Ideas Network Failures Are For Arts Too Network failures don't occur just in electrical power grids, writes Andrew Taylor. "Just think of the network of organizations, funders, and associations that create, present, support, and deliver the arts across America. These organizations and individuals are mostly running at over-capacity (long hours, low pay, bad computers, etc.). They are more interconnected than they know. Many are showing signs of burning out. And most of the generators that kept them going are cutting back or cutting out (state arts agencies, national foundations, individual donors, earned income, volunteer labor, etc.)." Artful Manager (AJBlogs) 08/15/03 Posted: 08/15/2003 7:22 am More Of Our Own... We all pay lip service to the idea of diversity - of ideas, of people. But David Brooks writes that most people want to stick to their own. "Maybe somewhere in this country there is a truly diverse neighborhood in which a black Pentecostal minister lives next to a white anti-globalization activist, who lives next to an Asian short-order cook, who lives next to a professional golfer, who lives next to a postmodern-literature professor and a cardiovascular surgeon. But I have never been to or heard of that neighborhood. Instead, what I have seen all around the country is people making strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves." The Atlantic 09/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 10:44 pm Visual Arts Hooligans Hack Up Public Art In Belgium Vandals have been destroying public arts this summer in Belgium. "Vandals have wrought destruction upon some of Belgium's biggest summer open air art exhibitions, and replacing the damaged exhibits is beyond the funds of many of the organisers of the displays." Expatica 08/14/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 10:05 pm Music Festival Music As Badge Of Honor The core audience at the BBC's Proms concerts come for reasons other than the music. "The origin of these summer traditions is a primal herd instinct, the urge to join with others in a festive act. When asked in a 2001 BBC survey why they chose to stand, most Prommers (38%) replied 'because of who I was with.' Others cited the 'atmosphere'. These are herd reactions, innocent as chewing cud. But mass ritual can turn sinister when combined with feats of endurance that engender a sense of superiority - of being part of an elite that embraces pain." La Scena Musicale 08/06/03 Posted: 08/15/2003 4:50 am Orchestra Joke Has Audience Running For The Exits The audience for a Sydney Symphony concert was clapping between every movement of a Tchaikovsky symphony. As a joke, the conductor also began applauding, then bade the orchestra rise for a bow. "But rather than creating an embarrassed silence for Tchaikovsky's tragic finale, the cheers swelled, the bravos grew, some took their coats and ran for trains, and it looked for a moment as though Tchaikovsky's most tragic work had become his most optimistic, its hidden program, of which he spoke but which he never revealed, rewritten with a happy ending..." Sydney Morning Herald 08/15/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 10:30 pm All Your Music, All Online Microsoft announces a new deal that will allow computer users to download music from all five major recording companies. "The new venture will be accessed through Microsoft's Windows Media Player software and will allow users to download songs from a choice of more than 200,000 by major artists." The Guardian (UK) 08/15/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 9:41 pm Indian Music Scores - But Can It Keep Its Soul? This summer music from rural India is scoring big audiences in Britain. "The buzz in the music industry is that bhangra and indeed other forms of Asian music are hot, and, at last, record executives and non-Asian music fans are waking up to the potential of the music." But as the music transfers to the West, can it keep its soul? The Guardian (UK) 08/15/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 9:36 pm Arts Issues Getting Creative About Earning Money Faced with a downturn in government funding for the arts, arts organizations are getting more creative in their fundraising. "On a national level, nonprofit entrepreneurship can be a big business. But wave of the future or not, entrepreneurship is hardly foolproof. Where it is possible to make money, it is almost always possible to lose it." Hartford Courant 08/15/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 9:54 pm People Kirk Varnedoe, 57 Former Museum of Modern Art curator Kirk Varnedoe has died at the age of 57. "Though he was an important historian of modern art from early on, and went on to public prominence as the top curator at the Museum of Modern Art, he never had much of the delicate aesthete about him. Kirk's athletic, virile manner made him an oddity in the art world, and less than a favorite of a few of its inhabitants. His forceful surface also contradicted the delicately subtle tenor of his work and thought." Washington Post 08/15/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 10:12 pm Lev Kerbel, 85 "Lev Kerbel, one of the premier sculptors of Socialist realist works whose statues of Lenin once graced city squares across the Eastern bloc, has died, NTV television reported Thursday. He was 85." Moscow Times 08/15/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 10:08 pm Publishing Can Internet Help Students Write? "Today's students are struggling with writing. The rise of the Internet is often blamed for this deficiency. Parents worry that children are cutting and pasting paragraphs from Web sites rather than writing their own. But in patches around the country, teachers say that online technology is now becoming a powerful tool for improving, rather than undermining, students' writing skills." The New York Times 08/14/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 10:22 pm Releasing Books Into The Wild "Bookcrossing has hit Manchester. On Saturday, hundreds of books will be released on to the streets of the city. Books by Martin Amis and Alex Garland will be distributed along with cookbooks and others on the history of steam locomotives in an event organised by Urbis, Manchester's museum of the city. It is an American phenomenon that began in April 2001 and has taken off throughout the world. Almost half a million books have been "released" and there are more than 146,000 members worldwide. Books are left behind (or released into the wild). They contain a unique identity number which is registered on the website (bookcrossing.com). When someone finds one, they can register on the site and track the journey it has taken before it reached them." The Guardian (UK) 08/14/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 9:49 pm Media The Inflatable Actors The thousands of extras required for the movie "Seabiscuit" aren't people. Nor are they computer generated. They're blow-up dolls - not that you could tell... "At a time when filmmakers are increasingly relying on digital imaging and special effects, the blowup extras represent something of a low-tech throwback. It recalls an earlier Hollywood era when production problems were solved through old-fashioned ingenuity, not high-tech trickery. Like so many interesting innovations in movie history, the inflatable dolls were born out of filmmaking necessity." Los Angeles Times 08/14/03 Posted: 08/15/2003 5:35 am Searching For Older Women Movie roles for older women are almost non-existant. A new documentary explores the problem. "There's more dignity in aging in France and England and Europe. You see many more women having better careers in their 50s and 60s. Here it's Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Sean Connery. Name three women of that age that are still working." San Francisco Chronicle 08/15/03 Posted: 08/15/2003 5:29 am Korean Movies Make Inroads On Korean Audiences Korean cinema is making a comeback with Korean audiences. "Last month, 45.9 percent of all moviegoers went to see Korean movies. This level is an all-time high for the month of July since the government removed the restrictions on foreign movie imports in 1985." Korea Herald 08/15/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 10:02 pm Dance Merce Cunningham - Adventures In Radiohead Land Merce Cunningham has always been an experimenter, willing to try new things. "So it's no surprise that he has chosen experimental rock bands, Radiohead from Britain and Iceland's Sigur Rós, to co-create the score for his next work, 'Split Sides,' premièring in October at the Brooklyn Academy of Music." Christian Science Monitor 08/15/03 Posted: 08/14/2003 9:27 pm