern art. It was first held by Alfred H. Barr Jr., the museum's visionary founding director." The New York Times 03/14/03
Will It Be Dean Libeskind?...Nahhh Daniel Libeskind is much-rumored to be a candidate for the dean of architecture job at Columbia University. What are his chances? Not good, if fellow architects Steven Holl and Peter Eisenman have anything to do with it... New York Observer 03/12/03
PUBLISHING
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Serious Magazines Get Circulation Boost "Concerned over terrorism, a looming war in Iraq, and a sputtering economy, magazine readers are showing a new gravitas, boosting the circulations of text-intensive, highbrow magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and the New Yorker. Serious magazines saw circulations soar in the second half of 2002, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Atlantic Monthly, published 10 times a year, saw a 5.1 percent increase to 529,834, and single-copy sales spiked 52.4 percent, the second-largest percentage increase in newsstand sales for general-interest magazines behind celebrity suck-up Us Weekly." Philadelphia Inquirer 03/16/03
Record Retail For Romance Novels While some book publishers are hurting with the down economy, the romance-novel business has never been better. Harlequin reports "a revenue increase of 3.5%, to C$618.1 million ($414 million), combined with better operating efficiencies to produce record operating profits of C$119.2 million ($80 million). The company's 4th quarter was particularly strong, "when revenue increased by 8.6%, to C$164 million, and operating profit jumped 31.7%, to C$30.8 million." Publishers Weekly 03/17/03
Cutting Out The Middleman - Harry Potter Goes Direct To Schools Booksellers are protesting that the Scholastic, the publisher of the Harry Potter books, has been taking orders for the book directly from schools, bypassing the booksellers. "Publishers have an obvious motive to sell direct: They keep more of the money. Scholastic has been selling books, including the earlier Potter works, at fairs for years. But this is the first time a Potter book has been pre-sold, offered before publication. And some retailers say they can't afford to lose any sales during a difficult economic time." Baltimore Sun (AP) 03/14/03
Protesting Aussie Writers Withdraw From Consideration For Rich Prize Some of Australia's most famous writers have withdrawn from consideration for the country's richest fiction prize. Why? "The novelists have withdrawn their names in protest at Forestry Tasmania practices, specifically the clear-felling of native forests for woodchips, and the use of 1080 poison which is claimed to be killing native and endangered animals in Tasmania's wilderness." Sydney Morning Herald 03/14/03
Porn Factor - The Modern American Library "Today it's common to walk into any public library in America and see adults and teenage students openly viewing hardcore pornography that is unavailable at home on any premium cable channel, is restricted to "adults–only" sections of video stores and, at least before the advent of the Internet, used to be purchased by church–going folks who felt compelled to don hats and fake mustaches to avoid shameful recognition. The situation is tearing at the very soul of librarians, most of whom were raised in a reverential atmosphere of uplifting ideals and lofty debates about how literature can shape and elevate the mind of man. The elevation of his other organs was simply not discussed." MobyLives 03/13/03
Warning: Big Brother Is Watching What You Read Library patrons in Santa Cruz, California are seeing signs warning them about the snooping powers of the US Patriot Act, which allows governments authorities to see who has checked out which books. "The signs, posted in the 10 county branches last week and on the library's Web site, also inform the reader that the USA Patriot Act "prohibits library workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about you." San Francisco Chronicle 03/10/03
More Books, But Fewer Choices More books are being sold, thanks to a broadening of outlets and the superstores. But the personality is being wrung out of the business, and we're increasingly buying a narrower range of book. "According to a recent Bookseller, gamely surveying the trends of 2002, the range of titles sold in the high street fell by 5 per cent last year - from about 437,000 to just over 417,000. At the same time the number of different ISBNs assigned to fiction fell by 1,000, while - perhaps the most sinister figure of all - 'frontlist' sales accounted for nearly 44 per cent of total revenue. We may be buying more books, but they are increasingly the same books, sold by shops that are differentiated only by the sign on the door." The Guardian (UK) 03/12/03
Booker Prize Judges Chosen Judges for this year's Booker prize have been chosen, and jurors include a mountaineer and a philosopher. "The judging panel should reflect the widest possible range of experience and taste, compatible with wanting to read 150 books very fast. I think we meet those requirements pretty well - better than last time I was in the chair, when we lacked both a philosopher and mountaineer." BBC 03/10/03
Biography: A Creative Life "Biography is the least naturalistic of literary genres. Poetry and fiction, in comparison, are pure documentary. Think about it: the experience of living a life is nothing at all like writing or reading a Life. In real life, memory is patchy, with some scenes and events standing out in neon and large blanks of time about which you can not remember a thing. There does not seem to be any pattern to it. We live in the evershifting present, and the future is uncontrollable. The whole thing is chronically unstable." London Evening Standard 03/10/03
Adding Words - New This Year... Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the "most widely circulated of all word books", has "added a dozen or so new words this year, including blunt (a cigar hollowed out and filled with marijuana), booty (buttocks) and gearhead (a computer guru)." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 03/10/03
THEATRE
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Virtually Yours - Touring Broadway Offers An E-Ticket Broadway might have fended off the virtual orchestra, but what about traveling Broadway shows? Sure there's a pit and it's got 10-15 musicians working away. But the electronic juice is liberally applied. "It's rare that you don't see a pit orchestra with two if not three synthesizer players, because there's just a whole world of string parts, percussion parts (supplied by the synthesizers)." Rocky Mountain News 03/16/03
What Are We Gonna Do? Cleveland Theatre Struggles With Its Schedule Cleveland Play House said it would announce next season's lineup of plays this Monday. Trouble is, the company began this season with a $3.5 million deficit, and its last two productions haven't done well. And...well...it hasn't exactly figured out what plays will be on next year's lineup. When you start putting play X with play Y and balance it with how many tickets you need to sell, but then you want to accomplish this artistically but can only afford that much risk and...well... there'll be a season... The Plain Dealer 03/16/03
Lessons I learned From the Broadway Musicians Strike So what are the lessons from last week's Broadway musicians strike? Frank Rizzo has made a list. At the top is respect for the stagehands union. The stagehands work and musicians lose. The stagehands walk and there's no show. Say it again - the stagehands rule. Other lessons: people inherently like musicians, but distrust producers... Hartford Courant 03/16/03
Virtually Yours - Shadow Over Broadway Broadway's making music again. But "most musicians employed by Broadway musicals thought the union settled too quickly, for too little. Producers felt demonized, and argue they weren't trying to kill off live music on Broadway, even though Broadway tours in particular rely increasingly on virtual-orchestra 'enhancement' of increasingly tiny pit bands." One thing's sure - the virtual orchestra isn't going away. "Ten years from now, they probably are going to be able to put us out of work." Chicago Tribune 03/16/03
Theatre - Political Action Reasserts After a period in which political theatre seemed to have disappeared for awhile, politcal theatre is back in America. "Indeed, responding to a number of political exigencies — among them the elevation of George W. Bush to the presidency by the Supreme Court, the Sept. 11 attacks, the looming war in Iraq and more generally the perceptible shift to the right in national perspective — American stages have been reasserting the theater's traditionally liberal bias with an almost vengeful fervor." The New York Times 03/14/03
Questioning The Art Of Broadway - Or Is It The Economics? So Broadway has reopened after the musicians strike and business is back to normal. Or is it? "In the end, the combatants in the great Broadway music strike of '03 settled their fight in a fashion that leaves unanswered crucial artistic and economic questions. Craftsmen everywhere have ceded their skills to robots. Why wouldn't this happen on Broadway? Here's why it shouldn't: People don't come to Broadway to see efficiency. Broadway shows are already an economic anachronism. People are willing to pay big bucks to witness the magic of creation. If Broadway's producers forget that, they will wreck an important local industry." Newsday 03/12/03
Art Of Compromise -Settling the Broadway Strike The Broadway musicians strike ended quickly after an all-night negotiating session. "When the negotiators emerged, bleary-eyed, from the talks, neither side claimed victory, and both called the deal a difficult compromise. The main conflict had been over the minimum number of musicians required — currently 24 to 26 — in the orchestra pits of Broadway's 13 largest theaters. Under the new contract, those minimums were lowered for the next decade to 18 or 19, depending on the theater." The New York Times 03/12/03
Translator As Rewriter Translators serve as an essential link between playwright and audiences who speak a different language. Yet their value is often overlooked. "The best translators. remain as invisible as possible. And yet it is a practice that has an indelible effect on how we perceive the best in what world theatre has to offer." The Guardian (UK) 03/12/03
Ambitions, Circumstances Helped Sink Seattle's ACT Theatre How did Seattle's ACT Theatre go from a $5 million annual budget and 60+ employees to a $1.7 million deficit and laying off most of its staff? Misha Berson writes that "a confluence of difficult circumstances and dubious internal decisions, including ACT's 1996 move to a new facility, swelling artistic ambitions, shifts of leadership, overdependence on credit and the post-9/11 recession" conspired to sink the theatre's fortunes. Seattle Times 03/11/03
Settlement In Broadway Strike Sources say a settlement has been made in the Broadway musicians strike. Producers and musicians bargained for nearly 12 hours through the night at Mayor Michael Bloomberg's mansion. "The settlement, the terms of which were not immediately announced, will presumably allow most Broadway musicals that have been closed since Friday night to reopen tonight." The New York Times 03/11/03
Virtual Reality - Little About Broadway Music Is "Real" Maybe the Broadway musicians strike is about live music, but "the truth is, orchestras on Broadway have been becoming virtualized for years. Electronic enhancement is used to juice up the sound of the string section and boost the punch of the brass. Missing instruments — extra woodwinds, a couple of harps, exotic percussion — are rendered through digital keyboards. The chorus onstage is often fortified by taped voices that are blasted through the sound system. But it would be great to see this tired assumption challenged. How often have Broadway audiences been given a chance to experience the truly natural sound of unamplified voices and orchestras? Broadway theaters were once much quieter places." The New York Times 03/11/03
(Almost) Alive With The Sound Of Music So the Broadway strike is about live music, right? But for a long time now you really couldn't trust your ears in the theatre. "Many Broadway musical moments remain mostly live and somewhat pure, the creation of soaring talents onstage and sawing string players and the like offstage. But more and more, the sound of music on Broadway is being artificially enhanced, with volumes amplified and instruments synthesized as if the theater district were one big recording studio." Washington Post 03/10/03
Broadway - We're All In Favor Of Live Music Here - Right? Broadway producers say they want to keep live music alive in theatres, but that creative staff should be determining how many musicians should be hired, not unions. "Still, almost every major composer, orchestrator and musical director on Broadway has signed a petition to keep the minimums. So it appears that a good percentage of the creative staff has already spoken." And so far, the strike has cost New York $7 million. Chicago Tribune 03/10/03
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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Spectator Sport - Surveiling This Year's Vennice Biennale This summer's Vennice Biennale carries the subtitle of “The dictatorship of the spectator.” So what does it mean? "Is it that the spectator is the artist’s enemy, distanced by a different viewpoint? How important is the spectator anyway at the Biennale? Apparently not enough. One of the stated aims of this year’s show is to increase the number of visitors, which usually nose-dives after the initial crush of the opening week. The last Biennale attracted 243,498 in six months, 30,000 of whom were press who visited in the first three days." The Art Newspaper 03/14/03
San Francisco's New Asian Palace This week the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco opens in a new home. "The building - the old Main Library in Civic Center - has been deftly restructured inside by Italian architect Gae Aulenti, famous for having transformed the 1900 Gare d'Orsay train station in Paris into the tremendously popular Musee d'Orsay. The overall cost will be $160.5 million, and it gives the Asian Art Museum the kind of prestige and stature to which it has aspired." San Francisco Chronicle 03/16/03
- Just What Is "Asian" Art Anyway? "At its crudest, 'Asia' as a concept betokens the 'orientalism' that Edward Said famously redefined in terms of Western colonizers' need to understand themselves by contrast with a mysterious - potentially dehumanized - other. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has a collection deep and extensive enough to awaken glimmers of imagination for the complex material culture of Eastern societies across six millennia." San Francisco Chronicle 03/16/03
- Much To Offer "Modern architects need to develop a more imaginative bag of tricks when they are working alongside the ornate architecture of the past. The Asian Art Museum's new glass-enclosed light courts are dramatic, but they shunt the grand beaux-arts spaces of the old building onto a sidetrack. The rhythms of the original structure are largely ignored by the new, when they should have blended." San Jose Mercury-News 03/16/03
War Fears As Maastrict Fair Opens The European Fine Art Fair opens in Maastricht with 200 of the world's most prestigious galleries in attendance. "The art and antiques for sale are breathtaking, and are estimated to be worth a total of about £600 million this year. Some 60 per cent of the world's currently available supply of good-quality Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings are on show." But dealers are worried what impact an Iraq war will have. "Maastricht airport once famously ran out of parking space for private jets during the fair, but this year there are fears that there may be plenty of spare tarmac alongside the runway." The Telegraph (UK) 03/17/03
Art Theft - A Nice (Not So Little) Business Art crime is flourishing. "It is an area of crime that costs insurers £500m a year. The database Invaluable, a London private company, lists more than 100,000 stolen art and antique works. Among them, I discovered 26 Renoirs; eight Warhols unstrapped in transit from Heathrow to New York last year; 180 George III walnut clocks; Goyas, Gainsboroughs and Rubens. Unfortunately this activity is not matched by stories of thieves being collared, receivers incarcerated and "mad collectors" being sent up the river. Profits are high, punishment all too easily evaded." The Guardian (UK) 03/15/03
Guggenheim To Build Rio Outpost The Art Newspaper is reporting that the Guggenheim has made a deal to open a branch in Rio de Janeiro. "The so-called Guggenheim Rio will be the New York-based foundation’s first outpost in South America, augmenting a global network that presently includes the Frank Lloyd Wright flagship in Manhattan, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, and the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas. The city-run museum will be housed in a striking new building designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and set within the waters of beautiful Guanabara Bay, affording sweeping views of the picturesque harbour whose entrance is marked by the famous 'Sugar Loaf'. Construction is to begin this summer with completion scheduled for late 2006." The Art Newspaper 03/14/03
Libeskind - Bringing Your Feelings To Work Daniel Libeskind's design for the World Trade Center site, which he calls 'Memory Foundations', "epitomises American society's current morbid preoccupation with death and conflict. Several architecture commentators have pointed out that the subjective nature of Libeskind's work is something new among architects, who rarely express their own feelings and tend to be more comfortable talking about the functional and technical aspects of buildings. The difference between Libeskind and a cool, rational architect such as Norman Foster is something like the difference between Princess Diana and a regal head of state." spiked-culture 03/11/03
Web Of Prehistory A new website will show detailed images of prehistoric rock art in the UK, cataloguing work that is thousands of years old. "The website will include global positioning system readings - highly accurate positions of the artwork compiled using satellites - and digital drawings and photographs." The Scotsman 03/14/03
A Warhol Stolen While On Loan? How did a valuable Andy Warhol painting on loan for a traveling Guggenheim exhibition in 1998 end up in the collection of a Guggenheim trustee a year later? The painting's lender is crying theft. The New York Times 03/13/03
When Pictures Aren't What They Seem... "One of the most successful - if bizarre - cases of overpainting a great artist's picture came to light earlier this week, when it was disclosed that a Rembrandt self-portrait had been hidden under layers of concealing paint for 300 years. An unnamed pupil changed the 28-year-old Rembrandt into a flamboyantly dressed Russian aristocrat in a red hat, earrings, long hair and dashing moustache. For the next three centuries it was regarded as a portrait by an anonymous minor Dutch artist." These things happen more often than one thinks. How? The Guardian (UK) 03/13/03
Weakening World Heritage Site Protections An organization that helps advise on World Heritage Sites says proposals being considered by the international body would severely weaken protections for the sites. "Among the changes the world heritage committee, which runs the world heritage scheme, will discuss are: Allowing states to veto any criticism of them for damaging or neglecting sites within their borders. Allowing states to prevent the creation of new sites in their borders if they stand in the way of development." The Guardian (UK) 03/13/03
Russia Reveals Troves Of Art Looted By Nazis After more than 50 years of hiding them away, Russia has decided to reveal the whereabouts of "thousands of paintings, archives and rare books looted by Soviet forces in Germany and Eastern Europe during and after World War II and taken to Russia as so-called trophy art. (Now the preferred term in Russia is 'displaced cultural treasures.') Hitler's forces had previously pillaged many of the works from Jewish owners and other Nazi victims." The New York Times 03/12/03
Where Are The Great Women Artists? Back in 1971, art historian Linda Nochlin published an influential essay titled "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" "It was a provocative, lengthy, and wide-ranging examination of women’s status, past and present, which commenced with the author’s "open-minded wonderment that women, despite so many years of near-equality . . . have still not achieved anything of exceptional significance in the visual arts." Now - 30 years later - "how many of Nochlin’s observations remain valid and how have they influenced the discourse on art in the academy, in the museums, and in the marketplace?" ArtNews 03/03
Nice Nice Nice - The Failure Of Architecture "For centuries, the task of the architect was to build the ideal city, whether the city state of 15th-century Italy, or a Modernist backdrop for car-driving, welfare-state citizens. Naturally, they all failed." In the 60s, a group of Italians called Superstudio "had the audacity to say that after 400 years of failure we should give it a rest. Utopia? It ain’t coming." The problem is, they couldn't come up with an alternative. So "three decades after the Italians exited stage left, architecture, and especially British architecture, has fulfilled all their prophesies. It’s cursed with niceness. It’s dull. Unquestioning. Terminally polite." The Times (UK) 03/10/03
Guard Implicates Himself In Dali Theft A guard at New York's Riker's Island jail has implicated himself in the theft of a Salvador Dali sketch from the facility. "The officer told authorities Saturday's theft was concocted as a get-rich-quick scheme, with participants hoping to cash in on the sketch by selling it on the black market for $500,000. But the painting was discovered missing far sooner than they hoped because the officers opted to keep it in its frame and put a replica sketched by one of the guards back with another frame." New York Post 03/07/03
