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Wednesday, September 3




Ideas

The Blackboard Jungle Teaching is a profession which is constantly made to sound more glamorous and fulfilling than it ever is in reality. Inspiring young people to learn Great Things seems like a noble vocation, but in practice, too many teachers are left battling the double demons of boredom and disdain in their students. "In time I would learn that language and literature wouldst sucketh forever and that life at home (wherever that was this week) sucked like a veritable vortex... I wanted to engage them in critical thinking, but surely nothing could suck more than that, and this was a shame, because I'd gone back to school as an old bag just to get a credential to teach it." San Francisco Chronicle 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 6:04 am

Now That's Education Reform! Deep Springs College is not your typical outpost of higher education. The all-male school is part college, part working cattle ranch, and, in a unique twist on the usual power dynamic, the 26 students more or less run the whole operation. "From the slaughtering of cows to the hiring of faculty, the day-to-day operations of the school are borne on the backs of 18- and 19-year-olds." Chicago Tribune 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 5:12 am

The Age Of Aesthetics We are living in a world increasingly focused on aesthetics. "We are demanding and creating an enticing, stimulating, diverse, and beautiful world. We want our vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, our bathroom faucets and desk accessories to express our personalities. We expect every strip mall and city block to offer designer coffee, several different cuisines, a copy shop with do-it-yourself graphics workstations and a nail salon for manicures on demand. We demand trees in our parking lots, peaked roofs and decorative facades on our supermarkets, auto dealerships as swoopy and stylish as the cars they sell." The Atlantic 09/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 12:04 am

Visual Arts

The Cellini Ransom An insurance company has received a ransom demand for a Cellini scuplture, stolen three months ago from an Austrian museum. "According to reports, the Uniqa insurance company received a letter last week demanding €5m (£3.5m) for the return of the Saliera or Saltcellar. This is thought to be the first response that insurers or police have had from the thieves who stole the 16th century solid gold sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini, estimated to be worth €50m, in a raid three months ago." The Guardian (UK) 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 8:56 pm

Music

A Rush To The Bargaining Table? The Philadelphia Orchestra's contract with its musicians doesn't expire for another year, but the orchestra's board chairman wants to reopen negotiations immediately, and to get a new labor deal in place before the start of the season later this month. According to chairman Richard Smoot, the orchestra is pursuing some massive financial gifts, but donors are only willing to lay their money on the line if the organization can bring its financial situation under control. Among the management proposals being floated are plans to reduce the size of the orchestra through attrition, to replace unionized substitute players with students, and to delay scheduled raises for the musicians by a year. Philadelphia Inquirer 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 5:47 am

Shakespeare The Librettist No writer in the history of the English language has had as many operas, ballets, and other musical works written around his words than William Shakespeare. But there are some rather big stumbling blocks in the path of any composer attempting to add his/her imprint to The Bard's work. Says one director, "It's almost like trying to choreograph a Beethoven symphony... It's already there; you don't need to add an extra level of music onto it." Kansas City Star 08/31/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 5:28 am

Pirates Fighting Back When the recording industry began going after individuals for the practice of illegal online 'song-swapping,' many predicted that the pirates would not be cowed. At least one target of the industry's lawsuits is indeed fighting back: a US woman known as "nycfashiongirl" has filed suit against her pursuers, claiming that the industry's tracking of her internet usage violates her right to privacy. BBC 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 4:36 am

Jazz Star Disorder A researcher reports that jazz greats are "eight times more likely to have suffered from drug dependency. Dr Geoffrey Wills also found that mood disorders appeared to be four times more likely among this group of jazz greats. The psychologist said that he was not trying to imply that all jazz musicians had such problems, but that they shared the same vulnerability to mental health problems as other creative types such as writers and artists." BBC 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 10:26 pm

Miami And The Latin Grammys This year's Latin Grammys are being held in Miami. "For years the Latin Grammys have been mired in a debate centering on whether arts and politics associated with Cuba can ever be separated. If the event succeeds, it could greatly bolster Miami's position as the Latin entertainment capital, organizers say. If it doesn't, it would be another strike against a city that for years has struggled with an image of intractable political strife over Cuba." The New York Times 09/03/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 9:40 pm

New Era For Dallas Opera Dallas Opera has a new leader in general director Karen Stone, who takes over at a challenging time. "It's a company doing major-league work on a $10 million budget, half that of comparable operations in Houston and Seattle, but with nearly $800,000 in accumulated deficit. But it's also a company preparing for a snazzy new opera house being designed by Foster and Partners for the Dallas Arts District." Dallas Morning News 09/01/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 5:43 pm

Arts Issues

Deadly Year For 'Burning Man' The 'Burning Man' Festival, held each year in the desert north of Reno, Nevada, is a celebration of free spirits as much as it is an art festival, but this year, spirit was trumped by tragedy as a woman attempting to ride a giant "art car" was crushed beneath it. Burning Man's founder insists that the accident will not cast a pall over future editions of the fest: "Some see photos of people attired in giant rat costumes doing wildly unconventional expressive things and assume this means we're in some way irresponsible. Nothing could be further from the truth. This isn't an irresponsible party; it's a model city. If there are lessons to be learned from this that will improve public safety, we will implement them." Wired 09/02/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 4:48 am

Guns Don't Kill People, Short Stories Do "The case of an Oklahoma teen who was charged with a felony for writing a violent short story about attacking his school has been dismissed by a judge who ruled that prosecutors failed to prove the teen actually intended to commit the act... Now, after tens of thousands of dollars spent fighting the charge, Brian Robertson is free, but the accusation that he broke the law will stay with him. Under Oklahoma law, if a case carries on for more than a year, a felony charge remains on the defendant's record, even if the case is dismissed. The felony gets expunged from the record only if the defendant is acquitted following a trial." Wired 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 4:42 am

London - The Olympic Factor If London wins an Olympic bid it will transform the city. "If the Olympics were to come to east London it would never be the same again. At the moment, it is a very difficult area to grasp and get any sense of. The scale of the land holdings and their industrial use mean it is difficult to penetrate. The Olympics could bring great structures, miles of waterways and new open spaces to the east. Seen from new railways and fast roads, they will give an amazing new image to east London. This kind of scale of development is what it needs to define its own topography." The Guardian (UK) 09/03/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 9:20 pm

People

Sir Terry Frost, 87 Abstract painter Sir Terry Frost has died of cancer. "Sir Terry was at the forefront of abstract art in Britain and was renowned for his use of vibrant colours, dolloping blobs of colour and spiralling squiggles on to his canvasses." The Guardian (UK) 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 9:01 pm

Theatre

The Allure Of Reality Theatre "What are we actually getting when performers stand up and talk about themselves? Where does offstage end and onstage begin in first-person theater? The answers are complex - bedeviling to performers and directors and endlessly alluring to audiences. We're instinctively drawn to stories that arrive in the envelope of truth." San Francisco Chronicle 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 10:12 pm

Cabaret's Special Place On Broadway Broadway's revival production of "Cabaret" will have run for 5 1/2 years when it closes in November. "Beyond the show itself, this Roundabout production and its historically significant run — it is the third-longest-running revival ever on Broadway, after "Chicago" and "Oh! Calcutta!" — has quietly enriched the world of the stage (and to some degree the screen) in ways that not many shows can claim." The New York Times 09/03/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 9:35 pm

English Theatre - New Leadership, New Artistry? English regional theatres have a roster of new leadership. "In the past year, fresh teams have taken over at Chichester, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool, while new money - £25m - is being pumped into the system. Now comes news of a rising in the Midlands. Lichfield has acquired a new theatre while Coventry, under Hamish Glen, is set to restore an old one. The big question is whether this signals an exciting era of artistic innovation or whether regional theatre is still dogged by the culture of backs- to-the-wall survival." The Guardian (UK) 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 9:10 pm

Publishing

Blog Nation: Millions Of Writers With Nothing To Say Lost in all the breathless coverage of the "blog" phenomenon is the inescapable fact that most blogs are little more than daily lists of mundane personal activities, of interest to no one but the author and the author's immediate circle of friends, if that. So what's the point? Maybe that very lack of wide appeal is the point. "The Web is a high-tech gossip network: an entirely public notice board with very private functions. There is something about publishing, even self-publishing, even Web posting, that lends an air of gravity to one's personal relations; when written, they come to seem more literary, more important." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 5:21 am

The Art Of Writing About Writing It's "such an interesting time to be writing about writing—or writing about writing for publication, anyway. Thus several recent entries in the books-on-books genre approach, with varying degrees of insight, similar prickly questions about the present state of lit, such as: Is there anything important left to write, or anyone perceptive enough to write it? And does anyone really care anymore, least of all the gluttonous media cartels increasingly footing the bills?" Village Voice 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 11:50 pm

Most Valuable First Editions What are the most valuable first-edition English books? Sotheby's estimates that the most valuable are Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rab bit (1901) and Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows (1908), which could both fetch £50,000. The Guardian (UK) 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 9:24 pm

Poetry Of Disaffection What poetry would Australians write? "Recently, a poetry initiative was trialled in selected schools. The intention was to enable students from different social and financial backgrounds to find a common ground in the wonderful world of words. What emerged was a tragic picture of isolated and disaffected youth striking out against the defenceless." The Age (Melbourne) 09/03/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 5:35 pm

Media

Iran Cracks Down On Filmmakers "Censorship of wilful new movies by Iran cast a cloud over the Venice Film Festival after one director was blocked from leaving the Islamic republic and another had his film seized... In [Babak Payami's] latest movie, a Taliban soldier is ordered to have sex with a woman who is sentenced to death because she is still a virgin, and according to the Taliban interpretation of Islam, a virgin would automatically get into paradise." Organizers in Venice had made a deliberate attempt to include Middle Eastern voices in this year's festival, despite the inherent risk involved for participating directors from restricted societies like Iran. Toronto Star (Reuters) 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 6:17 am

Fringe No More With the increasing popularity of film festivals and indie flicks across North America, the movies being screened at the Toronto International Film Festival have taken on a new significance for Hollywood. In a culture so fragmented as ours, where there seems to be a TV channel for every subdivision of humanity, the entertainment industry has learned the value of niche marketing, and even Hollywood's biggest studios take notice of the more successful entries in festivals like Toronto's. Toronto Star 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 6:13 am

Does Gay-Friendly TV = Gay-Friendly Viewers? 2003 is officially the Year of the Gay TV Show. Game shows, sitcoms, reality shows, and makeover shows centered around gay characters have sprung up across the television landscape, and many of them are drawing surprisingly wide audiences. But do a few campy TV shows really make the average American any more tolerant of real-life homosexuals? According to a new study of 200 rural Midwesterns teens, the answer is yes. Wired 09/02/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 4:55 am

TiVo Trials Customers love Tivo. But it's not catching on with consumers - they're not buying it. "I can't think of any product that has had the satisfaction levels it has had but has been as sluggish in terms of the growth of the market. It's certainly unusual for a product to have this kind of enthusiasm from the community that's using it without being able to tip over and really become a mass-market phenomenon." Orange County Register (FW Star-Telegram) 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 9:47 pm

Dance

Telling The Story Of Dance A thick new book illuminates the history of dance. "No Fixed Points takes its title from Albert Einstein and, in its trove of new and recycled information and sophisticated analysis, brings together generations of thinking and commentary by critics, historians, artists, and impresarios. Decades in the making, it's the work of two scholars who have both performed." Village Voice 09/02/03
Posted: 09/02/2003 11:58 pm


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