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Weekend, February 22-23




Ideas

In Pursuit Of Ennui A new academic history of boredom brings up some interesting notions about the way we spend our lives. The idea of being bored is actually a somewhat recent one, but the minute it got a name, absolutely everyone had to have a piece of it. As the world becomes more saturated with entertainment options, boredom has actually increased, as have attempts to cure it with, well, more entertainment options. "One of the more unexpected findings is that the best cure for boredom might be... more boredom. Or wearing a polar bear costume. In the war against monotony, people have tried all sorts of unusual remedies." Los Angeles Times 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 9:10 am

Visual Arts

So How Is Anyone Supposed To Know You Exist? "For today's artists there's no shame in being market-savvy. In the post-Warhol era, licensing agreements, movie deals and publicity campaigns are increasingly regarded as legitimate extensions of the art-making process. But one corner of the art world still embraces the ideal of art uncorrupted by commerce. In the field of outsider art, creators who show too much interest in marketing are likely to find their work devalued, if not shunned altogether." The New York Times 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 9:33 am

MacGregor Toes A Hard Line "The Elgin marbles will never be returned to Greece, even on loan, the director of the British Museum has told The Telegraph. In a ruling which will infuriate the Greek authorities, Neil MacGregor - who took over as director of the museum last August - said that the marbles could 'do most good' in their current home, where they are seen in a broader historical context... Mr MacGregor's decision ends any hopes that the marbles could be loaned to the Greeks for the Athens Olympics next year and will outrage campaigners who hoped that his appointment marked a change in the museum's attitude to ownership of the friezes." The Telegraph (UK) 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 9:05 am

Libeskind To Win Out At Ground Zero Sources indicate that Daniel Libeskind will shortly be named the winner of the competition to design a replacement for the World Trade Center towers in New York, but some elements of his design will be scrapped in the building process. Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg both favor the Libeskind design, and his "plans have also gained favour with the New York port authority, which owns the World Trade Centre site, and the Lower Manhattan development corporation (LMDC), which is overseeing the rebuilding." The announcement could come as early as this week. The Guardian (UK) 02/22/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 8:51 am

Wright House, Wrong Time An architecturally significant house in Chicago designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is being threatened. By a baby. The house's owners are about to see their family expand, and have been looking to sell the four-bedroom home so that they can move to a larger place. But so far, only one bid has come close to the asking price, and that was from a man who wants to tear the home down and erect his own newfangled mansion on the property. The owner rejected the offer, and says he wants to preserve the house, but time is running out, and it appears that unless a more preservation-minded buyer comes forward soon, the house could be demolished by this summer. Chicago Tribune 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 7:50 am

Music

The Ever-Expanding, Never-Improving Grammys There are too many categories at the Grammys. Way too many. "This year, the 45th annual awards are up to 104 categories, including completely indistinguishable ones like best R & B album and best contemporary R & B album; more are doubtless on the way." So with all those statues waiting to be given out, why are the Grammys so singularly incapable of rewarding musicians who deserve it? The New York Times 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 9:28 am

  • Classical Grammy: Who Would Win If The Heathens Didn't Get a Vote? "A perennial anticlimax for classical fans is the fact that, although a blue-ribbon committee of classical specialists determines the Grammy nominees... the opportunity to cast votes for the winners is thrown open to all Recording Academy members, including many from nonclassical genres. In previous years, they appear to have picked classical winners on the basis of artist name recognition and weight, in tons, of marketing materials behind each album." Of course, since almost no one watches the Grammys to see who wins the classical awards, we might as well just decide now who ought to win. Gwendolyn Freed is up to the task. The Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 02/23/03
    Posted: 02/23/2003 9:21 am

The Changing Face Of Music Sales "Like it or not, the music industry is in a free fall, and things are about to change. The very foundation on which the business is structured - selling music to stores - is eroding at an astonishing pace. Sales of recorded music have fallen about 16 percent over the last two years. By contrast, sales of blank CDs jumped 40 percent in 2002, and users of the biggest online file-trading service, Kazaa, outnumber what Napster ever had." So what's next? Well, that depends on how quickly the industry is willing to accept the move to digital music, and embrace new paradigms. So far, though, the big labels seem content to bitch and moan and watch their business go down the drain. Boston Globe 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 7:45 am

  • Music For The Modern Age The sooner the industry embraces digital technology, the better off we'll all be, says Don Tapscott. Not that internet audio is perfect - far from it. But unlike traditional media, the MP3 has created a world full of choice, and that's what modern society demands. "This is great news for budding musicians, since music isn't exclusionary in its use. In an increasingly hectic society, almost all of us have less time for the activities we enjoy, except listening to music. Music makes a good experience better." The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 02/22/03
    Posted: 02/23/2003 7:41 am

  • Pirates With Principles What the anti-piracy forces in the recording industry may be missing in their quest to eradicate free download services is that their own refusal to lower CD prices despite indisuptable evidence that the cost of producing the discs is negligible has fueled such consumer mistrust that many reasonable people simply consider the free downloads to be a victimless crime. And the refusal of the industry to come up with a viable music download service of its own has merely added fuel to the fire. Lower the cost of music, say the pirates, and we'll happily rejoin the system. Boston Globe 02/23/03
    Posted: 02/23/2003 7:40 am

Up In Arms Over Authenticity "Music purists in Germany and beyond are balking at a decision to give Dresden's famed Frauenkirche an organ that is more modern than the original one used in the Baroque cathedral. The board of trustees of the foundation in charge of reconstructing the cathedral, which was destroyed at the end of World War II and left as a ruin during more than four decades of communist rule, decided on Monday to give the contract to an organ builder in Strasbourg. In doing so, they rejected a competing bid by the organ builder Hermann Eule, based in the nearby Saxony town of Bautzen, whose proposal for an exact reproduction of the original organ was described by a number of prominent supporters as 'historically correct.'" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02/21/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 7:22 am

Calgary Back On Stage Good news has been hard to come by in the orchestral world in the past year or two, and the sorry saga of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, which ceased playing concerts and filed for bankruptcy protection last October, was one of the hardest blows. But as of last week, the CPO is back in business, and out of debt. At the inaugural reopening concert, orchestra musicians greeted concertgoers at the door to the hall, shaking their hands and thanking them for their role in rescuing the ensemble. All told, the CPO raised better than $1.5 million over the months it was inactive to satisfy its creditors. Calgary Herald 02/20/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 7:16 am

Arts Issues

Breathing A Little Easier In Michigan Michigan arts groups appear to have escaped the full blow of the budget-cutting axe which has been decimating arts funding in other states, at least for now. In the first round of budget-cutting designed to balance the state's books for the fiscal year already underway, the state will trim 1.5% from the amount allocated to the arts, and the state arts board plans to apply the cut evenly to all its grant recipients. But another, much larger, round of budget cuts will be announced in March, and as one arts administrator points out, "Arts grants can be very tempting to legislators." Detroit Free Press 02/21/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 8:09 am

Putting The Corporate Brand On The Arts The movement towards corporate support of the arts in the face of dwindling public funding is nothing new in the US, but the overt nature of the partnerships has been ratcheting up considerably in recent times. From new concert halls named for corporations like Disney and Verizon, to publicly touted partnerships between theatres and clothiers, the arts seem to be increasingly going the way of the sporting world in terms of corporate culture and product placement. Not everyone likes the idea, but in an era when most cultural organizations are gasping for breath, few have the temerity to argue against any system which will provide them with new revenue streams. Boston Globe 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 7:29 am

People

Sink Or Swim At The National Charles Saumarez Smith didn't get much of a honeymoon as the new director of the UK's National Gallery. Faced from the outset with questions about his qualifications, and basic sniping over whether he might be 'too nice' for the job, Smith is now staring down the barrel of a public relations cannon. His mission: to persuade the Heritage Fund to pony up a sizable chunk of the £29 million he needs to raise to keep a famed Raphael on the gallery's walls. The Guardian (UK) 02/22/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 8:44 am

Theatre

Winds Of War Waft Through The Theatre Remember those days just after 9/11/01, when everything had changed and nothing would ever be the same again? Satire was dead, and Hollywood would surely have to rethink its mission. Well, 18 months later, as we all know, little has really changed, satire is alive and well, and Hollywood is still as it was. In fact, with the world on the brink of an uncertain war, the only artistic discipline which really seems to be meeting current events head-on is the theatre. "As the whiff of war emanates from the White House, for the first time in years the theater feels like a place where world events in the making can be remade for the stage, speedily and purposefully." Chicago Tribune 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 7:57 am

Publishing

Bridging The Canadian Culture Gap Publisher Pierre Turgeon has started a new English-language publishing house, and the more he talks about it, the more people he convinces that there may be a way to bridge the gap between the French and Anglo worlds of Canadian culture. Never one to shy away from controversy, Turgeon is attempting to sell the notion that French Canadians have an interest in Anglo-Canadian culture, and vice versa, a theory which has seen richer men to the poorhouse. Still, if anyone can bridge the gap, say the experts, it's Turgeon, and if the new house is a success, it could also provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the rest of the English-language publishing industry. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 02/22/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 8:29 am

Media

You Knew This Was Coming "The practice of showing commercials before the start of movies defrauds the public and should be stopped, according to lawsuits filed in Chicago against two movie-theater chains. The on-screen commercials delay the start of films beyond the posted times, which deceives theatergoers, the lawsuits claim." The plaintiffs appear to be treading on very shaky legal ground, but it's a good bet that they've got a fair amount of public sentiment on their side. Los Angeles Times (AP) 02/22/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 9:16 am

Dogfight Over The Hundred Acre Wood The Disney company has lost an important legal battle in its fight against a British company which claims it is entitled to a share of the profits from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" franchise. Disney acquired the rights to Pooh and the rest of A.A. Milne's famous characters in 1961, but a judge ruled that the company had been evasive, and destroyed crucial documents relating to the true nature of the franchise ownership. Marketing of the Pooh characters nets Disney $1 billion per year in profit. BBC 02/21/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 7:10 am

Polanski Sweeps Cesars "Director Roman Polanski's The Pianist has won six prizes at the Cesars - France's version of the Oscars - including best picture.
Polanski also won the award for best director while US actor Adrien Brody won the best actor prize for the English-language film... Last year the film won the prestigious Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival and has been nominated for six awards at next month's Oscars ceremony."
BBC 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 7:03 am

Dance

The Danger Of 'The Next Big...' Everyone wants to know when the next Nureyev is coming. Or the next Baryshnikov. Or the next Balanchine. Or the next Graham. But why, asks Jack Anderson, are we so bound and determined to replace these legends? They were irreplacable, and the fact that they are gone shouldn't mean that today's dance stars should be expected to live up to what they accomplished. By constantly focusing on what the dance world has lost, we risk not recognizing the true innovators of today. The New York Times 02/23/03
Posted: 02/23/2003 9:34 am


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