Ideas Embracing Your Inner Geek Ordinary people are forced to learn more and more about technology. "Time and again, attractive new technologies have trickled out of the labs and into homes and offices, forcing ordinary users to develop skills that once would have seemed far too advanced for them. Early automobiles were so unreliable that drivers carried tool kits and learned to fix the balky machines. Early radio sets were handbuilt by avid hobbyists. 'This is all part of a fairly predictable pattern. Folks have been doing that since the days of telegraphs and radios and televisions. There's a real love of technology, and people want to get inside and tinker with them'." Boston Globe 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 11:12 pm Visual Arts Taiwan Putting Together Funding For A Guggenheim Taiwan's premier has pledged to cover half the cost of a proposed new Guggenheim Museum in Taichung City, and is considering whether to fund another third of the cost. Taipei Times 08/19/03 Posted: 08/19/2003 7:24 am The Decline Of The Corporate Collection These are not good times for the corporate art collection. "Many companies - including Reader's Digest, CBS, IBM and Time Warner - sold off expensive collections in the late 1990s when the economy was good and they could turn a profit on the art. Others, such as Chicago-based accounting firm Andersen, have liquidated collections during economic crises. The commitment to corporate art has been shrinking since the boom years of collecting in the 1980s." Chicago Tribune 08/18/03 Posted: 08/19/2003 6:42 am Is Greek Museum Damaging Artifacts? Greeks are building a museum in Athens they hope will someday house the Elgin Marbles. "But paradoxically, those behind the museum - which is being built to house priceless ancient artefacts - stand accused of destroying many such artefacts in the process. Greek heritage is being lost from the building site, say critics. And the complaints are coming from the Greeks themselves. They are not part of some underhand British plot to scupper the mounting pressure for the return of the marbles within the next 12 months." BBC 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 11:24 pm The Losing End Of Art "There's nothing like the art market for bringing a glint of piggish excitement to an investor's eye. Trouble is, only the savviest - or luckiest - can hope to make a penny out of it. If you believe what art dealers tell you, times are hard." BBC 08/17/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 11:20 pm Frank Lloyd Wright's Grand Plan For Baghdad In 1957, the King of Iraq asked architect Frank Lloyd Wright to come up with a grand master plan for Baghdad. "Now, half a century and a 'war of liberation' later, some Islamic scholars think it's time for Iraq to take another look at the American architect's vision for the narrow, sun-bleached streets of low-rise 1950s Baghdad. If built, his plans, which included an opera house, university campus and post and telegraph building, could, they say, do much to disabuse Iraqis of the view that Uncle Sam is intent on erasing Islamic culture." The Guardian (UK) 08/19/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 10:16 pm Music Scottish Opera's Ringing Money Woes Scottish Opera is getting admiring reviews for its new production of Wagner's "Ring" cycle this summer. But the company is in financial difficulty again. "The company is understood to have already spent its public funds for 2003-2004, despite an additional grant of £750,000 from the Scottish Arts Council Lottery Fund (SACLF) which made its Ring Cycle possible. Twice in the last four years, Scottish Opera has gone to government and left with extraordinary grants of £2.1 million in 1999 and £1.9 million in 2001 to bail it out. However, if the company faces a difficult future, its fate also presents a defining issue for the Scottish Executive’s cultural policy." The Scotsman 08/19/03 Posted: 08/19/2003 7:18 am Is The English Symphony Dead? "The British symphony is dead, its life support system switched off some years ago by concert managements and public indifference. No active British composer has achieved 12 symphonies. The few who have struggled over decades to maintain the heritage - chiefly Sir Malcolm Arnold and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies - have been cruelly sidelined by administrators who prefer minimalisms and classipops to daunting works of real substance." La Scena Musicale 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 11:43 pm NY City Opera For WTC - It Makes Sense Developers of the proposed World Trade Center project are trying to decide which arts company ought to anchor its performing arts center. "The developers would be wise to court a major institution with a strong identity, one that would bring credibility and potentially a devoted audience base to the new complex. That institution is the New York City Opera, dubbed the 'people's opera' by Fiorello La Guardia, one of its founders." The New York Times 08/19/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 10:45 pm Arts Issues Art Of The Pitch The rest of us could learn a lot about selling ourselves from the way ideas for new shows are pitched in Hollywood. "People believe if they have a good idea it will sell itself. It won't. The person on the receiving end tends to gauge the pitcher's creativity as well as the proposal itself." Chicago Tribune 08/19/03 Posted: 08/19/2003 7:12 am Should Art Criticism Pay Any Attention To Personalities? Criticism in the popular media "is very different from academic criticism, since the latter takes as given that the work in question is of value, proceeding from there into a study of where its value resides. Papers, conversely, return to first principles - is this any good? If not, why not? Artists of all stamps, naturally, would prefer to be judged by academics, and make the mistake of thinking that this is because academia is de facto more sophisticated than the media. This isn't true, they just serve different functions." The Guardian (UK) 08/19/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 10:10 pm Artist Visa Problems Keep Artists Out Of US "Accumulating news reports underscore how visa problems are depriving U.S. audiences of an array of foreign performers." As visas make it more difficult for foreign artists to get into the US, the cancellations mount. Los Angeles Times 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 9:37 pm Laguna - License To Travel? Laguna Beach California's 70-year-old Pageant of the Masters Festival attracts 250,000 people each summer. "But the festival is barely breaking even. From revenue approaching $6.5 million annually, its latest financial statements show it earned a small surplus of $275,000 in 2001 — not even enough to make up for the combined $325,000 it lost the previous two years." A plan to license the festival internationally, though, has traditionalists opposed. Los Angeles Times 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 9:33 pm People de Larrocha's Long Farewell After 32 years onstage, pianist Alicia de Larrocha is beginning her long goodbye from performing. "Time has not left her unscathed. At Lincoln Center she looked frail, even tentative, when she made her way centre-stage. She seemed instantly rejuvenated, however, when she touched the keyboard. Larrocha never was a dazzling technician and certainly cannot be one now. It hardly matters." Financial Times 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 9:59 pm Theatre O'Neill's New Leader "Amy Sullivan, a leading Connecticut-based arts fundraiser, has been named executive director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. She will replace Howard Sherman, who ended his three-year tenure in that position earlier this year." Backstage 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 11:36 pm Publishing Booker: A Short List Getting Longer What's the big deal about a longlist for the Booker Prize? Isn't it the shortlist that really matters? "Once upon a time, it was the announcement of the short list that could be relied upon to encourage literary commentators to break cover. Not any more. Faced with stiff competition, and some serious headline-hogging, from Orange and Whitbread, Britain's premier literary prize now resorts to the black arts of spin, announcing its long list a full two months before the ultimate showdown in the Guildhall. Betting on such a list is as much of a mug's game as taking a punt on a National Hunt steeplechase." The Observer (UK) 08/17/03 Posted: 08/17/2003 7:28 pm Librarian To The Rescue An "action figure" company has come out with its latest doll - an action figure librarian based on Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl. "The company, which has produced a successful series of historical action figures that include Jesus, Moses and Benjamin Franklin, jumped at the idea. Nancy Pearl became the second installment in their newest line of action figures based on everyday people in everyday jobs." Baltimore Sun 08/17/03 Posted: 08/17/2003 7:00 pm Media Why The Blockbusters Are Failing Why are movies intended to be blockbusters this summer, failing? Movie studios blame text messaging by teenagers. "The problem, they say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films - sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching - and so scuppering carefully crafted marketing campaigns designed to lure audiences out to a big movie on its opening weekend." Th Independent (UK) 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 11:08 pm Missed Opportunities - Hispanics On TV "The television industry has not brought in Hispanics in proportion to their burgeoning numbers and buying power. While Latinos make up 13 percent of the national population, Latino characters make up only 3 percent of the prime-time TV population. While some progress has been made - "The George Lopez Show" is considered a viable hit for ABC - the Hispanic market remains an afterthought for network TV, despite dramatic new evidence of its growing clout." Denver Post 08/18/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 9:52 pm Dance Dancing On The Fringe The fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists (fFIDA)is the largest dance gathering in Canada. "Throughout fFIDA's history, one can track the climate of the times. In the early years, Canadian choreographers had a much more feminist and/or political and/or humorous bent. In today's 'retreat into yourself' mentality, the home crowd seems to be angst-driven or navel-gazing or obliquely abstract, with a considerable number of the solos depicting women in distress." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/19/03 Posted: 08/19/2003 7:34 am Ballet's Hot Young Thing Christopher Wheeldon is the most acclaimed choreographer of his generation. "Now 30, Wheeldon has 12 works in New York City Ballet's repertory, and is besieged by commissions from elsewhere. Over the next couple of months, new pieces by him are being performed in London by the George Piper Dances and the Royal Ballet. And next week, at the specific request of the Edinburgh festival, San Francisco Ballet is devoting an entire programme to his work. This is an extraordinary coup for such a young choreographer." The Guardian (UK) 08/19/03 Posted: 08/18/2003 10:20 pm