Ideas Everybody's Gay! (Everybody Famous, That Is) A new film claims Hitler was gay, based on evidence sketchy enough that historians (even gay ones) are laughing it off. A yet-to-be-released book claims that Abe Lincoln was gay, and the book's author insists that he has evidence that George Washington, General Custer, and either Lewis or Clark (he forgets which) all were, as well. All of which begs the question: isn't this 2003? Haven't we gotten past the breathless whispering over men sleeping with men that dominated the gossip sheets of the 1980s? Or is there still something so exotic about homosexuality that even the suspicion of it in a historical figure warrants an entire cottage industry? The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 01/23/03 Posted: 01/23/2003 5:50 am Battle For The Mind "American higher education has long had a dynamic tension between intellectualism - represented by the humanities and elite colleges - and more 'practical' education offered up by land-grant universities, observers say. But while the US university system is widely hailed for its quality, some fear the pendulum may be swinging toward an overall anti- intellectual approach." Christian Science Monitor 01/21/03 Visual Arts Christo Gets Okay For Central Park Project Since 1979 Christo has been trying to get permission for a big project in New York's Central Park. Now the city has approved it. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says "the project would attract some 500,000 visitors and generate $72 million to $136 million in spending. 'When our natural instincts are to retreat to the comfortable and the familiar, we have to reassert the daring and the creative spirit that differentiates New York from any other city in the world'." The New York Times 01/23/03 Art Or Junk? Who Gets To Decide? "When art changes because of elemental forces, becoming what some would call an 'eyesore,' is it no longer art? Should it be removed? When the land on which a work sits, and for which it was designed, is needed for other purposes and the art is moved, is it the same work of art?" A dispute between a Florida temple that wants to remove a piece of art and the the artist who created it is forcing some answers to these questions. St. Petersburg Times 01/18/03 Music Orange County Gets Creative "Leaders of the Orange County Performing Arts Center [outside Los Angeles] are mulling large-scale borrowing, in the form of a bond issue, as a way to ensure completion of a $200-million concert hall in time for its scheduled opening in the fall of 2006. Fund-raising has been stalled at about $100 million for more than a year, but... bond issues often have been used by other nonprofit arts organizations, and incurring debt has been in OCPAC's playbook of potential financing maneuvers since its capital campaign began in 1999." Los Angeles Times 01/23/03 Posted: 01/23/2003 6:01 am Haydn Librettos Surface In Hungary "Hungary's National Library recovered Wednesday 39 original opera librettos from operas of the 18th-century Austrian composer Joseph Haydn that were believed to have been destroyed during World War II, officials said. Curators working for the government had bought the librettos from an antiquarian who had bought them from a private individual... Curators working for the ministry of national cultural heritage formally handed them over to the library where they will be 'under lock and seal' until they are digitally reproduced for research work." Andante (Agence France-Presse) 01/23/03 Posted: 01/23/2003 5:14 am Escalating the War in Houston The musicians of the Houston Symphony have filed an official complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing their management of bargaining in bad faith, and of planning to impose new working conditions on the musicians by declaring an impasse a few weeks from now. The management wants to slash salaries and eliminate five string players outright in an effort to deal with years of financial problems, but the musicians insist that they should not be forced to bear the burden of management's past mistakes. For a start, they'd like a look at the orchestra's financial records, but so far, orchestra executives have refused to open the books. Houston Chronicle 01/23/03 Posted: 01/23/2003 4:58 am Doubts About The Music Industry's Survival "This year could determine whether the music business as we know it survives. In the first six months of 2002, CD sales fell 11 percent - on top of a 3 percent decline the year before. Sales of blank CDs jumped 40 percent last year, while the users of Kazaa, the biggest online file-trading service, tripled in number. As recently as 10 years ago, the media conglomerates that own record labels regarded them as cash cows - smaller than Hollywood but more reliably profitable. Now all five major labels are either losing money or barely in the black, and the industry's decline is turning into a plunge." Wired 01/03 Prokofiev Reconsidered Fifty years after his death, Prokofiev is being re-examined. Why did he leave the West to return to the USSR where artists were stifled? "He was only semi-successful in the West. He didn't attain the degree of fame that would satisfy his ambitions. In the West, he tried to be even more avant-garde than he was naturally, and it didn't work. He was going along with the tastes of fashion, but it was against his nature. Then, when he returned to Russia, he wrote the ballet Romeo and Juliet, identified with it and produced an absolute masterpiece." The Telegraph (UK) 01/23/03 Where Music Is Commodity... Like Pork Bellies? The European music industry's winter meetings are going on in Cannes. "No one at Midem talks about art or passion or even, heaven help us, music. They talk about money. I have to confess that I find it all incredibly disheartening. With more than 10,000 delegates of 3,604 companies from 89 countries touting their wares to one another, it genuinely does not seem to make a blind bit of difference whether what they have to sell has any quality whatsoever." The Telegraph (UK) 01/23/03 Bail-Out For English National Opera The British Arts Council has decided to bail out the English National Opera. "The decision was rushed through in less than 24 hours and comes as stalwarts of the ENO audience threatened to show their anger over the management's cutbacks during tonight's Coliseum premiere of Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina." How much money will be coming the ENO's way was not revealed, but the council said it would be enough to "stabilize" the company's operations. The Guardian (UK) 01/23/03 A Bevy Of Bohemes One night a few weeks from now, the stars will align and three productions of Pucinni's "La Boheme" will take to the boards in New York City. That's "more than 8200 seats to unload on a quiet, midweek evening" on Broadway, at the Metropolitan Oper and at New York City Opera. "Are that many New Yorkers going to be up for an evening of fake snow and chilly, Parisian garrets after five months of their own winter nastiness?" The Age (Melbourne) 01/23/03 Opera Australia In The Red Opera Australia reports an operating deficit of $2 million this year "as a result of last year's costly season." The compan y is undergoing an audit and is also beginning a search for a new music director after clumsily deciding not to renew Simone Young's contract. Sydney Morning Herald 01/22/03 Arts Issues Kennedy Center Makes Plans Washington's Kennedy Center has approved a $650 million plan for a "four-block plaza, to be built over existing roadways and flanked by the new glass-and-steel buildings, one housing rehearsal and office space and the other for an educational center and interactive exhibits on the performing arts. 'It puts us in reality where we were supposed to be all along, as a monument in Washington'." The New York Times 01/23/03 And About Time, Too! Benjamin Forgey is wondering what exactly took the Kennedy Center so long to unveil the new plan to remake its architecturally embarrassing digs. But better late than never: "From opening day 31 years ago right up to the present, the big box on the Potomac has remained a huge urban faux pas -- an outpost of culture separated from the city by a deep moat filled with speeding cars. The plan unveiled yesterday, conceived by architect Rafael Viñoly, does a lot to correct the mistakes." Washington Post 01/23/03 Hamburgers Over Art In NY Parks? New York's Parks Commissioner is trying to get evict artists from selling their work in the city's parks. This at the same time he's been proposing awarding a prime park space to a hamburger franchise. "He said artists and other vendors have overrun popular park sites and that his letter was in support of City Council legislation that would allow the department to restrict sales in the park." Newsday 01/22/03 People Rosen Stepping Down From RIAA Hilary Rosen is stepping down as head of the Recording Industry Association of America. Rosen has been the industry's spokesperson in its battle against music downloading. "Rosen's departure comes as the organization sought to soften its image among Internet consumers, many of whom viewed the RIAA and Rosen personally with antipathy over incessant pressure for crackdowns on sharing digital music over the Internet." Wired 01/23/03 Posted: 01/23/2003 5:10 am Who Is She, Anyway? Hilary Rosen is not as naive as you might imagine. In fact, she believes that MP3s are the format of the future, and spends a good deal of time trying to convince record executives of it. What she and the RIAA have been fighting for is a file-sharing method that upholds the profit margins of the industry by communicating to consumers the basic idea that taking music without paying for it is wrong. "But by moralizing the issue... Rosen and her colleagues have failed to grasp the fact that they've already lost. File-sharing has become part of pop culture." Wired 01/23/03 Posted: 01/23/2003 5:09 am Theatre Renewal And Renovation In Ottawa The National Arts Centre in Ottawa today will kick off a major renovation project for its 900-seat theatre, which plays host to a variety of dance and theatrical productions. The venue has often been overlooked in the NAC's larger plans, because the centerpiece of the complex, the NAC Orchestra, performs in the larger Southam Hall. The renovation is expected to cost CAN$3 million, $2 million of which must still be raised from patrons and donors, and the project will be completed by 2006. Ottawa Citizen 01/23/03 Posted: 01/23/2003 6:10 am Invisible Plays - The Names You Can't Advertise What happens when you're producing a play with a controversial or offensive title? How do you advertise it? How do you get newspapers to accept ads for it? "Boston is the toughest market for controversial titles. Considering that we're called the Athens of the East, it's a very conservative, stodgy and puritanical market." Townonline.com 01/22/03 Publishing Kantor Named Editor Of NYT A&E The New York Times has named Jodi Kantor as its new editor of the paper's Sunday A&E section. Kanto comes from the online magazine Slate. "At Slate, Ms. Kantor, 27, had the assignment of developing ways to use the Internet to write about the arts, ranging from short, argumentative 'Culturebox' essays to online slideshows and a weekly e-mail exchange between professional therapists about developments on 'The Sopranos.' In the past, Ms. Kantor has contributed several pieces to The Times Book Review." New York Times Press Release 01/22/03 Media Has Sundance Become A Hollywood Tool? "Once a festival where unknowns came to be discovered and hungry agents scoured the field for the next big thing, Sundance has gradually become as much of a launching festival as a film market, the sort of event at which a distributor might unveil a film coming out in the next few months in hopes of attracting attention and publicity." The New York Times 01/23/03 Who Let All These Kids In Here? Sundance long ago came of age, and now, some critics think it may be experiencing a bit of a midlife crisis. How else to explain the sudden influx of films that make a point of displaying their youth bent? This year, it seems that nearly every film is either another "generic teenage wasteland" or a "Sundance afterschool special." This is not to say that any of these films are bad, you understand, just that for Sundance to feature quite so many of them at once seems not unlike the 40-year-old account executive who fights off ennui by buying a Ferrari. Boston Globe 01/23/03 Should Australia Boost National Broadcaster's Budget? Australia's ABC network wants a $250 million increase in its $675 million budget. ABC is supposed to serve television to all of Australia, but "at present it's not doing it very well. Yes, its share of the television and radio audiences has risen. But in the overall scheme of things, it remains a distant fourth in the TV ratings - although its metropolitan radio stations are doing better." Maybe it ought to drop plans for its digital service? The Age (Melbourne) 01/23/03