ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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Glasgow - Where's Your Culture Now? So many cities were anxious to be named European Capital of Culture because of what the title did 13 years ago for Glasgow. The city was touted for its rebuilding. "But what happened to Glasgow? It is 13 years since the high point of its renaissance and the media spotlight has moved elsewhere. Along with the re-emergence of England's regional cities, Edinburgh has been buoyed by devolution and an accompanying cash influx. Glasgow has fallen off the radar." The Guardian (UK) 06/08/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030609-24435.html
Trying To Lure The Young With Arts Cincinnati is losing its 20-somethings, who are moving out of the city. But instead of trying to lure new businesses to the city in an effort to keep its younger citizens, the city is promoting lifestyle and the arts. "New plans promote sidewalk cafes, hip local music and an energized entertainment strip. Attention to arts, culture and downtown living are replacing old ideas about building new department stores and riverfront towers. 'I would love to see a Cincinnati that has sidewalks full of people after the offices close, that has local music all the time, that has people attending arts events on a regular basis'." Cincinnati Inquirer 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030609-24428.html
Toronto: It Takes Money To Get To The Next Level If Toronto wants to get to the next cultural level, says a new government report, the city must increase its per capita spending on the arts to $25 from its current $14.64. "Culture Plan for the Creative City, commissioned from the city's culture division 18 months after the province created the amalgamated city of Toronto, contains 60 recommendations designed to push the Ontario capital "to the next level" following last year's commitment of almost $240-million from the federal and provincial governments to capital works for the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Canadian Opera Company, among others." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/10/03
Posted: 06/10/2003 7:21 am
Has Mark Morris Peaked?: Laura Jacobs acknowledges that Mark Morris is the natural heir to Balanchine. But then he peaked. And it's been downhill ever since. "I became disenchanted with Mark Morris in the 1990s. I tired of a gender neutrality that yet left women with the short end of the stick, mainly because the dances showed so little interest in la femme (these girls are kind of like Anybodys in West Side Story, heartfelt tomboys). And Morris’s gift for metaphor began to seem played out, or perhaps abandoned, as if he was no longer interested in his most fundamental poetic device. Metaphor, after all, is artifice. It was increasingly clear that Morris’s early work was his best work, and it never got better than Dido and Aeneas." The New Criterion 06/03
http://artsjournal.com/dance/redir/20030609-24430.html
Numero Uno In New York What's the top-rated radio show in New York? Howard Stern you say? That's sooo yesterday. No, the city's No. 1 show is on Spanish-language radio - Luis Jimenez on 'La Mega' (WSKQ/97.9-FM), whose 'El Vacilón de la Mañana' (which roughly translates to 'The Morning Party') beats Stern at his own style. "What gets me is that people think that just because the show is in Spanish, [our ratings] somehow don't count. But we see it as an even bigger victory for a Spanish show to be No. 1 over a Howard Stern." New York Daily News 06/10/03
Posted: 06/10/2003 7:43 am
The Real Reason Media Consolidation Is Bad "The familiar argument against such concentration is that, by giving a small number of companies too much control over the flow of information and content, it erodes democracy. But the problem isn’t just that a small number of companies run the media business right now; it’s that, under the current system, the same companies will likely be running the media business twenty years from now. Media concentration would be fine if there were genuine competition, but, practically speaking, there isn’t very much (at least, on the broadcast and programming side), thanks to the regulatory reforms of the early nineties (which, among other things, allowed TV networks to own their own shows, instead of having to buy them from outside studios) and the merger boom of the past few years." The New Yorker 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030609-24443.html
Studios Take Action Against Late Scripts TV studios and network executives are cracking down on writers and directors who deliver their scripts late. "A survey found that of the 651 hourlong episodes studied in the latest survey, 333 (51%) were on time, while 318 (49%) were late from one to 15 days, while 20% of the late scripts were late by as many as seven to 15 days." Studios say the late scripts add greatly to the budgets of the shows. Backstage 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030609-24427.html
Corporatizing The Juice Out Of Radio Those who think that the corporatization of hasn't destroyed local radio aren't listening to radio. "Radio stations where unknown bands might once have come knocking at the door no longer even have doors. They have become drone stations, where a once multifarious body of music has been pared down and segmented in bland formats, overlaid with commercials. As record companies scramble to replicate the music that gets airplay, pop music is turning in on itself and flattening out." The New York Times 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030609-24425.html
Crossover Christian The new Christian music doesnh't conform to a particular style. "A new crop of bands on Christian-owned labels, many playing Christian-owned clubs, has appeared. Unlike their forebears, who made weak imitations of already-popular music as a way to spread the Gospel, these new bands are making original, high-quality music and attracting fans for their sound, not their message. The Christian-rock underground is now as much a steppingstone to mainstream success as any other music scene." The New York Times 06/10/03
Posted: 06/10/2003 7:54 am
St. Louis: Record Ticket Sales, But $1.6 million Loss The St. Louis Symphony sold a record number of tickets this season, and for the first time box office exceeded $4 million. Still, "even with the strong ticket sales last season, the symphony will show an operating loss for fiscal 2003 of $1.6 million, as predicted by the long-term financial restructuring plan of the symphony. Ticket revenue makes up just 35 percent of the symphony's expenses, with annual giving contributing 25 percent and concession and miscellaneous revenue accounting for 15 percent." St. Louis Business Journal 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030609-24442.html
More Choice, Smaller Audiences? There is more choice for classical music in Scotland than ever before. "Things have changed dramatically. For a start, more people are actually listening to classical music, thanks largely to the populist phenomenon of Classic FM. The radio station that rams lollipops down your lughole with the systematic Pavlovian persuasiveness of Radio 1 may chop up the classics into snippets that match the diminishing concentration span of today’s average listener - and may be driven by blatant commercial forces such as one-sided Faustian contracts with artists and recording companies - but it has had the astonishing effect of shaking up BBC’s Radio 3." One problem thoug - many of the live concerts don't sell many tickets, and that's because... The Scotsman 06/10/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030609-24441.html
Study: Canada's Troubled Orchestras Canadian orchestras commission a study on the state of their business. The results are sobering. "Among its findings? That many orchestras lack a clearly articulated vision of what they are about. That boards are often untrained and imperfectly informed. That managers are so overworked that little time is devoted to planning. That close to a decade of budget cuts has begun to erode artistic quality." Toronto Star 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030609-24415.html
Celebrating French Music of the French Baroque is very popular right now. And no one has done more to popularize it than conductor William Christie. "Why this sudden surge of interest in music ignored by the public for 250 years? Partly it's a matter of the larger early-music movement and our culture's growing fascination with its own cultural legacy. That fascination has its healthy and unhealthy aspects, suggesting a welcome attention to its past and perhaps a waning interest in its creative present." The New York Times 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030609-24410.html
World Through The End Of A Bow Yo-Yo Ma has had remarkable success attracting audiences to hear his latest musical explorations. So does he ever think about slowing down? "There have been times at the end of the year when I can't even remember where I've been. I'm trying to spend more time with my family and only to go to places there's a good reason for going and do only things I really care about." The Telegraph (UK) 06/10/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030609-24438.html
Poetic Hospitality Where's the real action at a literary festival, asks Lynn Coady? In the hospitality suite provided for writers. "The really big writers never let themselves be lured by the corn nuts and beer, but the place is always seething with poets, who understandably live for (and sometimes because of) these events. This makes the hospitality suite one of the more interesting places to be at the festival, countless times more interesting than the ersatz discussion panels promising penetrating accounts into The Writing Life or illuminating and in-depth discussions among Writers in Conversation." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/10/03
Posted: 06/10/2003 7:30 am
OED: 6000 New Words To Learn The Oxford English Dictionary is about to add 6000 new words to its next edition. "The cosmetic treatment botox is included, as is Viagra. Minging is also honoured with a place among the dictionary's 187,000 definitions. It is defined as 'foul smelling or very bad, unpleasant'. Other slang terms include headcase, khazi and half-inching (pinching, or stealing)." The Independent (UK) 06/08/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030609-24433.html
Why Do Publishers Embargo Books? "Most media junkies know that when a book is 'embargoed,' they can expect a Big Gossipy Event. But why embargo a book in the first place? As a publicist who's embargoed everything from magazine articles to political speeches, I'll try to explain why the embargo can be a useful strategy." Slate 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030609-24432.html
The World's Smallest Book A book of the New Testament is so small it fits on the tip of an eraser. "According to the latest version of Guinness Book of World Records, the five-millimeter-square tablet is the smallest reproduction yet of a printed book. It was created in 2001 by two scientists in the field of object recognition, who call it a tool for archiving and authentication." The New York Times 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030609-24431.html
Business Noose Tightens Around University Presses University presses are in trouble. They've been pushed into a commercial marketplace in which they're ill-equipped to function. And the returns are killing them. "Because of returns, success can fail. If a book looks promising, stores will order most or all of a first printing; and the publisher will reprint. But there are always more promises made than kept, and not all books fulfill their promise. Then come the returns, and the publisher has all the copies from the new printing and piles from the first one. Last year, an Ivy League press had one month with more than a million dollars in returns. In some months, some presses had more returns than sales. Why are we so involved with returns? How did university presses move so far into the trade marketplace, ever further from their universities?" Chronicle of Higher Education 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030609-24426.html
Sorting Through The Orwell Noise George Orwell has become a symbol for many justifications... "Scholars and public intellectuals use him as a pretext for preening about the clichés of the moment. Self-regarding leftists assail him as a renegade and alleged 'snitch' because he denounced Stalinists. Revisionist historians of the Spanish Civil War, seeking to burnish the reputation of the Stalinists in that conflict, have made him their chief object of hatred. Certain diehard leftists, on the other hand, insist that had he lived Orwell would have remained faithful to socialism, not to capitalist democracy. Feminists use him as a target for their obsessions, projecting on him, decades back in time, their insistence that nobody of traditional masculine habits and prejudices can be considered worthy of respect." New York Sun 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030609-24421.html
Priced Out At Edinburgh Fringe? Prices for Edinburgh's Fringe Festival are climbing, and some are complaining. "We do try to keep prices as low as possible but producing a show in Edinburgh seems to cost more than in any other city in the world. For some reason, venue costs in Edinburgh are almost twice as much as anywhere else - and that includes London’s West End." The Scotsman 06/10/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030609-24440.html
Tonys Trounced By Hillary Despite lots of star power this year, Sunday night's Tony telecast dropped audience from last year. "The telecast, which expanded from two hours last year to three hours this year, averaged 7.9 million viewers, down a bit from last year's average of 8 million viewers." Sunday's big winner was Barbara Walters' interview with Hillary Clinton, which drew 13 million viewers. Los Angeles Times 06/09/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030609-24439.html
A Kiss Is Still A Kiss A lingering kiss between gay partners and their declaration of love in front of the cameras at the Tony Awards, stole the show Sunday night. "It was certainly the most prominent assertion of gay confidence at the awards yet, and comes at a time of a backlash against gay and lesbian relationships. 'I thought, 'No, no, no, this is the whole point.' The whole point is that we all have to risk something personal to make something happen. The more it's talked about the more it becomes commonplace, the less it becomes freakish. I think it's a good thing'." The Guardian (UK) 06/10/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030609-24434.html
Who Said What About Iraq Museum Looting? It is obvious now that the Iraq Museum was not looted of all its art. So what accounts for the reports that it had been, and statements made by t6he museum's director, Donny George? Says George: "There was a mistake. Someone asked us what is the number of pieces in the whole collection. We said over 170,000, and they took that as the number lost. Reporters came in and saw empty shelves and reached the conclusion that all was gone. But before the war we evacuated all of the small pieces and emptied the showcases except for fragile or heavy material that was difficult to move." This indictment of world journalism has caused some surprise to those who listened to George and others speak at the British Museum meeting. "Donny George himself had ample opportunity to clarify to the best of [his] knowledge the extent of the looting and the likely number of missing objects. Is it not a little strange that quite so many journalists went away with the wrong impression, while Mr George made little or not attempt to clarify the context of the figure of 170,000 which he repeated with such regularity and gusto before, during, and after that meeting." The Guardian (UK) 06/10/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030609-24437.html
Gallery Makes Offer On Prince Harry's Paintings Two paintings by Prince Harry shown as part of a TV piece on him as he graduates from Eton, have drawn a purchase offer of £10,000 from a gallery in Portugal. Sky News approached St James's Palace with the request. Half an hour later, a spokeswoman came back with the official reply: 'They aren't for sale'." SkyNews 06/09/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030609-24436.html
