Battle For The Soul Of American Science Traditional science is under attack in the US. "A new climate has emerged under the Bush administration: one driven partly by close relationships with big business, but just as much by a fiercely moral approach to the business of science." Instead of attacking theories like evolution in favor of creationism, critics propose alternative "scientific" ideas like "intelligent design." "The approach is not exclusively religious, nor exclusively rightwing, but is spreading worry as never before through the nation's laboratories and lecture halls. These aren't the old wars of science versus religion. The new assaults on the conventional wisdom frame themselves, without exception, as scientific theories, no less deserving of a hearing than any other." The Guardian (UK) 04/10/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 11:18 pm
The Highwaymen Ride On The South Florida artists known as the Highwaymen, who originally took up painting as a way to pick up a few extra dollars and perhaps find a way out of their poverty-stricken lives in the orange groves, are enjoying an unexpected renaissance. The artists, who focused almost exclusively on Florida landscapes as their subject matter, began painting in the late 1950s, and have turned out an astonishing volume of work over the years. Initially sold for $25-$30 apiece, a painting by one of the original Highwaymen can now sell for upwards of $10,000. Chicago Tribune 04/10/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 5:44 am
UK: Tax Breaks For Art Donations? Until now, people donating art to cultural institutions in the UK didn't get tax incentives. But the government has indicated it is rethinking the policy and might extend tax breaks to art. "Until now, philanthropists have been able to get tax relief on cash and share donations, but there was no incentive to give art or artefacts to museums." The Guardian (UK) 04/10/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 11:07 pm
Enduring Themes... "For over 400 years, from the time of Giotto to Rembrandt, Western painting is inconceivable without the vision and the stories contained in the Bible, especially in the Gospels..." Artcyclopedia 04/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 8:26 pm
Dutoit's Legacy Lives On In Montreal A year after the Dutoit debacle, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra would like to move on, and look to a future it insists is still quite bright. But Arthur Kaptainis isn't ready to forget the man who gave the MSO its reputation and distinctive sound: "There are many subscribers and musicians who prefer a disposable past. By suspending its former practice of listing in its concert programs its first and most recent performances of works, the MSO administration itself has attempted to toss Dutoit into the memory hole. But it has not succeeded. The evidence of what he achieved is inextinguishable, for it is there every week." Montreal Gazette 04/10/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 6:17 am
New Top 40 For Music Downloads An official music sales tracker plans to begin monitoring music downloading on the internet."A new top 40 of tracks downloaded from official sites is planned to be in place in time for the Christmas number one race. And downloaded songs could count towards the main top 40 chart within 18 months." BBC 04/09/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 11:56 pm
Carnegie Hall's Footprint Expands This fall Carnegie Hall will open a new hall underneath its main auditorium. "What this new underground hall should mean for Carnegie is clear enough, assuming good acoustics and proper insulation from subway rumbles. But what will its impact be on other New York performing institutions, especially those at Lincoln Center?" The New York Times 04/10/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 11:37 pm
Is Orchestra Touring Disappearing? Recently, musicians from a Dutch orchestra arrived in London to play a concert only to discover it had been cancelled for lack of ticket sales. This kind of thing is happening more frequently, writes Norman Lebrecht. "An awareness is dawning across the musical world that the age of orchestral touring is over, leaving gaping holes in the concert calendar and another economic nightmare. The Philharmonia Orchestra has just totted up a two-thirds drop in touring revenues over the past year. The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields which has, for four decades, spent more time abroad than within sight of Nelson's Column, has ( players tell me) great white gaps in its diary." London Evening Standard 04/09/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 8:18 pm
Apparently, Only Politicians Find Arts Expendable States across the country are slashing their arts budgets to the bone in order to patch holes in their overall revenue streams. In Massachusetts, cuts to the arts are nothing new, but a recent survey suggests that the residents of the Bay State do not view these cuts as a positive development. 94% of those surveyed "consider the arts to be as important a part of basic education as math and English, and that 92 percent favor state funding for arts programs in public schools. Eighty-seven percent said that nonprofit cultural organizations were important to the quality of life in their communities, and 84 percent said they favored state funding to support public programs of cultural organizations." Boston Globe 04/10/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 5:34 am
Art Is For The Elite? Don't Tell The Brits A new survey of workers in the UK pokes a few holes in the notion that the arts are of interest only to wealthy elites, or beyond the monetary and cultural reach of your average blue-collar guy. Among the survey's findings: "Workers would rather have ticket concessions for art events than gym membership; nearly nine out of ten workers enjoy arts events in their free time; and just under half of those surveyed had visited the theatre in the last year (43%), while over a third of workers had been to a museum (37%), art gallery (34%) or concert (33%)." BBC 04/10/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 5:25 am
Visas To get Artists Into US Getting More Difficult To Acquire It's getting more and more difficult and expensive (and arbitrary) trying to get artists into America to perform. "In general we are talking $1,000 for the performer's petition, plus $1,000 for the technical staff petition, plus a $130 per-application fee each. That's $2,260. Plus, the AGMA and IATSE unions now charge $250 per letter of support. That's $2,760. You either have a huge budget that can accommodate that kind of extra money, or you're doing less international work, or you're more motivated to collaborate with partners." Village Voice 04/08/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 8:40 pm
Arthur Miller To Get Jerusalem Prize American playwright Arthur Miller has been chosen to receive the presitgious Jerusalem Prize. "The prize, awarded every two years, singles out literary achievements in the field of freedom of the individual in society, the prize committee said in a statement." Nando Times (AP) 04/09/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 12:04 am
NEA Chairman Dana Gioia's view of Theatre in America: "It cannot be a coincidence that the three greatest eras in theatre - which I would define as Athenian drama, Elizabethan drama, and 19th Century Italian opera - existed in those rare moments when all classes attended the theatre together. The dramatists had to find a way to create works that spoke across classes of people rather than flattered one particular group. So I believe we must aim high in quality and as broadly as possible in terms of audience. Anything less would be unworthy of a great public agency." Backstage 04/09/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 12:19 am
The Kentucky Derby Of Theatre The plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival can be surprising, but "perhaps the strangest spectacle of all is an overflowing international crowd of press, theatre pros, alumni, locals, and just-plain theatre junkies who descend on a city block of this courtly, urbane Kentucky city to binge on eight programs of nothing but new plays by living American writers." Backstage 04/09/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 12:15 am
London Theatre Gets Political Who says the theatre hasn't been political? To Michael Billington's surprise, over the past few weeks London theatre has been "startlingly repoliticised and has confronted, directly or obliquely, the conflict in Iraq. The Guardian (UK) 04/10/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 11:13 pm
Rosetta To Put Out Random House E-ditions "RosettaBooks, which in 2001 angered Random House by putting out digital versions of William Styron's Sophie's Choice and other titles without the publisher's consent, announced Wednesday it had agreed with Random House on the release of 51 e-books... Under an out-of-court settlement reached last December, Rosetta was allowed to keep publishing Sophie's Choice and the other books and collaborate with Random House on additional releases." Los Angeles Times (AP) 04/10/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 6:05 am
The Believer Tiptoes Into View In recent weeks, a new magazine has begun to creep quietly onto the racks at a few select independent bookstores in the Midwest. It seems to be vaguely literary in nature, but also appears to flout a great many traditional rules of literary navel-gazing. It's called The Believer, and yet it's a bit unclear what its publishers might believe in. It has a manifesto instead of a title page, and makes no effort to stand out in any way, despite a clear attempt to appeal to a young, hipster literary crowd. So what is The Believer, and who is behind it? Let's just say that the new mag is a heartbreaking periodical of staggering marketing savvy. Chicago Tribune 04/10/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 5:49 am
The FBI Is Watching You American government law officials are visiting libraries to remove "sensitive" material, access records of what library patrons are reading, and, in at least one case, try to remove a librarian's computer hard drive because an email with the word "anthrax" had been recieved on it. Village Voice 04/08/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 10:54 pm
The UK's Favorite Book? Let's Try To Vote Legit The BBC is conducting a public search for the UK's most-loved book. But the broadcaster wants to avoid attempted manipulation of the voting, as happened last year with the public vote that named Winston Churchill the country's Favorite Briton. "The Churchill bandwagon beat off a well-orchestrated campaign for Isambard Kingdom Brunel, headed by students at Brunel University, who voted en-masse on the internet for the man who gave their institution its name. Bookmakers were so convinced the students' campaign would work that they stopped taking bets, and the episode led to allegations that the BBC had fixed the poll by deliberately placing the Churchill documentary last in the series so he would be freshest in the viewers' memory." London Evening Standard 04/09/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 8:02 pm
Murdoch Buys DirecTV Capping a three-year effort to gain a foothold in the U.S. satellite TV market, Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch has engineered the purchase of a majority share of the nation's largest home satellite provider. Under the terms of the deal, Murdoch's News Corp., which owns the Fox network and an extensive array of regional sports networks, will acquire 34% of DirecTV's parent company. The deal is said to be worth $6.6 billion. The Star Tribune (AP) 04/10/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 6:09 am
Far East Film Fest, Hold the Far Easterners As previously threatened, Italian government officials in the small northeastern town of Udine have told organizers of the Far East Film Festival that they must withdraw their invitations to all guests from the Far East, due to concerns about the SARS outbreak. "Although there are no travel restrictions on people from the Far East, the World Health Organisation has warned about large gatherings of people from Eastern Asian areas." BBC 04/10/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 5:18 am
- Previously: SARS Hits European FilmFest Despite the fact that Severe Acute Repiratory Syndrome (SARS) has yet to sigificantly impact Europe, fear of the outbreak is wreaking havoc with Italy's Far East Cinema Festival, which screens films and features filmmakers from throughout Asia. Organizers insist that there is no danger to the Italian populace, but there is a distinct possibility of government intervention in the festival's guest list. "22 actors, directors and producers from Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai may be uninvited because of the concerns of local people about the spread of SARS." BBC 04/07/03
Movies On TV? Time To Move On "Britain has been Europe's most movie-intensive television market for more than 40 years. Until relatively recently, this has made perfect sense. Before it was possible for viewers to compile their own private film library, the belated television screening of a successful theatrical release was a genuine broadcasting event." But with so much non-TV access to movies, it's time for programming to move on. Financial Times 04/09/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 10:46 pm
The All-Important 18-to-24s The 18-to-49 American TV demographic is "the single most important factor in determining what we see, hear and read. Appealing to young adults and trend-setting teenagers in an effort to sate ad buyers has promoted numerous media trends, among them the proliferation of so-called reality television, since the genre disproportionately attracts them; the 1990s surplus of yuppie-something sitcoms; news channels streaming text up, down and sideways; and even shorter newspaper articles, usually accompanied by pictures the size of a cantaloupe. Now, beyond tailoring sitcoms and dramas to a younger crowd, news coverage increasingly reflects this infatuation, from model-like anchors to gee-whiz graphics that translate the war into video-game language for those conversant in Nintendo and PlayStation."
Los Angeles Times 04/09/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 10:22 pm
Clear Channel Cuts Tied With Paid Promoters Clear Channel Communications, the biggest radio company in the US, "said it would cut ties with music promoters who are paid by record labels to trumpet songs to radio stations, saying the long-standing practice gives the appearance of 'pay for play'." The company has been widely criticized for the practice. "We have zero tolerance for "pay for play,' but want to avoid even the suggestion that such a practice takes place within our company." Reuters 04/09/03
Posted: 04/09/2003 10:01 pm
Nureyev And The Royal - What Might Have Been What would have happened if Rudolf Nureyev had become head of London's Royal Ballet? Nureyev wanted the job, and Royal managing director John Tooley talked with him. "The Royal Ballet needed a new director in the mid-Seventies and approached Nureyev. Tooley remembers several discussions with him, in which Nureyev finally said that he would like the job but would also need to continue dancing. He never made any secret of his need to be on stage, but he also needed a fall-back if he proved unsuited to directing. Tooley answered that if Nureyev continued dancing to the extent he wanted, this simply wouldn't meet the company's needs. End of negotiations." The Independent (UK) 04/09/03
Posted: 04/10/2003 12:24 am
