Ideas We The Network Should we stop thinking of ourselves as individuals and ponder our place in networks? It's a "move from virtual reality - the old 90s idea of the net as a separate, alternative realm - to 'augmented reality' (AR), in which ubiquitous computing and mobile wireless networks are used to reconnect us to the real world. One theorist suggests "we should no longer think of ourselves as "fixed, discrete individuals", but as nodes in a network. 'I am part of the networks and the networks are part of me. I am visible to Google. I link, therefore I am'." The Guardian (UK) 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 7:50 pm An Aesthetic Protest? Can We? "There has always been a certain incommensurability between political activities that depend on mass mobilization and the idiosyncratic sensibility of the aesthete — even the public-spirited, politically active aesthete. For every argument that aesthetic concerns are a luxury in the face of political injustice, there is the rebuttal that aesthetic freedom is as necessary for the human spirit as any political right." NewMusicBox 11/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 7:36 pm Visual Arts Man Attempts To Slash Renaissance Painting At National Gallery A man has attempted to slash a priceless Renaissance painting - Bronzino's Allegory With Venus And Cupid - at London's National Gallery in front of horrified museum visitors. He was caught before the painting could be damaged. Evening Standard 11/07/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 7:02 am When Vandalism Is Art? (There's A Tradition) "The 'comedy terrorist' Aaron Barschak faces a possible jail sentence, after being convicted last week by Oxford magistrates of criminally damaging works in the Chapman brothers' summer exhibition The Rape of Creativity. What makes the case unusual is that some of the artworks concerned, now part of the Chapmans' Turner prize show, have themselves given rise to accusations of vandalism: they include an edition of 80 rare original impressions of Goya's The Disasters of War, on which faces of clowns and puppies have been drawn." The Guardian (UK) 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 8:18 pm Music New Jersey Opera Festival Calls It Quits The well-regarded Opera Festival of New Jersey, a summer music fiestival, has announced it is closing because of financial pressures. "The festival, which was founded in Lawrenceville, N.J., 20 years ago and has been praised by critics as a highlight of the region's summer classical music season, has been troubled by debt since it moved to the McCarter Theater in Princeton five years ago. A spokesman said the festival ended its 2003 fiscal year just under $700,000 in debt." The New York Times 11/07/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 7:00 am A Music Museum For Washington DC? Plans for a $200 million music museum to be built in Washington DC, were unveiled this week. "Supporters want a 155,000-square-foot museum included in the 10-acre redevelopment of the old D.C. Convention Center site six blocks east of the White House. The museum would contain three theaters, with 3,200, 750, and 250 seats for different types of performances. It would have 50,000 square feet of exhibit space for memorabilia and artifacts, many contributed by the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress." New Jersey Online (AP) 11/07/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 6:56 am Sing Out That Protest Can classical music play a role in political proitest, wonders Kyle Gann. "No one can doubt that music has a big role to play in the world of political protest. The controversial musicians we read about in the papers, though, are mostly from the pop and folk genres. It's not only that those musicians are more visible, though that's certainly true as well. Classical music and jazz seem to have a more long-term, measured, even sublimated approach to political protest, slower to react and more deeply embedded in the structure of the music itself." NewMusicBox 11/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 7:40 pm Ragtag Iraq Symphony Soldiers On "The orchestra recently had to move its rehearsals from Ribat Hall in the city center to the U.S.-protected Baghdad Convention Center, in part because electrical outages were forcing musicians to practice on a dark, stuffy stage. Despite a much-heralded June concert here, no additional performances have been scheduled in the capital because the director fears that even loyal fans would be afraid to venture out for a nighttime concert. And the orchestra is having second thoughts about plans to perform in December at the Kennedy Center in Washington amid criticism in the local press that the musicians are kowtowing to an occupying force." Los Angeles Times 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 6:56 pm Arts Issues The Theatre That Ate Milwuakee? The newly-revived 4,200-seat Milwaukee Theatre is opening. Supporters say the theatre will attract new shows to the city. But managers of Milwaukee's other theatres are unhappy. "Nothing different will come here. Everyone's fighting for the same shows, and that causes artists' fees and ticket prices to go up. There are fewer shows out there and more venues." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 11/07/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 7:50 am An Old Theatre's History The Milwaukee Theatre began life as the Milwaukee Auditorium, nearly a century ago. "Enrico Caruso sang there before 6,800 people in 1910, a few months after the Auditorium opened Sept. 21, 1909. Doughboys used it for a barracks during World War I. John Philip Sousa and his band played in 1929. The first Milwaukee Sentinel Sports Show was held there in 1940. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke there in 1964." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 11/05/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 7:40 am Congress Increases NEA Budget To $122 Million "House and Senate conferees last week agreed to increase the NEA monies by $7 million over the amount in the original appropriations bill for the Interior Department, whose budget contains the arts-endowment funding. 'This special budget increase marks a new era at the NEA,' said Dana Gioia, the NEA's chairman." Backstage 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 8:04 pm Will Fort Worth Repeal Public Art Allotment? Voters in Fort Worth, Texas may get a chance to vote of whether they want to continue setting aside 2 percent of bond-issue construction projects for public art. The city's mayor proposed slashing the public art share to one percent earlier this year, but dropped the plan when many protested. Fort Worth Star-Telegram 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 6:49 pm Image-Geist - Can You Just Snap Pictures Of Anyone? "Digital cameras in cell phones are a huge hit - more than 80 million have been sold so far. But with so many people snapping away pictures, "what are the rights of the person being photographed, and should controls be put into place to limit where and how camera cellphones may be used?" Christian Science Monitor 11/07/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 6:44 pm Pew To Change Status - Will Become A Public Charity The Pew Charitable Trusts is changing its legal status and will become a public charity. "Pew would no longer be subject to a number of other legal and tax restrictions on private foundations, including self-dealing laws, restrictions on outside business holdings, and restrictions on making grants to government officials and individuals, to name a few. To maintain its status as a charity, Pew will have to raise outside money beyond the endowments of its trusts, which it has shown it can do for a number of Philadelphia civic projects, including the Barnes Foundation and the Independence Visitor Center." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 4:26 pm People In Praise Of A Different Kind Of Poet Laureate Louise Glück isn't exactly a recluse. But not far from it. Just don't her to be the kind of US Poet Laureate who evangelizes for her art. "Ms. Glück is an inspired choice because she excels in doing the kind of thing that only lyric poetry can do, which is among the most intimate, nonpublic things words can do: mimic the peculiar music of thought itself. Her appointment sheds interesting light on a private art's public existence." The New York Times 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 7:58 pm Ibargüen Named Chairman Of PBS Alberto Ibargüen, publisher of The Miami Herald, has been named chairman of the board at PBS, the governing body for the nation's public broadcasting stations. As chairman, Ibargüen said, his challenge will be to draw on the PBS heritage while preparing for a rapidly changing future. 'The issue is not so much PBS' going out of business tomorrow, but, in a world of tightening budgets, finding ways to keep PBS as sharp as it needs to be.'" Miami Herald 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 7:30 pm Theatre Behind The O'Neill Leadership Story It looks like the O'Neill Playwrights Conference is close to nameing a successor to James Houghton, who left as artistic director last week. "Mr. Houghton left the O'Neill after discovering that its board had decided to centralize control to reduce costs without consulting him. In a telephone interview on Tuesday, he said he would have cooperated with the centralization and would never have changed the submissions policy if he had known about the board's cost-cutting plans in advance." The New York Times (2nd item) 11/07/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 7:43 am Why Did James Houghton Leave The O'Neill? James Houghton's departure as artistic director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Playwrights Conference took many by surprise. "The sudden resignation took the theatre community by surprise, coming just five weeks after Houghton's decision, announced publicly Mon., Sept. 15, that the O'Neill would 'suspend' indefinitely its longstanding policy of open submissions, a move that quickly provoked discord in the national playwriting community. The resignation also came following the O'Neill's receipt of a letter, written by a three-time Playwrights Conference alum, questioning Houghton's claim that the decision was largely based on the state of the institution's finances." Backstage 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 8:08 pm Previously: O'Neill Director Resigns "James Houghton has resigned in a pique as the artistic director of the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the country's leading workshop for new plays, saying he was excluded from the board's reorganization plans." The New York Times 10/30/03 Media Mc-NPR? Public Broadcaster Celebrates Employees of National Public Radio were stunned by the $200 million gift left by Joan Kroc. "NPR employees celebrated the news by eating takeout McDonald's for lunch yesterday. 'When I heard about the scope of it, I was almost speechless - a dangerous state in my line of work,' said longtime NPR host Susan Stamberg. 'This was totally unexpected.' She joked that she was changing her name to 'McStamberg'. Before her death last month at 75, Kroc, widow of McDonald's mastermind Ray Kroc, had committed her attention and some of her $1.7 billion fortune to charity." Washington Post 11/07/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 8:37 am NPR's Unexpected Bounty What will National Public Radio do with the $200 million gift it got from the estate of the late Joan Kroc? "Kevin Klose, the president and chief executive of NPR, said that the broadcasting company had yet to decide how the money would be spent. For now, he said, 'most of it will not be spent; it is to be saved.' He added that the NPR board would discuss how to spend the interest earned by the money. At an annual rate of 5 percent, it would generate about $10 million a year." The New York Times 11/07/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 8:12 am Bias, Shmias - American Media Cowers In Corner "This week, CBS decided that the camp, unsubtle mini-series The Reagans was too hot to handle. Dissent is out of the question, then. A fanatically conservative cabal of Republican politicians, officials and shrill, finger-wagging conservative commentators, has imposed an orthodoxy. There are ludicrous accusations of 'bias' in everything from news stories to opinion columns and now a TV miniseries, for heaven's sake. The mere accusation of bias is enough to shut up some of the accused." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/07/03 Posted: 11/07/2003 8:06 am Finding Nemo Sells At Record Pace Finding Nemo has become the fastest-selling DVD and tape of all time. "The film sold more than eight million copies in the first day of US release, beating the record held by Spider-Man. Nemo is the most profitable cartoon in US cinema history and the biggest hit of the year at US box offices." BBC 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 7:43 pm The Great Turnoff - Viewers Abandon TV Viewers are deserting broadcast TV in large numbers, particularly in the most desirable demographic. "Overall viewership is down nearly 10 percent from a year ago - a record low. (The decline is limited primarily to the six broadcast networks: basic and pay cable appear to be holding steady.) The new fall shows are being felled left and right." What's the big turnoff? Christian Science Monitor 11/07/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 6:40 pm Dance The Ballet Boyz With Unexpected Tastes George Piper Dances (or the Ballet Boyz, as they are also known) have "an unexpected taste for austere, ostensibly cerebral choreography". But here are a couple of things to know, writes, Tobi Tobias, "if you believe the folks who say that GPD represents the future of classical ballet, an art they claim is dying on its feet: (1) Classical ballet is a technique that can serve anywhere. (2) Classical ballet is also an art form that, like opera, is most itself when it can operate with a goodly number of performers in a sizeable house." Seeing Things (AJBlogs) 11/07/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 10:07 pm Spaulding - The Tightlipped Grinch Of Boston When Wang Center director Josiah Spaulding announced he was kicking out Boston Ballet and its annual "Nutcracker" performances in favor of a traveling Radio City Rockettes tour, he provoked a storm of questions. But he refuses to talk to anyone further about the decision, especially the press. He "was happy to be front and center in the press during the Wang Center's glory days when he spearheaded an enormous revival of the Theatre District, that, quite simply, made Boston a more vibrant more exciting place to live. Now he's made a decision that causes consternation and anger about his eviction of an event that's owned as much by the people of New England as it is by the Boston Ballet or the Wang Center." Townonline 11/06/03 Posted: 11/06/2003 6:59 pm Previously: Are Traveling Rockettes A Threat To American Dance? "To producers of 'The Nutcracker' ballet across the country, the Rockettes have come to represent a more sinister phenomenon. One market at a time, from Tampa Bay to Seattle, the "Radio City Christmas Spectacular," the touring version of the glitzy New York tradition, has moved in, threatening to take over the all-important holiday market." Boston Globe 11/02/03