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Thursday, February 5




Ideas

Between Diversity And Common Dreams Britain has become ever more diverse in the past few decades. But is this a threat or an advantage? "When solidarity and diversity pull against each other, which side should public policy favour? Diversity can increasingly look after itself - the underlying drift of social and economic development favours it. Solidarity, on the other hand, thrives at times of adversity, hence its high point just after the second world war and its steady decline ever since as affluence, mobility, value diversity and (in some areas) immigration have loosened the ties of a common culture." Prospect 02/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 6:08 pm

The Illusion Of Saftey Makes Us Less Safe Does all this added security post-911 actually make us safer? Actually, most of it doesn't, and some of it even makes us less safe. Consider ID checks: "The ostensible reason is that ID checks make us all safer, but that's just not so. In most cases, identification has very little to do with security. Let's debunk the myths..." San Francisco Chronicle 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 5:46 pm

Visual Arts

Russian Buys Faberge Collection Before the Forbes collection of Faberge eggs was able to go on auction, they were bought by a Russian industrialist. "None of the parties would disclose the price of the private sale, which includes nine imperial Fabergé eggs — the second largest collection after the 10 in the Kremlin — along with some 180 other Fabergé objects. But experts familiar with the Fabergé market estimate that Mr. Vekselberg paid about $100 million for the collection, which Sotheby's had predicted would bring at least $90 million at auction." The New York Times 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 7:21 pm

Are Private Museum Collections Dead? "The dominance of today's attendance-driven encyclopedic museums has endangered the single-collector jewel box. The founders often unwittingly thwart their own desires, failing to create enduring plans for professional management and outside financial support. Too often, the administrators and board members entrusted with the collection's postmortem stewardship are impelled less by the founder's vision than by fiscal and administrative expedience." OpinionJournal.com 02/05/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 5:33 pm

Top 25 Photography Collectors Photography is becoming more and more prized as a collectible. “You know you are truly obsessed when you buy something that is destined for your print cabinet—not your wall.” Here is ARTnews' list of the world's top 25 collectors. ARTnews 02/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 2:44 pm

Music

Digging Out In San Antonio "San Antonio Symphony officials unveiled a slimmed-down budget and debt repayment plan Wednesday that would allow for a 26-week season beginning this fall, if the symphony's creditors — including its own musicians and season subscribers — accept the proposal." The ensemble shut down last spring and filed for bankruptcy protection, sparking a wave of angry recriminations from SAS musicians and supporters. The 2004-05 season will be 13 weeks shorter than the 39-week schedule it used to have, and a new strategic plan calls for a wholesale change in the way the SAS markets and presents itself, as well as an overhaul of the fundraising process. San Antonio Express-News 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 6:17 am

Best of Both Worlds When orchestras go looking for a new chief executive, the first question that must be answered is whether the ensemble wants to hire someone with intimate knowledge of the music world, or a numbers expert with proven experience balancing budgets. The Fort Worth (Texas) Symphony, however, has decided to go with some of each talent in hiring Katherine Akos as its new CEO. Akos is a violinist, daughter of a Chicago Symphony musician, and also an experienced fund-raiser in the non-profit world. She joins an orchestra which is in comparatively good financial shape, but is struggling to avoid a deficit for the current season. Fort Worth Star-Telegram 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 5:45 am

Scottish Opera Facing Cuts Scottish Opera is holding meetings with an idea of reinventing the scale and scope of the company, after it was told it must pare down to live within a budget. "Potential job losses could be as much as 80 from its staff of around 200, although the unions involved – Equity, Musicians Union, and Bectu – have not been told what losses are expected." Glasgow Herald 02/05/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 7:12 pm

What Happens When Musicians Control Music Production? A new union of rock stars might seem like a good idea (really?). And trying to get more money for artists for digital downloads is a good thing. But "the issue of artists taking complete control over their music is a long standing and extremely thorny one. Most acts want to free themselves from the malign interference of money-obsessed record companies and follow their muse where'er it may lead. A nice idea in theory, but a vast body of evidence suggests that it is a disaster in practice." The Guardian (UK) 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 6:28 pm

Arts Issues

Where The Ahts Are Wicked Populah "More than three-fourths of metropolitan Boston residents took in a performing arts event in 2002, according to the results of a new national survey to be released today at City Hall. In fact, more Greater Bostonians attend performing arts events (78 percent) than professional sports events (56 percent) each year, according to a report by the Performing Arts Research Coalition." And in Boston, home of some of the country's most rabid sports fans, that's saying something. Boston Globe 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 6:11 am

Vandals Hit Detroit Arts High School - Again The music program at the Detroit High School for the Performing Arts is one of the best in the nation, and has been widely praised for its work in bringing the arts to an inner-city population which might otherwise have been economically frozen out of such opportunities. But the program has apparently also become a favorite target of area vandals, with more than $200,000 of damage caused to instruments and equipment in the most recent break-in. Desiree Cooper is dismayed by the vandalism, but wonders if such rebellions without cause are actually further evidence that Detroit's youth desperately need a chance to experience the arts. Detroit Free Press 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 6:02 am

American Named To Head Melbourne Festival American Kristy Edmunds, a "38-year-old artist, playwright, curator and institution-founder from Portland, Oregon, was announced yesterday as director of the 2005 and 2006 Melbourne festivals. The Australian 02/05/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 7:15 pm

People

Spalding Gray's Self-Fulfilling Prophecy With three weeks having passed since his disappearance, those close to monologuist Spalding Gray are despairing of finding him alive. It seems likely that Gray, who left behind a wife and three children, jumped into New York Harbor from the Staten Island Ferry. "Death has been Gray's obsession, his fascination. It petrified him, yet he grew accustomed from an early age -- from his own mother's threats to kill herself -- to death's constant presence." Gray had often predicted that his own death would come by suicide, once he could no longer bear to battle his myriad demons, and it appears that he may have been correct. Washington Post 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 6:57 am

Leonardo - Father Of Plastic? Did Leonardo invent the first plastics back in the 15th Century? "Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, where the artist was born the illegitimate child of a Florentine notary and a peasant girl in 1452, found Leonardo's recipe for artificial materials in several pages of drawings and notes." Discovery 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 7:25 pm

In Appreciation Of Ann Miller Ann Miller was one of the movie greats, writes Rex Reed. "She couldn’t sing like Judy or swim like Esther, but they couldn’t machine-gun tap, either. She loved the spotlight, she loved the attention, she loved the camera, and she loved to dance." New York Observer 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 2:37 pm

Theatre

To Boldly Go Where The BBC Has Gone Before... The UK's National Theatre is leaping into the increasingly dangerous fray surrounding the country's role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. "The NT's new season will culminate in September with a play by one of the war's fiercest critics, Sir David Hare." The play focuses on several "neoconservatives" within the Bush Administration, and argues that they intended to remove Saddam Hussein from power years before the 9/11 attacks which supposedly precipitated the American action. The title of the work, which is taken from a statement by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, is "Stuff Happens." London Evening Standard 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 5:27 am

Publishing

Where Writing Is A Dangerous Profession "Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has given birth to some of the continent's most remarkable writers - and then proceeded to devour them." From Chinua Achebe to Ken Saro-Wiwa, countless writers who have risen to international acclaim have found themselves beaten down by the country's notoriously repressive government. "By now, the ugly dance between Nigeria's imperious military rulers and its outspoken writers has become predictably ritualized. When the latter dare to dissent, the former lock them up, or worse." Newsday 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 6:49 am

From Proust To Pornography - Now That's An English Class At England's University of Wolverhampton, an English course has caused an uproar. "Unpopular Texts is the paradoxically popular optional course on the third year of our English degree that has been pilloried in the press. A dark spectrum of material selected from all areas of culture has passed through its seminars. Self-evidently literary and experimental works by James Joyce, William Burroughs and DM Thomas rub shoulders with Enid Blyton's long unavailable The Three Golliwogs. Modernist masterpieces labelled degenerate by the Nazis share exhibition space with a September 11-themed issue of The Amazing Spider-Man." And pornography... The Guardian (UK) 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 6:34 pm

The Dark Side - More Familiar With Darth Than Shakespeare A UK survey reveals that those asked could identify a quote from Star Wars more easily than one from Shakespeare. "When asked to complete the line 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your...' from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, some people said swords or money rather than ears." BBC 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 3:07 pm

Media

Did The History Channel Yell Fire In A Crowded Theater? "A delegation of former Lyndon Johnson aides, led by Bill Moyers and Jack Valenti, demanded yesterday that the History Channel launch an independent investigation of its documentary charging that LBJ was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy." The network has agreed to review the issue internally, but isn't specifying how far it intends to go in complying with the Johnson staffers' demands. Initially, the network had defended its airing of the documentary as a legitimate expression of an unpopular point of view, but that defense is faltering as those close to Johnson offer evidence that directly contradicts that allegations made in the film. Washington Post 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 7:05 am

Get Used To The Outrage Call it lewd, call it overblown, but the fact remains that "stunt TV" seems to be here to stay. Janet Jackson's bosom-bearing moment at the Super Bowl is only the latest indication that TV networks are ready to do almost anything to get viewers to tune in for a few minutes. The idea, of course, is to convince your audience that your programming is so wild and unpredictable that, if they make the mistake of switching channels, they could miss something memorable. And for all the bluster coming out of the FCC over the Super Bowl flap, some experts believe that it was the FCC's own rulings allowing media consolidation that led to the explosion of shock programming. The Christian Science Monitor 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 6:31 am

File-Swapping: Who's Responsible? "A federal appeals judge on Tuesday questioned whether distributors of online file-sharing software should be held responsible for copyright infringement just because some people use the programs to swap copyright music and movies." The entertainment industry estimates that 90% of the content flowing through file-swapping sites is illegal, and argues that the company's that make the software count on pirates for most of their business revenue. "The case's outcome could determine whether music and film companies can hold distributors of file-sharing software liable for illegally swapped music and movies online." Wired (AP) 02/04/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 5:18 am

No Place For Pirates The Academy Awards voter who was recently charged with having passed advance copies of films on to a friend who subsequently distributed copies illegally has been expelled from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. It's the first time that the Academy has expelled a member in its history. BBC 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 5:10 am

A Big New Movie Museum For LA? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is considering building a new "world-class" motion-picture museum in Los Angeles.
"Academy executives said they wanted the museum to be a 'major statement' comparable to such recently built Los Angeles cultural landmarks as the $274-million Walt Disney Concert Hall or even the $1.3-billion J. Paul Getty Museum."
Los Angeles Times 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 5:43 pm

US Congress Looks At Content Crackdown For TV, Radio "Republicans and Democrats alike are forming alliances and proposing laws to crack down on growing smut on television and radio. It seems certain that an energized Congress and president will greatly increase fines for indecency on the air, especially in the wake of Janet Jackson's exposure during the Super Bowl halftime show. This could bring a new era of activism to the Federal Communications Commission, which has found almost no time to monitor or punish broadcasters, even while under Republican control." Wired 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 5:39 pm

Dance

ABT Faces Another Budget Crisis American Ballet Theatre is in another fiscal crisis. "Ballet Theater's cash reserves dropped by more than $3 million — to $3.4 million from $6.5 million — in the last fiscal year, which ended in July, according to an audited financial statement recently released to its trustees. And a more recent financial report compiled by the company for the four months that ended on Nov. 30 showed an operating deficit of $3.8 million. People with knowledge of the company's finances say this fiscal erosion has made it difficult for the company to pay vendors and meet payroll." The New York Times 02/05/04
Posted: 02/05/2004 6:28 am

  • Maybe An Artistic Crisis, Too? Judging from the ABT's performance this week at the Kennedy Center, finances aren't the only thing the company ought to be worrying about, says Sarah Kaufman. "In the dispiriting fog that Tuesday's performance left behind, it is difficult to identify the most horrific moment... In the campaign parlance that currently preoccupies Washington, ABT has so muddied its message that it risks alienating its base. Surely ABT hasn't forgotten who its core supporters are and what they look to this troupe to deliver. Ballet is, after all, the company's middle name." Washington Post 02/05/04
    Posted: 02/05/2004 6:07 am

A New Dance Building That Dances Three years ago, a man looking for a dance school for his daughter, offered the University of Arizona in Tucson funds to build a new home for its dance program. "This story sounds like something out of an old Fred Astaire movie, and why not? Just looking at the Eller Theatre, designed by Gould Evans Associates in Phoenix, makes you want to tap your feet. The finely proportioned rectangular glass volume that hosts the dance studios seems to pirouette above a lush green lawn." Architecture Week 02/04/04
Posted: 02/04/2004 7:17 pm


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