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The Politics (And Utility) Of Early Education "Nowadays, some kind of education before the age of 6 has become common, whether it comes in federally funded Head Start programs or at expensive Manhattan preschools with admissions procedures to rival Harvard's. President Bush's recent proposals to steer Head Start funds to the states while stiffening the program's academic standards have stirred up debate over whether such an approach would widen inequalities or narrow them. They have also raised the age-old question of just how our youngest children, rich or poor, really learn." Boston Globe 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 1:48 pm
Where Are The Blockbusters? Big museum shows seem to be in short supply this season. "At this time last year, the museum world looked as though it was doing some retrenching. Few blockbusters were on the roster; fewer shows of any kind had been announced than was the norm throughout the 1990s. If last year looked like a retreat, this year may be a rout. There's hardly a single true blockbuster built around a famous name." Washington Post 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:28 pm
Of Art And Artists A PBS series explores art through its artists. "More than explaining any discrete work of art, `Art 21' leaves you with a sense of how artists think about what they do, as well as why they feel compelled to do it, and demystifies a group the public at large sometimes views as eccentric, unstable or, worse, charlatans." San Jose Mercury-News 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:11 pm
The New "Modernism" "Nowadays, 'modernism' is everywhere. Gargantuan 'modernist' lofts jut up from every block of the SoMa district. Boutiques with monosyllabic names and monochrome wall-paint are everywhere selling "modernist" trinkets. An ever-growing slew of home catalogs offer requisite modernist furnishings, the photo spreads illustrating (proudly!) how 40 rooms in 20 different houses can look totally indistinguishable from one another. There's even a Web site - Etekt.com - that offers architectural plans to create your very own tract home based on designs by your favorite modernist designer. Oh yes, and on sale now at Levitz: the new "modernist" collection. Really. What's so frustrating is that this surge of minimalist modernism - what I will now refer to as modermalism - is not 'modern' at all." San Francisco Chronicle 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:06 pm
Coming Together Over A Building "The debate that has unfolded over the rebuilding of the World Trade Center for the last year has brought New Yorkers as close as they have ever come to the ancient Florentine conviction that the most profound questions of urban design demand a public voice. Now, as the second anniversary of 9/11 approaches, that democratic moment seems to have passed." The New York Times 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 5:17 pm
A Tower On Tate Modern's Front Door? A developer proposes to build a new 20-story apartment building about 50 metres from the front entrance of the Tate Modern. It's "a notion described by the Tate director, Sir Nicholas Serota, as 'the equivalent of building a tower block in the forecourt of the British Museum'." The Guardian (UK) 09/05/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 3:00 pm
From Best To Worst - How'd This Happen? In Boston an architect builds one of the most-loved new buildings, then turns around and follows it with one of the most-hated. Robert Campbell observes: "In 30 years of writing about architecture, I've never heard so many expressions of outrage over a new building. The anguish arrives from all angles: from the general public, and from the community of architects." Boston Globe 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 1:37 pm
Cleveland Institute Expands The Cleveland Institute of Music is embarking on a $26 million expansion. "If the expansion turns out as well as it's starting to look, it could strengthen an important institution, reinforce the prominence of the arts in the local economy and boost the allure of University Circle, the cultural and educational district four miles east of downtown. That's good news in an otherwise depressing season for architecture and development in Cleveland, epitomized by the failure of local civic and political leaders to move ahead with a new downtown convention center." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 5:54 pm
In Development - An Opera That Matters A new opera set to premiere in 21 months has a lot of people watching already. "The combination of high-profile creators and a commission shared by three major companies - Opera Company of Philadelphia, Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit and Cincinnati Opera - could make the stakes high for all parties concerned. With luck, there will be national sponsorship to help defray the commission and development costs, plus the $4.8 million cost of the production, which will first be seen in May 2005 in Detroit and continue in July 2005 in Cincinnati and February 2006 in Philadelphia. With legs like that, the project is a likely candidate for PBS. But such matters are barely in the talking stage." Philadelphia Inquirer 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 5:26 pm
Carnegie Hall's New Hall Carnegie Hall's new performance space, down in the basement, offers new flexibility for the groups that have traditionally performed at Carnegie. "Zankel Hall, with 644 seats, opens on Friday, and its eclectic inaugural season, with some 90 events, makes good on Carnegie Hall's promise to provide an alternative space suitable for the widest range of contemporary repertory, including world music." The New York Times 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 5:05 pm
First Prize - A Strad... The Canada Council has awarded two young musicians instruments from the council's instrument bank. "For the next three years, Kaori Yamagami will play the 1696 Bonjour Stradivari cello, the most valuable instrument in the Instrument Bank, valued at approximately $6.1-million. Violinist Hou won the use of the 1729 'ex-Heath' Guarneri del Gesù violin, valued at about $4.3-million." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/06/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 2:55 pm
Supremes Make Opera Debut Who says Supreme Court justices are all law, no show biz? Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthong Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, despite their limited performing arts resumes, made rare special appearances, with non-singing roles, in the Washington Opera's season-opener 'Die Fledermaus' on Saturday night." Chicago Sun-Times (AP) 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 2:20 pm
Universal Strings For CD Price-Cuts Universal's plan to cut the suggested retail price of its CD's comes with some strings that won't endear it to retailers. "Universal's cut turns out to be a complex proposal that comes with many conditions for retailers. In order to get a wholesale price cut, retailers would have to make concessions to Universal. Those concessions include such items as guaranteed shelf space and special promotions for the company's releases." Minneapolis Star-Tribune 09/05/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 1:49 pm
- Discount Pressure Influenced Universal? Universal's price cuts sound good, but the company was likely influenced in its decision by discount chain stores. "Universal executives downplay the notion that giant discounters directly forced the world's largest record label to lower the wholesale price of most CDs by 25% and the suggested retail price by as much as 32%. But it was certainly more than coincidence that the amount Universal suggests consumers will now pay for its CDs — around $10 — is the same one that has become common in the weekly circulars distributed by big chains such as Best Buy." Los Angeles Times 09/05/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 1:20 pm
Downloader Amnesty - But There's A Price The recording industry is ready to offer amnesty to music downloaders. But there are conditions. "To be eligible, sources said, people would have to cleanse their computers of all the tunes they downloaded without permission and destroy any CDs they burned with those songs. They'd also have to submit a notarized form to the RIAA, possibly with some official identification, pledging not to run afoul of copyright laws again." Los Angeles Times 09/05/06
Posted: 09/07/2003 1:01 pm
- Privacy Fears May Doom Amnesty Plan Will downloaders take up the music industry's offer of amnesty? Not likely. "I would think that many of the people who have downloaded music would be concerned about their privacy rights. To put identifying information into a database that the RIAA owns will turn people off, and therefore the program will not succeed." Wired 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 12:49 pm
The Killing Of Classical Music Radio Programming gets less interesting, audiences fall off, and classical music exits the radio dial. "Public radio, following the commercial lead, adopted similar 'lite' strategies to attract daytime audiences. But there's an obvious paradox. 'The more it sounds like background, the less people will be committed to your station. After all, you're encouraging them to not pay attention to it; then you ask them to pay for it at fund-raising time. It's a Catch-22. If your strategy is to be as uninteresting as possible, how can you ask for support?" Atlanta Journal-Constitution 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 12:47 pm
Why Opera Australia Is Pulling Back Why is Opera Australia retrenching? And why is opera in Melbourne such a tough go? "We know that our performances need to be 40 per cent underwritten in Melbourne for us to break even, but in Sydney it only needs to be 28 per cent funded. We sell 25 per cent to tourists in Sydney but in Melbourne the tourism sales are negligible." The Age (Melbourne) 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 12:37 pm
All About The Artists? What's Creative (Class) About That? Is Richard Florida's "Rise of The Creative Class" really about art? "It's not just that Florida relies on words like 'funky' and 'eclectic' to describe art scenes - words that tend to signal a passive enjoyment of the scene rather than genuine interest in art itself. Or that someone devoted to creative thinking uses empty phrases like 'thinking outside the box' and 'pushing the envelope' instead of proposing real innovations. It's true that Creative Class is dedicated more to a dissection of the economic situation rather than solutions for creating what Florida calls 'people climates' - that is, the kind of place that these creative-class types would like to live. But Florida tends to glide over the solutions (as well as some of the more outstanding problems) with vague recommendations such as 'invest broadly in arts and culture,' an idea he puts right up there with tax breaks for technology companies." The Stranger 09/04/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:58 pm
The Disney Obsessives There is a group of people who have burrowed in to Disneyland and plan their lives around it. They "talk a lot about the Magic of Disneyland, that wonderful, childlike feeling of giving in to this world that Walt created, of letting the place make you happy. They want to hold on to that magic and feel it all the time, but it’s perhaps not as easy as when they actually were children. And so they become Talmudic. They go deep inside the history of Disneyland, study every inch of it." LAWeekly 09/04/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:11 pm
Return Of The Girls "Girl culture" seems to be back as a force. "But what exactly is girl culture? On one hand, it's a shared set of values and behaviors among girls in their teens, 'tweens and early 20s. It's directly affected by consumerism, body image, mass media and the cosmetic, fashion and entertainment industries. Teen girls have tremendous pocketbook power, and companies are eager to tap into that exploding market. On the other hand, girl culture is also a resistance - rooted in 1960s and '70s feminism - to all those forces." Orange County Register 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 5:21 pm
Canadian Arts - Weaning Off Tobacco Money Visible sponsorships of cultural events by tobacco companies (read: money for advertising) is over. "Whatever the individual solutions, the cultural community is largely resigned to the loss of tobacco money. In the past, some arts administrators did question the ethics of tobacco sponsorships; many others wondered why the federal government allowed itself to benefit from cigarette taxes but wouldn't let the arts take its share of the blood money. It's been a difficult debate in which anyone with a doctrinaire position, whether it was in favour of commercial free speech or rabidly anti-smoking, didn't seem to be addressing the complexity of the issue in an age when governments know smoking is deadly but also recognize they can't criminalize it." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/06/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 2:49 pm
Baltimore's Theatre Gambit Baltimore is revitalizing an old 2,300-seat theatre, hoping to book some of the touring shows that bypass the city. The city's leaders are hoping that "the Hippodrome will do for Baltimore what Harborplace and Oriole Park did in the 1980s and '90s: catalyze economic development and attract thousands of people to the city, thus literally setting the stage for renewal of Baltimore's once bustling retail district. So far, the city's cultural gambit appears to be paying off." Baltimore Sun 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 1:12 pm
Atlanta's Cash-Flow Backup Arts organizations often find themselves in cash-flow difficulty, only to find banks reluctant to loan them money. "Low-budget arts companies in metro Atlanta can now apply to borrow from a new pool of money supplied by the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund. The fund, which makes annual grants to nonprofit groups in a 23-county area, has announced that it is making $200,000 of its $6.5 million endowment available for an Arts Loan Fund." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 09/04/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 12:52 pm
Vänskä In Minnesota Conductor Osmo Vänskä takes on the Minnesota Orchestra this week as music director. "Vänskä's personality has intriguing contradictions. He's a clarinetist who loves hockey and motorcycles. He speaks of personal modesty and subservience to the composer, and yet he works in a glamorous, ego-driven profession in which he has become a star, first in Europe and now increasingly in the United States, where, as a guest conductor, he is constantly re-engaged by the nation's major orchestras. He embodies the patient, hard-working maestro who in his early years shunned the international spotlight, turning down prestigious guest-conducting offers in Europe in order to devote himself to the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, a once-provincial Finnish ensemble that is now famous the world over for its revelatory recordings of works by Sibelius." The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 3:20 pm
The RIAA's New Man Mitch Bainwol is the new head of the Recording Industry Association of America. "One Democratic operative describes him - apart from his ever-present Blackberry - as 'the world's least hip-seeming guy.' Hipness is not part of the RIAA job requirement, even if he's the new Washington voice of the music world's hottest acts. Representing the interests of the nation's largest recording companies - and to a certain extent their stable of artists - with unparalleled zeal is the primary mission. collective picture emerges of Bainwol as someone who has the rare combination of steely-eyed resolve, uncanny intelligence, a friendly attitude, the ability to tell it like it is and the tact required to achieve compromise when necessary." Washington Post 09/05/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 2:05 pm
Prince & Sondheim - Together Again Hal Prince and Stephen Sondheim are collaborating on a new show for the first time in 22 years. "Prince has directed more than 30 shows in New York alone, and to sit down with him is to confront a half-century of American theater history. His name instantly evokes an almost unparalleled parade of over-the-moon triumphs, noble failures and, yes, a few bewilderments. When he attaches himself to a project, theatergoers take notice. The last is even more true of Sondheim, of course. Devotees will be making long flights to Washington in the fall to check up on this latest venture. " Washington Post 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:35 pm
Broadway's New Champion Playwright In a Broadway season that is light on plays, "Richard Greenberg has the opportunity to become the first American writer to have two new plays running simultaneously on Broadway since Neil Simon did it in 1992 with "Jake's Women" and "Lost in Yonkers." (The British playwright David Hare did it in 1999 with "Amy's View" and his one-man show, "Via Dolorosa.") It is a league, however, that Mr. Greenberg has trouble considering himself a part of." The New York Times 09/07/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 5:13 pm
Atlanta Black Theatre Closes A week before its scheduled opening, the New Jomandi theatre in Atlanta announced that it was canceling its entire 25th anniversary season. "Saying it had been unable to raise enough money for its four-show 2003-2004 program, the theater said it would spend the year in 'redevelopment,' then start up again in 2004. Since 2000, Jomandi, one of the few remaining major black theaters in the country, has suffered financial difficulties, canceled shows, and changed its name."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 08/28/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 12:43 pm
The Lester Bangs Cult Lester Bangs "died in 1982 at 33, the victim of an accidental Darvon overdose. In the generation since, he has come to occupy his own corner of the pop-culture pantheon, been mentioned in songs by R.E.M. and the Ramones, and even portrayed, in a bit of fact-meets-fiction reinvention, by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film Almost Famous. The more iconified he’s become, the greater the distance between his image and his writing, between the myth of Bangs as gonzo genius and the reality of what he had to say." LAWeekly 09/04/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 7:15 pm
Naming Harry Looking for clues as to the next Harry Potter installments? "Harry Potter and the Chariots of Light, Harry Potter and the Mudblood Revolt, Harry Potter and the Alchemist’s Cell and Harry Potter and the Quest of the Centaur have all been registered as trademarks with the UK Patent Office." The Scotsman 09/04/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:22 pm
When Writer Marries Writer Two writers under one roof inevitably leads to friction. "In the nature of things, one partner usually succeeds more than the other. Or they may succeed at different times, so that literary reputation shifts within the marriage." National Post (Canada) 09/03/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 5:43 pm
Lorca's Grave Found? "One of the mysteries of the Spanish civil war may soon be solved by the excavation of the communal grave in which the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca is believed to have been thrown after his execution by one of Franco's death squads in August 1936. Considered by many the greatest poet and playwright of 20th-century Spain, the author of Blood Wedding and Poet in New York was killed by members of the Escuadra Negra (Black Squadron) for his left-wing sympathies and homosexuality." The Guardian (UK) 09/06/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 3:04 pm
"The Return" Wins Venice "Intense Russian father-and-son drama 'The Return' won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for best picture yesterday, bringing little relief to first-time director Andrey Zvyagintsev who was still shaken by the death of the 15-year-old star of the movie." Sydney Morning Herald 09/08/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:45 pm
"The Return" Wins Venice "Intense Russian father-and-son drama 'The Return' won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for best picture yesterday, bringing little relief to first-time director Andrey Zvyagintsev who was still shaken by the death of the 15-year-old star of the movie." Sydney Morning Herald 09/08/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 6:45 pm
Why Aren't English Movies Funny? English TV comedies have a brilliant record. "On the big screen, though, we're an embarrassment. When did you last see a British comedy film that was actually funny, let alone innovative or daring? Even the brightest of our television stars seem to fail when they make movies." The Telegraph (UK) 09/06/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 3:15 pm
Aussie Movies - A Bump In The Road? Some Australian movies have been struggling at the box office. "The poor box-office performance of several recent Australian releases is causing yet another round of soul-searching within the Australian film industry. This, in itself, is a wearyingly predictable, if necessary, response to what is essentially a cyclical predicament. So too is the retort that characterising the local screen business as an "industry in crisis" is unhelpful and even dangerous." The Age (Melbourne) 09/06/03
Posted: 09/07/2003 8:09 am | 
