IDEAS
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas
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Why People Loot "Looting seems about as psychologically complicated as, 'Hey, outta my way - I saw it first!' Yet the sociologists who study crowd behavior say that looting is commonly misunderstood. 'Looting is not just lawlessness. It's not that looting is a good thing. But there's a logic to it. You get a sense, from what people loot and destroy, of which things they think are illegitimate. The things left standing are the parts of society that people feel some solidarity with'." Chicago Tribune 05/02/03
Are You A "Choice Machine" Or Our You A "Situation-Action Machine"? Situation-action machines are built with a bunch of rules that say, "If in situation X, do A," "If in situation B, do Z," and so forth. It’s as if you had a list that you kept in your wallet and when important decisions came up, you looked at the list. If the conditions for a particular decision were met, you just did it. You don’t know why. It’s just that the rule says to do it. A choice machine is different. A choice machine looks at the world and sees options, and it says, "If I did this, what would happen? If I did that, what would happen? If I did this other thing, what would happen?" It builds up an anticipation of what the likely outcome of one action or another would be, and then chooses on the basis of how much that outcome is valued or disvalued." Reason 05/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20030501-22202.html
Criticism As Conversation Why is it that people expect reviews to have the absolute judgment on whether something was good or not? After a series of complaints about his critics' critical judgments, the arts editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer [no byline on the online story] feels a little clarification is in order. "Criticism is an argument, done more or less intelligently, that presents years of accumulated experience with a certain rhetorical panache. It is an educated opinion whose point is to further a conversation." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 05/02/03
UK Lottery Losses - Arts Projects Over Budget And Poorly Planned In the UK, 13 of 15 lottery-funded arts building projects are over budget, leading to warnings from the national audit office. "The Arts Council stands to lose £10.5 million alone on the disastrous National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield, which closed after just over a year." The Guardian (UK) 05/02/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030501-22197.html
Can Culture Be Good (Or Effective) Diplomacy? A conference mounted by the National Arts Journal Program at Columbia University considers the role of American culture in diplomacy. "Would we, for example, be breeding goodwill toward the American way of life by spawning a generation of Iraqi rappers? Or how about appointing as cultural ambassador the documentary director Michael Moore, who used his Oscar moment to pillory the president, thereby making himself a poster boy for freedom of speech? Do we stick to commercial fare and disseminate movies in which American action heroes gun down large numbers of anonymous villains? Or should we funnel funds to an independent American cultural center in Baghdad, whose director might misjudge the local sensitivity to sexually suggestive images and curate a show of, say, the pornographic sculptures of Jeff Koons?" Newsday 04/27/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030501-22196.html
Cincinnati - The Next Arts Mecca? Seriously - is there something in the water? From Cincinnati, the city that recently doubled its public spending on the arts, news that the city's Fine Arts Fund raised $10,003,550 in its 2003 campaign, 7.5 percent more than last year. This while fundraising for the arts in the rest of America has been increasingly difficult Cincinnati Enquirer 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030501-22193.html
Has Harvard Abandoned The Arts? "Unlike Yale, Cornell, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard has no independent graduate school of the arts, nor any plans to fund graduate-level work in the practice of art. And ever since spring 2001, when the chair of the Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) department was dismissed and Summers was named president, the University’s commitment to the arts has come under fire. Critics argue that Harvard’s archaic reluctance to recognize and incorporate the arts into its academic mission may discourage talented prospective students from choosing Harvard and threaten its prestige." Harvard Crimson 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030501-22192.html
A Thinking Woman's College Ups The Arts Ante Bryn Mawr College, just outside Philadelphia, is a famously intellectual place. But despite great achievement in many academic disciplines, the all-women's school has traditionally shunned such pursuits as education and the arts, perhaps because women have so often been pushed in these directions in the past as a way of keeping them from getting 'real' jobs. But this is the 21st century, where women are no longer expected to be only schoolteachers and housewives, and Bryn Mawr is adjusting its curriculum accordingly, adding an intensive creative writing and literature program in an effort to fill the artistic void. Chicago Tribune (Knight Ridder) 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030501-22120.html
A Legal Right To Be A Thoughtless Fool Owners of an Irish movie theater have been informed that they are breaking national communications law by employing a signal blocker to disable their patrons' cell phones during screenings. The theater had installed the blocker as a response to an epidemic of moviegoers sending and receiving text messages on their phones, or even talking on them, while a film was playing. But as it turns out, such devices are illegal even to possess, and the use of one to block wireless transmissions carries a hefty fine. BBC 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030501-22109.html
A Rockin' Good-time Feel-Good Movie In 25 Words Or Less The British Film Council has "caused a stir with its announcement that it is paying £12,500 in development readies to young British film-makers on the basis of a Hollywood-style 25-word pitch. Four projects have been chosen to benefit from the public purse." Twenty-five words? Just how do you go about selling a movie idea in 25 words? Imagine some classic movies pitched in a line or two... The Guardian (UK) 05/02/03
Complaints About BBC Double The number of complaints to the BBC doubled last year. "A total of 1,596 complaints were looked into in the year to March, compared with 794 in the previous 12 months. The corporation?s director general, Greg Dyke, claimed this was due to viewers now being able to email their views, rather than a rise in broadcasts prompting complaints." The Scotsman 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030501-22187.html
Everything's Coming Up Knockoffs Seems like everything's a sequel these days. "Studios this year are delivering a record 25 sequels or prequels, the big onslaught starting with pre-summer releases of 'X2: X-Men United' and 'The Matrix Reloaded.' Sequels used to be hasty carbon copies meant to wring out a few more dollars from an earlier success. Studios today have learned that putting more thought and resources into follow-ups can produce franchises with bigger returns." Backstage 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030501-22186.html
Change of Heart "The [Canadian] government plans to restore the $25-million subtracted from the Canadian Television Fund, sources at CBC and CTV say. 'There will be a fall Canadian TV season after all' is the way one CBC producer reacted to the unconfirmed news yesterday that the federal government will reverse its position and top up the fund that subsidizes Canadian TV programming to its former level of $100 million annually. The cut had resulted in chaos in producer offices and sparked industry protests as dozens of Canadian TV series and TV movies failed to receive funding grants. CBC and CTV were particularly hard hit." Toronto Star 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030501-22141.html
Florida Phil Didn't Make Fundraising Goal The Florida Philharmonic is $17 million short of its fundraising goal, and its deadline for the money is today. "Philharmonic executive director Trey Devey said the group raised about $3 million of its goal of amassing $20 million in 10 days, which ends today. The money would have put the perennially cash-strapped orchestra on the road to financial stability, orchestra officials said. Without the $20 million, the 52-member board must choose from three options..." Miami Herald 05/02/03
Opera Australia Cuts Season Opera Australia is cutting its season in response to lower funding. "The number of operas in next year's autumn season will drop from five to four, reducing its length by about three weeks. It used to do six." The Age (Melbourne) 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030501-22201.html
Buffalo, Rochester Orchestras Discussing Merger? Are the financially-ailing Rochester and Buffalo Philarmonics discussing a merger? That was the indication this week from Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello. “There have been conversations between Buffalo Philharmonic and Rochester Philharmonic about joint ventures or merging. Those are some difficult issues.” But the orchestras say nothing's in the works. Rochester Democrat & Chronicle 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030501-22200.html
Jazz - A Dying Breed "As jazz settles into its second century, the number of musicians who qualify as living legends diminishes each year. Even in the 1970s — when the music was arguably at its lowest commercial ebb — many of the greatest names in its history were still rumbling around the five-star circuit. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus: all commanded the biggest stages. Today, it is harder and harder to find those living links with the past. The recent death of the showman Lionel Hampton was another reminder of how few titans are still with us." Is the era of the jazz concert coming to a close? The Telegraph (UK) 05/02/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030501-22199.html
Recording Industry Settles Downloading Lawsuits With Students A recording industry trade group says it has settled lawsuits it brought against four college students for music downloading. Settlements range from $12,000 to $17,500 each, with four college students the industry claimed had been operating illegal song-swap networks on campuses. Yahoo! (Reuters) 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030501-22188.html
Change Is In The Air In Pittsburgh The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is in full red alert mode. The PSO is facing enormous deficits, little community support, and its search for a new managing director appears to be dragging on a bit, even as other major orchestras begin to snatch up promising candidates. Furthermore, the orchestra's musicians have no input into the search process, which is highly unusual among major orchestras, and no one seems quite sure where the organization is headed. But everyone involved seems to agree that, whomever the PSO settles on as its new chief executive, a major change in the way the orchestra does business is a must. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030501-22140.html
Sawallisch Does Carnegie, But Cancels In Philly It seems that Wolfgang Sawallisch's tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra is coming to an end none too soon. The 79-year-old maestro, who has been battling severe fatigue lately, managed to muster the strength to conduct his final Carnegie Hall concert with the Fabulous Philadelphians this week, but his exhaustion has forced him to pull out of this week's concerts back in Philly, and the orchestra is making no guarantees that he will even be on hand for his farewell concerts next week, or for a taxing 3-week tour beginning immediately thereafter. All this is unfortunate, says Peter Dobrin, but "Sawallisch's last Carnegie concert will stand as a stunning and poignant musical memento." Philadelphia Inquirer 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030501-22139.html
Edmonton's Other Orchestra Evolves Metamorphosis, an Edmonton-based chamber orchestra, has had a good first season after being born from the ashes of the relationship between the Edmonton Symphony musicians and their management. Grzegorz Nowak, the conductor who was deposed from the symphony's music directorship only to announce that he would stay in town and start his own orchestra, has backed off his original brash plans of competing directly with his old employer, and crafted a much-needed niche ensemble. In fact, starting next season, the smaller group, which will be renamed the Canadian Chamber Orchestra, will be playing its concerts at the same hall occupied by the Edmonton Symphony. Edmonton Journal 04/30/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030501-22111.html
How Cheap Does Music Have To Be? Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the company's long-awaited new music downloading service this week, with a single song going for 99 cents. That's a good price, but many observers are already saying that it isn't nearly good enough to lure consumers away from peer-to-peer file swapping services, where they can get the same songs for free. There seems to be no shortage of opinions on what the proper price of a song really is, but no one really knows how Apple will fare, since their unique non-subscription-style download service hasn't really been tried before. Wired 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030501-22110.html
Auctioning Isaac Stern An internet auction of 180 items from violinist Isaac Stern's estate has begun. "The items from the Stern estate range from violins, violin bows and photographs to his humidor and Steinway & Sons piano. Potentially the most valuable piece is a violin made by Frenchman Jean Baptiste Vuillaume around 1850. Bidding for the violin started at $47,500." Los Angeles Times (AP) 05/02/03
Nunn Surfaces With The Serious Trevor Nunn has been gone from London's National Theatre only a month, and he's launched into a new career - directing Ibsen. "No longer having to explain his decisions, he seems unburdened and even unbuttoned in the usual - and successfully youthful - head-to-toe denim (he is 63). He had hoped to do the Ibsen, in a new version by Pam Gems, at the National. But it got endlessly postponed, so when the Almeida asked me it seemed the obvious choice." London Evening Standard 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030501-22198.html
Great Germans - No Hitler Allowed German TV is adapting the BBC's "Great Britons" poll to choose a "Great German." But "in Germany, the voting procedure has been modified to stop Hitler or any his followers being included. A panel of experts will nominate 250 people. The public will then be invited to chose 50 more before the final voting begins." BBC 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030501-22184.html
Blurring Art And Politics Randall Packer is the U.S. Secretary of Art & Technology. Didn't know there was one, did you? Well, okay, there isn't. The whole thing is a performance art piece. And a website. And a series of treatises. But there's a considerable amount of real-world crossover in Packer's work, and the questions he's raising about art, politics, money, and government are as valid and fascinating as if his Cabinet-level post were real. Washington Post 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030501-22142.html
Piatigorsky at 100 "Among those whose music-making produced a level of beauty, insight and involvement practically alien to the present, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky will always be regarded highly." But with the decline in classical record sales and a general 'embrace-the-new' attitude in classical music, how many listeners really know Piatigorsky anymore? However many it is, the number should increase soon. Piatigorsky would have turned 100 this month, and several Baltimore-area arts organizations are celebrating with concerts, exhibits, and remembrances from family, friends, and colleagues. Baltimore Sun 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030501-22112.html
Learning To Speak Good Grammer hasn't been consistently taught in schools for years. "Studies from as far back as 1963 have told teachers that it is useless and even "harmful" to teach diagramming, or for that matter any formal lessons on grammar. Students, according to the studies, retained little from old-fashioned grammar lessons, which stole time better spent on reading and writing. What's more, they suggested that focusing on grammatical errors would inhibit the students' creativity. As a result, grammar textbooks were long ago trashed and teachers were instructed to deal with usage problems one on one, when there was time. College education programs gave short shrift to grammar - and so, some veteran teachers say, many teachers don't know it well themselves. But grammar, once the meat and potatoes of any child's education, is back on the table." Newsday 05/02/03
Delayed Satisfaction There are lots of reasons to embargo releases of books. "But more and more, embargoes are about creating hype for books that would have gone unnoticed. Maybe, as publishers will tell you, controlling the publicity increases awareness and sales. But it seems to me that, like all weapons of mass dissemination, embargoes should be used very, very sparingly." New York Observer 04/29/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030501-22190.html
Critics Or Muggers? Bad reviews suck. Particularly bad book reviews. "There's no appeals process. No way to defend yourself in the court of public opinion, nor to question the critic's qualifications. Whatever they say, you eat. Period. Of course, if you happen to be named Clancy or King, or even Updike, a bad review doesn't matter so much, because you've already got an established audience. But for most writers, the plain cold fact is that critics determine how your work is regarded by most of the world. Consider the math: Tens of thousands of people read the reviews in major newspapers. Only a fraction of that number ever read the books being reviewed. If anything, writers suffer bad reviews more deeply than other artists." Poets & Writers 05/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030501-22189.html
Potter Books Removed In India JK Rowling's lawyers have succeeded in getting two Harry Potter knockoff books removed from bookstore shelves in India. "One is an illegal Bengali translation of the first book, Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone but the other is a brand new text, starring the boy wizard but set in Calcutta." BBC 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030501-22183.html
Hallmark & Angelou: A Match Made In The 9th Concentric Circle "Will National Poetry Month never end? I can't thing of any trumped-up, tricked-out, fake 'celebration' that has done more to rekindle my latent disdain for poets as worthless malingerers angling for the main chance... As if on cue, Hallmark Cards just dumped samples on my desk from Maya Angelou's 'Life Mosaic' line of Mother's Day kitsch. Hallmark is peddling gift cards bedecked with empty little maxims penned by the prolific hack and landfill-ready gifts such as a microwave safe, ceramic 'Giving' bowl, stomach-churning sentiment included: 'Gather around the table to pass this bowl of nourishment. And to serve a portion of healing ... .' What happened to this woman's dignity?" Boston Globe 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030501-22113.html
Big Business Kids In America "children's theatre is big industry, with budgets for some theatres soaring as high as $9 million per year. The number of children who are served by these theatres is in the millions (4.6 million entertained by the New York-based Theatreworks/USA alone) and the companies that are committed to theatre for children and/or teenagers are booming." So what's different about doing theatre for kids? Backstage 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030501-22185.html
Seeking Saddam Auditions have been held in London for a Saddam lookalike for a new play. "The show's organisers were surprised at the turnout, as 14 actors and amateurs donned military fatigues and berets for the open audition at London's Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith. As the script, by Feelgood author Alistair Beaton, is still being written, the lookalikes were required to do nothing more than wave to imaginary crowds in the manner of the deposed dictator." BBC 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030501-22182.html
Lousy Time To Hold A Festival "The disastrous opening days of the World Stage festival at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre left organizers joking about biblical plagues. The final ones left them facing a modern one." From the war in Iraq to a freak ice storm to cancellations to the SARS outbreak, World Stage was a disaster from beginning to end this year, and the hit came at a time when the festival was already struggling financially. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030501-22124.html
RSC Moving Towards Mixed Casting The arts are all about diversity, of course, but in the theatre world, it can be difficult to draw certain lines. Can a black actor play Hamlet? If so, can a white actor play Othello, whose race is central to the play that bears his name? And what about accents? Must actors performing Shakespeare all use a standard, stock 'Shakespeare' accent? (Think Laurence Olivier or John Gielgud.)Increasingly, the answer has been that 'mixed casting' is not only allowable, but useful in many situations, and even the most staid and conservative companies are starting to experiment. Case in point: the venerable Royal Shakespeare Company, which has been raising some eyebrows during a residency in Washington, D.C. Chicago Tribune 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030501-22121.html
Theft, Damage Estimates At Iraq Museum Are Cut It's starting to become clear that estimates of the theft and damage of Iraq's National Museum were too high. "While many museum officials watched in horror as mobs and perhaps organized gangs rampaged through the museum's 18 galleries, seized objects on display, tore open steel cases, smashed statues and broke into storage vaults, officials now discount the first reports that the museum's entire collection of 170,000 objects had been lost. Some valuable objects were placed for safekeeping in the vaults of the Central Bank before the war. Other objects were placed in the museum's own underground vaults; only when power was restored this week could curators begin assessing what was lost. Even in some of the looted galleries, a few stone statues are intact. Still more encouragingly, several hundred small objects — including a priceless statue of an Assyrian king from the ninth century B.C. — have been returned to the museum." The New York Times 05/01/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030501-22194.html
Most Stolen 1991 Gulf War Art Was Never Recovered After the 1991 Gulf War, a list of artifacts stolen from Iraq museums was compiled - about 2000 objects were missing. "Eleven years later, experts say, no more than half a dozen of the pieces have been tracked down. Many others are presumed to have been traded away through a thriving international market in antiquities. The poor record of returning artifacts lost after the gulf war suggests the daunting obstacles that museum officials and police investigators face as they commit to finding items recently sacked from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad and other sites." The New York Times 05/01/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030501-22195.html
Museum Attendance Surges Back To Normal In NY After a slump after 9/11, museum attendance in New York has returned to normal or increased, according to the Association of Art Museum Directors in New York. The report says that "museums have mostly been able to maintain, or even increase, their pre-9/11 staffing and programs." Christian Science Monitor 05/02/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030501-22191.html
Up On The Roof: A Sure Sign Of Spring "Few rites of spring are quite as delightful as the opening, each May, of the sculpture garden atop the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This year the honor goes to the late Roy Lichtenstein. One of the prime movers of Pop Art, Lichtenstein was not exactly a bad sculptor, but he certainly wasn't a good one, either. And yet, such is the magic of the sculpture garden that absolutely anything you put up there will look good." New York Post 05/01/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030501-22138.html
