What Happens If You Just Give Education Away? "When MIT announced to the world in April 2001 that it would be posting the content of some 2,000 classes on the Web, it hoped the program - dubbed OpenCourseWare - would spur a worldwide movement among educators to share knowledge and improve teaching methods. No institution of higher learning had ever proposed anything as revolutionary, or as daunting. MIT would make everything, from video lectures and class notes to tests and course outlines, available to any joker with a browser. The academic world was shocked by MIT's audacity - and skeptical of the experiment. At a time when most enterprises were racing to profit from the Internet and universities were peddling every conceivable variant of distance learning, here was the pinnacle of technology and science education ready to give it away. Not the degrees, which now cost about $41,000 a year, but the content. No registration required. It's a profoundly simple idea that was not intuitive." Wired 08/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 4:33 pm
Astrup Painting To Hit The Block When a painting by Nikolai Astrup goes up for auction later this fall, it will be the first time in almost a decade that a work by the Norwegian master will have been made available for public sale. "What is more remarkable about this work, which can fetch around [US$200,000], is that it was acquired for a three-cent lottery ticket in 1926, newspaper Bergensavisen reports." Aftenposten (Oslo) 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 7:33 am
Wood Panelling "The Library of Congress has acquired veteran cartoonist Art Wood's enormous collection of 36,000 works by 2,800 artists, the largest private collection in the world." Wood is arguably the most passionate collector and admirer of cartoon art in the world, and he has a long history at the Library, having first taken a job there at the age of 16. A successful cartoonist in his own right, Wood has always been fascinated with the medium, once writing that a good cartoon "scratches across the surface of life, whether the raw slums of the teeming city or the palatial mansion of the millionaire. It tells perhaps better than any medium what people are really like." Washington Post 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 7:26 am
The New Museums Museums have been monuments to the past. But they're evolving. "We have once again begun to see museums as our forebears did: as palaces of edification and delight, buildings that enhance the cultural life of cities and the intellectual lives of their inhabitants. Technology is playing a huge part in this revitalisation. Audio guides, animatronics, oral reconstructions, video, computer graphics, interactive displays, computers that recreate the sights, sounds and even smells of days gone by, all feature increasingly heavily in the museums of today." The Telegraph (UK) 08/27/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 9:59 pm
Defining The Hirshhorn "For many years the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, a part of the Smithsonian museum empire, has been identity-free. The Hirshhorn has never equaled the National Gallery of Art's prestige and has never become as beloved as the Phillips. It's long been a humdrum museum bunkered in an abominable Gordon Bunshaft building, with a so-so collection and a so-so exhibition schedule. Still, the Hirshhorn has always had great promise..." Artnet.com 08/25/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 9:36 pm
Art In Edinburgh - How Do You Know What's There? The Edinburgh Festival was a great success, and crowds have been pouring into the big Monet show. But as far as visual arts in the rest of the Scottish capital, things have been decidedly less promoted. "Altogether there are well over 100 exhibitions to choose from, but the sector is too fragmented to reach the public it should command. It is almost impossible even to find out everything that is going on." The Scotsman 08/26/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 6:57 pm
Austin Lyric Opera Gets Some New Leadership "The Austin Lyric Opera's 16-year history is melodramatic enough to be an opera itself." The company almost folded in its first year of existence, and has struggled periodically since, with financial hardship usually accompanied by Texas-sized power struggles at the top. Just last year, the board fired artistic director, Joseph McClain, claiming that his artistic desires were simply not financially achievable in Austin. Now, the Lyric has hired a new artistic director, Richard Buckley, whom they hope will bring a firm but even hand to their often-roiling ship. News 8 Austin 08/26/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 7:38 am
Philly's New Hall In The Red Philadelphia's huge new performing arts complex, the Kimmel Center, has finished its first year of operation with a deficit of nearly $4 million. But Kimmel management points out that it normally takes such massive organizations at least 5 years to turn a profit, and they insist that their hall is well ahead of schedule in the moneymaking department. Much of the first-year deficit reportedly had to do with start-up and hiring costs. The center is home to the Philadelphia Orchestra and several other arts groups, but is owned and run separately from any of its tenants. The Kimmel has an independent endowment of $20 million. Philadelphia Inquirer 08/26/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 5:55 am
Crunch Time In Pittsburgh The financially strapped Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is trying some unconventional tactics to save money and get a new contract negotiated with its musicians. The PSO has asked a former board member to mediate this year's negotiations with the musicians - the current contract expires on September 21. Also, the orchestra has asked 7 older musicians to voluntarily take early retirement, presumably as a cost-cutting move. But none of the musicians have accepted, and the union says that any retiring musicians would have to be replaced, anyway. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 5:47 am
The Tools Of Music "There's definitely something science fiction-like about a lot of experimental musical instrument building, but perhaps that is because we still fully don't have a language to describe many of the new sonorities these instruments produce. When many of the instruments we're used to nowadays were brand new, they probably seemed just as incomprehensible. The reverse is also true. Playing on an older version of a familiar instrument can feel like being greeted by someone on the street in Anglo-Saxon..." NewMusicBox 08/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 9:54 pm
Opera Boot Camp Eighty-six promising young opera singers gather in Israel for an opera boot camp. "Survival in the dicey world of opera — which can demand more years of preparation than brain surgery, without the guaranteed payoff — was a subtext during the 17th summer of the Israel Vocal Arts Institute's program. Participants have a four-week schedule of one-on-one voice, diction and role coaching, and almost nightly performances, with public master classes, concerts and eight fully staged productions." The New York Times 08/27/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 9:19 pm
The Rock Star Countertenor? "In the past few weeks the charismatic American vocalist David Daniels - who has ridden the countertenor boom of the past decade to something like classical music rock star status - and his Perth-born accompanist, guitarist Craig Ogden, seem to have successfully co-opted Justin Timberlake's business plan. Just look at the cover of the album, A Quiet Thing, where the duo stare out moodily in casual shirts..." Sydney Morning Herald 08/27/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 6:52 pm
92nd St. Y Considers Downtown Outpost New York's 92nd Street Y, a mainstay of the city's culture and a fixture on the upper East Side, is considering a downtown branch at the site of the Wolrd Trade Center. "The Y is talking with several other organizations, including the New York City Opera, the Joyce Theater, the Tribeca Film Festival and Hunter College about sharing space in the performing arts center designated for the World Trade Center site or in other locations nearby. 'We want to be a central part of a wheel out of which many spokes come'." The New York Times 08/27/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 9:07 pm
Behind Doors At Covent Garden Sir Colin Southgate steps down as chairman of Covent Garden after a tumultuous five years. "In February 1998, when Southgate was parachuted in by Chris Smith, the Culture Secretary, it seemed unlikely that there would be a Royal Opera House left for anyone to visit. The builders had been in for almost two years, their costs were soaring towards £214 million and the imposition of a businessman outsider was generally believed to be the Government's last throw before merging Covent Garden with English National Opera and disbanding the orchestra." The Telegraph (UK) 08/27/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 8:37 pm
Edinburgh's "Golden Age" The Edinburgh Festivals are in a "golden age" and sold more than a million tickets this year for the first time. "The figures capped an exceptional month for the organisers, who have overseen one of the most vibrant events for years, and witnessed a growing acceptance among politicians of the need to consider strategic public investment in it." The Scotsman 08/26/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 7:00 pm
10 Commandments - Go Forth And Multiply What's up with all the monuments to the Ten Commandments around America? How come there are so many of them? "In the 1950s, Cecil B. DeMille teamed with the Fraternal Order of Eagles to kick off donations of 4,000 6-foot granite tablets depicting the Ten Commandments to municipalities nationwide. For DeMille, this was great advertising for his epic movie 'The Ten Commandments.' The Eagles, which kept the program going at least into the 1960s, declared it a way to fight juvenile delinquency." Los Angeles Times 08/26/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 3:10 pm
Emerging From The Pack "Vendela Vida is a part of a coterie of writers -- Heidi Julavits, Dave Eggers and Michael Chabon, to name a few -- who are young, gifted and both blessed and cursed. While they are admired for their work and for leading a renaissance of literature, publishing and philanthropy in San Francisco, they are also major snark targets, annoying others for seeming to have so much brilliance, youth and charm." She's also married to Eggers, and the two of them may be the closest thing the American literary scene has to a power couple. Still, Vida seems a bit nonplussed by the whole fame thing, and seems genuinely to wish that the world would just pipe down and let her write. San Francisco Chronicle 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 7:11 am
Innovation Or Power-Grab? The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has been around since the days of John Adams, who founded it, and traditions run deep within its membership, which is elected from within and includes an array of intellectual and moneyed elites. So it's not a big surprise that Leslie Berlowitz, who was brought in to shake up the academy in the late 1990s, has made a lot of enemies since she took over. "Berlowitz's supporters say she is an agent of change who has breathed new life into what was once a moribund clique of inbred Cambridge academics. Her detractors say she is a manipulative, imperious power grabber who has needlessly alienated academy fellows and staff alike." Boston Globe 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 6:05 am
O'Neill, King Of Broadway This summer's biggest Broadway success story wasn't some cutting-edge musical featuring agressive tap-dancers, and it wasn't a provocatively-titled, fast-paced romp from the mind of one of theater's hot new stars. No, the king of Broadway this summer was none other than the late Eugene O'Neill, whose four-hour play, Long Day's Journey Into Night, has garnered rave reviews and standing-room-only attendance in its 5-month run. Some of the success of the revival can be chalked up to star power and savvy marketing that pandered to the 'serious' theatregoer. But some see it as a sign that Broadway crowds are ready to be challenged. New York Post 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 6:51 am
London's New Asian Influence Asian actors have more of a presence on London stages than ever before. "Two major West End productions with all-Asian casts wouldn’t have happened even five years ago." But some worry about the kinds of roles Asians are landing. The Scotsman 08/26/03
Posted: 08/26/2003 7:06 pm
Audio Books On The Rise Call it a byproduct of the American car culture, a side effect of the rush to multitask, or simple consumer laziness: whatever the cause, sales of audio books are on the rise, and the publishing industry is taking notice. One installment in the Harry Potter series sold 575,000 audio copies in three days, and Hillary Clinton's recent autobiography has sold 90,000. Audio sales are still miles away from print sales, of course, but the industry is beginning to treat audiobooks as a serious part of its product line. Chicago Tribune 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 6:18 am
You Mean Movies Have Writers? "In the movie world, writers are rarely treated with respect. Far from being considered sacred text, their words are routinely trampled on through endless script drafts, rewrites and 'final polishes.'" But at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, an astonishing number of well-known authors and novelists are among the list of screenwriters, and Martin Knelman hopes that the star power of such writers as Barbara Gowdy and Mordecai Richler will lead to a sea change in the way the film world views the people who write the scripts. Toronto Star 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 7:17 am
Gays On TV: Breakthrough or Backwards? The recent explosion of gay-themed programming on American TV has been well-chronicled, but not everyone in the gay community is happy about it. While media visibility is certainly something gays have long sought, shows like Bravo's much-hyped Queer Eye For The Straight Guy are little more than stereotype-laden "gay minstrel shows," according to Christopher Kelly. "Nearly a decade after television's representations of gay life finally started moving in provocative directions - on shows like L.A. Law, thirtysomething and Roseanne - we are back at square one. Or square zero. There are now virtually no complex, gay people on television, and the future looks none too promising." Miami Herald 08/27/03
Posted: 08/27/2003 6:33 am
