Ideas What Is The Lure Of American Culture? American culture is everywhere. But why? Why would the world be interested in globalized American culture? "Due to its multi-ethnic and multi-cultural composition, especially in the formative years of modern entertainment culture around 1900, American popular culture was faced with the challenge of a market that anticipated the present global market on a smaller scale. This led to the development of broadly comprehensible, non-verbal forms of performance, relying preferably on visual and auditory forms of expression. Before Americanization of other societies could occur, American culture itself had to be 'Americanized'." Project Syndicate 02/01 Posted: 01/02/2003 11:35 pm Visual Arts The Online Museum - Five That Get It Right The wrold's great museums are the world's great museums. But the online museum is a recent development. Here are Joseph Phelan's picks as the most interesting online art museum presentations... Artcyclopedia 01/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 10:29 pm Virtual Marbles The British Museum still doesn't plan to return the Elgin marbles to Greece anytime soon, despite growing support for such a transfer, but a new exhibit in the UK shows what the marbles would look like were both pieces to be reunited in Athens. The exhibit uses virtual reality technology to simulate the joining. BBC 01/02/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 5:10 am Music General Cluelessness - RIAA Gets Hacked Again The Recording Industry Association of America has taken the lead against digital copying of music, so it's not surprising the organization would be a target of hackers. The RIAA was hacked again Monday. "This time, the defacement resulted in bogus press releases on the front door, touting the joys of cheese and interspecies romantic relationships." This was the sixth time the site had been hacked in six months - the question is why the RIAA hasn't protected itself better... Wired 01/03/03 Posted: 01/03/2003 8:07 am Country Time - Country Music CD Sales Surge CD sales might have been down 9 percent in 2002, but not all kinds of music sales declined. Sales of country music CD's increased 12 percent. "Along with hip-hop, country accounted for three-fifths of number one albums in the US... BBC 01/03/03 Posted: 01/03/2003 7:31 am Please Release Me - Treasured 50s Recordings Entering Public Domain A treasure trove of recordings made in the 1950s is about to slip out of copyright. "Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in European Union countries, compared with 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America. So recordings made in the early- to mid-1950's — by figures like Maria Callas, Elvis Presley and Ella Fitzgerald — are entering the public domain in Europe, opening the way for any European recording company to release albums that had been owned exclusively by particular labels." The New York Times 01/03/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 11:51 pm How Civil Servants Sabotaged Edinburgh's Plans For An Opera House Back in 1971, after ten years of lobbying and planning, Edinburgh announced it would build a world class opera house. But newly released documents show why the hall was never built. It was sabotaged by civil servants who dubbed blueprints an "expensive fiasco" waiting to happen. "It had taken ten years for Edinburgh’s opera house plans to be accepted - and just a few months for government civil servants to sow the seeds of doubt which eventually led to the whole idea being scrapped." The Scotsman 01/02/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 11:23 pm Changing The Complexion Of Symphony Orchestras Symphony orchestras are overwhelmingly white. But a Detroit organization is trying encourage minority musicians with an annual competition "Since the Sphinx Organization was founded in 1996, its annual competition–the only nationwide classical music competition open exclusively to minority string players from junior high through college ages–has rewarded participants with cash prizes, scholarships, master classes, and instrument loans." Strings 01/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 11:05 pm Arts Issues Arts Building Boom - End Of An Era? There is a global 'rash' of new theatres and especially concert halls, but the fastest growth is in America, a conference of the International Society for the Performing Arts reported last month. Will the boom continue? Historically, "theatre-building is the sort of thing people do at the end of a golden era (as at the turn of the 20th century) when confidence is high and wealth is ample. Now, tax revenues are weak and wealthy donors less wealthy. The curtain may be about to fall, at least for an intermission." The Economist 01/02/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 11:18 pm People House Of Glass - A New Director Takes Over Smithsonian History Museum This week Brent Glass took over as director of "the third most popular museum in the world - the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. It is not an altogether happy place. But in his 55 years, Glass has developed a well-honed vision of what history is and what that museum can be." Washington Post 01/03/03 Posted: 01/03/2003 12:01 am Theatre More Adventures With Disney - "Destination" Theatre Admissions at Disney's theme parks are down 25 percent since 2001. What to do? How about theatre? Disney has hired some A-list creators to come up with "a new era in theme-park entertainment." It's theatre presented continuously in 40-minute loops. First up: "a 40-minute version of the 'Aladdin' story, using the score from Disney's animated film. It will run continuously in the brand new 'Broadway-style' Hyperion theater in Disney's ailing California Adventure Park. 'We've coined a new phrase - destination entertainment'." Christian Science Monitor 01/03/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 8:24 pm Building Shakespeare's Dream A group of Americans is hoping to build the theatre Shakespeare imagined his plays being performed in. "If all goes well, western Massachusetts will become home to the world's first historically accurate reconstruction of the Rose Playhouse. But if all goes well, western Massachusetts will become home to the world's first historically accurate reconstruction of the Rose Playhouse." Christian Science Monitor 01/03/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 8:18 pm Publishing The New Biographers "The old style of Canadian biography was written mainly by academic historians and characterized by a slavish devotion to the facts, and nothing but the facts, about the subject at hand." Boring. But a new generation of biographers has taken more of the novelist approach to their work. "Virginia Woolf said every biography should be written twice - once as fiction and once as fact. Fact is accessible but interpretation is not, and fact won't tell you much about character and thought." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/03/03 Posted: 01/03/2003 8:16 am Tolkien Manuscript Found An unpublished manuscript by JRR Tolkien has been found in a box at Oxford. "The 2000 handwritten pages include Tolkien's translation and appraisal of 'Beowulf', the epic 8th century Anglo-Saxon poem of bravery, friendship and monster-slaying that is thought to have inspired 'The Lord of the Rings'." The Australian 12/30/02 Posted: 01/02/2003 11:00 pm Hmong - Forging A New Literary Tradition Hmong society has no literary tradition. "The first Hmong writing system was developed by Catholic missionaries in the 1950s. Until then, all storytelling was spoken." So a new book collecting young Hmong writers' work is something extraordinary. Sacramento Bee 01/02/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 10:09 pm Media Artists Defends His Controversial Art The Chinese performance artist shown in a UK documentary seeming to eata stillborn baby, has defended his work: "An artist does not give answers, but possibilities. When facing an issue, we must try to allow people's debate of an issue to produce a deeper discussion. Only if people did not curse it, did not detest it, would there be something wrong. They are right to scold."Toronto Star 01/03/03 Posted: 01/03/2003 8:33 am Controversial Documentary Beaten In Ratings A documentary aired in the UK that showed a Chinese performance artist "apparently eating a stillborn baby" sparked only 15 calls of protest to the TV station. "An estimated 900,000 tuned in to see the documentary, which went out at 2300 GMT on Thursday. It was beaten in the ratings by the 1997 movie Beverly Hills Cop II, which attracted 3.4 million viewers."BBC 01/03/03 Posted: 01/03/2003 7:09 am Previously: TV Station Under Fire For Controversial Documentary Britain's Channel 4 is being criticized for its plans to air a controversial documentary on Chinese performance artists. Among the controversial scenes are one "showing a performance artist eating the flesh of a dead baby" and "a man drinking wine that has had an amputated penis marinaded in it." The station defends its plans: "The programme will be controversial and will shock some viewers but a warning will be given before it goes out on air." The Guardian (UK) 12/31/02 Disney Sues Blockbuster Video "In a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Los Angeles, Disney alleges that starting in 1997, Blockbuster Inc. failed to account for missing videos, improperly charged the Burbank-based company for some promotional costs and prematurely sold videos before their rental life was finished."Los Angeles Times 01/03/03 Posted: 01/03/2003 6:49 am Little Movies Played Big In '02 In a great and profitable year for Hollywood, it was a great (and profitable) year for small independent films. "Movies such as "Bowling for Columbine," "One Hour Photo," "Monsoon Wedding," "Empire," and even the obscure French film "Brotherhood of the Wolf," made 2002 one of the most successful years ever for specialized fare."Los Angeles Times 01/03/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 11:45 pm Can The Arts Find A Place On TV? "PBS has always held exclusive claim to being 'the arts channel,' of course, mainly because networks shrink from fine-arts programming as ratings poison. But even so, the marriage between public broadcasting and the arts has, at times, seemed a superficial one." An experiment at Maryland Public Television illustrates the problems, starting a debate "ranging from how producers can compellingly cover the arts, to whether anyone will watch it, and ultimately, if art and television can get along at all."Baltimore CityPaper 12/25/02 Posted: 01/02/2003 10:52 pm Dance All Moves, Few Words - Broadway's Surprise Dance Hit "One of the great surprises of the current Broadway season is that Twyla Tharp's 'Movin' On", which received mixed reviews and was in well-publicized trouble on the road, is such a hit. The only words uttered onstage are those of the songs and a drill sergeant's occasional bark. The rest is told in pure dance movement, from the smallest details of everyday life on Long Island in the 1960's to the savage roar of the battlefield. Still, it is all intensely believable to audiences, particularly Vietnam veterans. Most of the performers have come not from Broadway but from the relatively arcane worlds of classical ballet and mainstream modern dance." The New York Times 01/03/03 Posted: 01/02/2003 11:48 pm