Ideas Universal Translator "In the era when it is proposed that computers translating machines will soon be able to perform most translating tasks, what we call literary translation perpetuates the traditional sense of what translation entails. The new view is that translation is the finding of equivalents; or, to vary the metaphor, that a translation is a problem, for which solutions can be devised. In contrast, the old understanding is that translation is the making of choices, conscious choices, choices not simply between the stark dichotomies of good and bad, correct and incorrect, but among a more complex dispersion of alternatives, such as good versus better and better versus best, not to mention such impure alternatives as old-fashioned versus trendy, vulgar versus pretentious, and abbreviated versus wordy." Times Literary Supplement 06/12/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 7:17 pm Note To Historians: Travel, Open Your Minds! There was a time in mid-20th Century that American historians and critics set American culture in the context of the rest of the world. "In the global contest with Soviet films and ballet companies, America's most eminent historians and literary critics found themselves writing about the United States from a transnational perspective. They also served as guest lecturers and visiting professors overseas, confronting audiences and points of view different from the ones they were used to at home, even as they tried to spread the word about the virtues of America's culture and civilization." But "starting in the 1970s, it was no longer fashionable in academic circles to write about 'America' as a community of shared beliefs and values." And over the next few decades, that sense of transnational perspective was replaced with more provincial perspectives. Chronicle of Higher Education 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 4:56 pm Visual Arts Iraq Museum Staff In Revolt Most of the staff of Iraq's National Museum are revolting against museum leadership. "More than 130 of the 185 staff of Iraq's state board of antiquities office in Baghdad, which runs the museum, have signed a petition demanding the resignation of its directors. Staff said they believed that some of the thefts from the museum were an inside job. They also accused Dony George, the board's head of research, of arming them and ordering them to fight US forces." The Guardian (UK) 06/17/03 Posted: 06/17/2003 6:36 am Art Vigilantes Threaten To Tear Down Art A piece of public art in Sydney that some residents call "poo on sticks" has so infuriated protesters that a group of "art vigilantes has threatened to tear it down. "The group, which calls itself the Revolutionary Council for the Removal of Bad Art in Public Places, has set a three-month deadline for the offending sculpture to be whisked away. If the deadline is not met, it says, the work will be defaced or destroyed. 'We have blowtorches, angle grinders and bolt cutters, and we will use them if necessary'." The Independent (UK) 06/17/03 Posted: 06/17/2003 6:31 am My Life As A Dog Canada's representative at this year's Venice Biennale is a film directed and shot by a dog. "For all its carefree frolicking 35 cm above ground, Stanley's [the dog] perspective and Jana Sterbak's editing produce a profoundly affecting piece that is shown on six screens zig-zagging across the length of the Canadian pavilion. It conveys both the exuberance of a young pup's discovery of the world, but also his nervous, toddler-like dependency on the people looking after him. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/17/03 Posted: 06/17/2003 6:19 am Venice - Ideas, Ideas, Who's Got The Ideas? "There are hundreds of artists and works in the Venice Biennale, which opened to the public last Sunday. So many voices and idioms, so many fractured dialogues, so many languages. Everyone comes to Venice, but everyone comes from somewhere else. There can be no totalising critique or curatorial stance, nor any shared artistic value we can depend on. Only one thing is certain: that pain is universal." The Guardian (UK) 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 7:48 pm Lala, The Artistic Chimp One of the more entertaining artists at this year's Venice Biennale is Lala, a 20-year-old chimpanzee. Not just any old ape, but a simian Sophia Loren, known for her "classic" Italian caper movie Bongo Bongo, and now the star of the biennale's most bizarre happening, Spelling U-T-O-P-I-A. Her installation turns on assembling six-lettered dice to spell Utopia." The Guardian (UK) 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 7:37 pm Monumental Decision Proposals are being considered for a memorial on the site of the World Trade Center. Such competitions are necessarily good, writes Christopher Benfey. "In the end, we're likely to get a celebrity sculptor who burnishes his or her reputation with an idiosyncratically designed?and inevitably 'controversial'?monument. Or a sentimental and crowd-pleasing idea like the 'soaring' memorial envisaged by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. So, I have a simple proposal. My proposal is that we put nothing at all in that space?that it be left as a hollowed-out void." Slate 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 7:04 pm Swiss Artists Win Top Prize At Venice Biennale Peter Fischli and David Weiss won the Golden Lion for best work exhibited in the international exhibition at this year's Venice Biennale. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 5:36 pm Iraq's Archaeological Sites Still Being Looted Looting of Iraqi archaeological sites is continuing, accoring to a survey of the country. "The worst looting is taking place in the south of Iraq. Umma, Isin and Adab - Sumerian settlements of the 3rd millennium BC, north west of Nasiriyah - are still being pillaged on a massive scale." The Art Newspaper 06/14/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 4:47 pm Arts Issues Education - Your Ad Here As schools across America cut back on classes and programs, corporations are seeing opportunity and stepping in with funding. And, of course, opportunities to market their products to children. Critics don't like the trend. "Children are more susceptible in school because they tend to believe that what they learn there is valid. So a commercial message in schools, no matter how subtle, gives an aura of responsibility and truth. Companies acknowledge they are trying to reach their current and future customers, but say their programs promote goodwill and help cash-strapped schools." Washington Post 06/15/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 5:59 pm California's Dollars-For-Arts Protest As a protest against California's cuts in arts funding, arts supporters are being asked to mail the Art Council dollar bills with the names of state senators written in red on the bills. "The suggested donations would be part of a protest against Gov. Gray Davis' proposed cuts in the council's budget. Grappling with the state's fiscal crisis, he has suggested trimming that budget from $22.4 million to $8.4 million." Los Angeles Times 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 4:40 pm People The Making Of Helen Keller "Fifty years ago, even twenty, nearly every ten-year-old knew who Helen Keller was. 'The Story of My Life,' her youthful autobiography, was on the reading lists of most schools, and its author was popularly understood to be a heroine of uncommon grace and courage, a sort of worldly saint. Much of that worshipfulness has receded. No one nowadays, without intending satire, would place her alongside Caesar and Napoleon; and, in an era of earnest disabilities legislation, who would think to charge a stone-blind, stone-deaf woman with faking her experience? Yet as a child she was accused of plagiarism, and in maturity of ?verbalism??substituting parroted words for firsthand perception. All this came about because she was at once liberated by language and in bondage to it, in a way few other human beings can fathom." The New Yorker 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 6:43 pm Hume Cronyn, 91 Veteran actor Hume Cronyn has died of prostate cancer. "He was known for his versatility as an actor, playing a wide variety of characters on stage. Mr. Cronyn, a compact, restless man who was once an amateur boxer and remained a featherweight 127 pounds all his life, was at home in everything from Shakespeare and Chekhov to Edward Albee and Beckett. The New York Times 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 5:12 pm Theatre Magnetic Idea - Canada's National Theatre Festival Does Canada need a national theatre festival? "The very undertaking both addresses some obvious lacks and points to some troubling challenges. English-Canadian theatre artists don't tour enough, leaving pockets of dynamic activity in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and Halifax that are largely mysterious to the other centres. Performers on Vancouver's burgeoning small theatre scene, for example, complain they can't find affordable venues in Toronto, to introduce their work to the country's largest theatre centre. So, the festival program put together by artistic director Mary Vingoe is consciously transnational." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 5:24 pm Publishing New Harry Not Expected To Swamp Publishers Again The last Harry Potter book threw the publishing business into turmoil when a second printing of 3 million copies was ordered within 48 hours of the book's release. "Some publishers were as much as six weeks late taking delivery on their fall lineups because the printers who make their books were too busy producing 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.' Even though it has an all-time record first U.S. printing of 8.5 million copies, 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' is not expected to upset the publishing business as its predecessor did. Book sales overall are low so there is more press capacity available, and because the book is overdue, North American printers have had more time to figure out how to handle it." The Star -Tribune (Minneapolis) 06/17/03 Posted: 06/17/2003 7:04 am What's The Male Version Of Chick Lit? Chick Lit is a big thing. But is there a male equivalent? Not really, writes Steve Almond. "The last time I checked, 70 percent of readers were women, and I'd put the percentage who read relationship fiction (the broader province of Chick/Dick lit) to be in the high 90s. Almost the entire crowd at the panel on Singledom was female. And the vast majority of my own readers — from what I can tell — are women. This is because women are more likely to struggle, in a conscious way, with the problems that beset romantic relationships, to talk about these problems, and to seek out writing that makes them feel less alone with the psychic tumult of affairs of the heart." MobyLives 06/17/03 Posted: 06/17/2003 7:00 am The Super Bowl And World Cup Of Publishing The release of the new Harry Potter installment is as big as publishing gets. "The launch of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, at midnight on Friday, is going to make the launch of an Apollo rocket look like a shamefaced sidling-away. It is the largest such event in bookselling history. Bloomsbury, JK Rowling's publisher, is not saying exactly how big the first print run is going to be, but it has been estimated at two million in this country, 8.5 million in the States." London Evening Standard 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 7:52 pm Media Warning: Public Broadcasting Is Dying PBS and NPR are cratering, and unless a new model of funding emerges, public broadcasting as we know it will die. No more Barney. No more American Experience. No more sensible, well-reasoned, soft-spoken discussions headed by Jim Lehrer. The regional and local flavor that member stations represent more so than local broadcast affiliates of the private networks will evaporate. Reality television and its spawn will not. The FCC can prevent that from happening by negotiating a better deal for the public with the global media giants." MSNBC 06/13/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 6:21 pm Could Big-Media Control The Internet? Big media companies control radio and TV. Could they also control the internet? Some critics warn that they could. "The Internet could become like cable television, a pay-as-you-go service with price tags for premium channels, Cooper says. The content and service provider would favor its own content and shut out nonprofit groups and start-up sites. For example, an ISP/content provider's search engine would display its own products first--or exclusively. Media companies clearly have their eyes on "convergence," blending distribution across print, broadcast, and digital devices. Critics fear this means big media will silence smaller players online as well." PCWorld 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 5:52 pm Dance ABT Director Resigns The executive director of the troubled American Ballet Theatre has resigned. Elizabeth Harpel Kehler was the third director to resign in three years. "Her predecessor, Louis G. Spisto, was forced to resign in 2001 amid accusations of mismanagement. Wallace Chappell served from October 2001 to August 2002, when he was moved by Ballet Theater's new chairman into the newly created position of director of strategic initiatives." The New York Times 06/17/03 Posted: 06/17/2003 6:38 am Toning Up With Ballet More and more people are taking to ballet as a new exercise regimen. "The release of the New York City Ballet's second workout has added to the attraction. The video, which has shifted more than 250,000 copies worldwide, has just been released in Britain. Already the tasteful images of perfectly toned, graceful yet powerful bodies have been enough to make women desert their pilates and ashtanga for a session at the barre." The Independent (UK) 06/16/03 Posted: 06/16/2003 7:26 pm