IDEAS
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas
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Higher Ed - The Moral Choice? Sould universities teach you how to be moral? Nope. "The university also makes little effort to provide you with moral guidance. Indeed, it is a remarkably amoral institution. Today, elite universities operate on the belief that there is a clear separation between intellectual and moral purpose, and they pursue the former while largely ignoring the latter." - The New York Times 06/19/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20040621-48879.html
Are Happy People Evil? New research suggests that happy people are not all they're presented to be. "Researchers found that angry people are more likely to make negative evaluations when judging members of other social groups. That, perhaps, will not come as a great surprise. But the same seems to be true of happy people, the researchers noted. The happier your mood, the more liable you are to make bigoted judgments -- like deciding that someone is guilty of a crime simply because he's a member of a minority group. Why?" - New York Times Magazine 06/20/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20040621-48866.html
ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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Breaking Tax Law For Non-Profits? The US Congress is scrutinizing tax laws that provide breaks for donations to non-profits. Some of the proposed reforms could be onerous. "To deputize the nonprofit community with the responsibility for these inquiries would assign the highly technical and complicated work of determining an appraisal's accuracy to individuals who are not qualified nor authorized to deal in these matters." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 06/22/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20040622-48886.html
Where's The Shock Of The New? What do the arts need more than anything else? Playwright David Edgar says artists need to provoke and outrage arts institutions. "He argued that the arts in this country had been at their most successful when the spirit of provocation was most alive - as in the late 1960s and early 70s." - The Guardian (UK) 06/22/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20040622-48884.html
Study: Arts More Than Sports A study on arts participation released at the National Performing Arts Convention in Pittsburgh echoes previous reports. "Once again, as in studies past, more people reported attending a live performing arts event at least once in the past year than reported attending a professional sporting event. Eight out of 10 acknowledging that the performing arts improve the quality of life in their communities. More than that, between 58 and 71 per cent of those interviewed agreed that attending live arts events encouraged them to be more creative. This has traditionally been an argument used to support arts education in schools. It was interesting to find, in this era of diminished arts education, that so many people still subscribe to the belief." - Toronto Star 06/20/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20040621-48872.html
Arts as Essential Service Why is the city of Philadelphia cutting its arts funding, when investment in the arts has returned major benefits? "Why, given all of the studies showing how much the arts contribute to a city and region's health, have we not figured out how to fund the arts in a way that they don't have to go begging every year for mere survival. Why is it that we can support transit, education, health and human services, recreation and other line items with the understanding that they are necessary to our existence, but still treat dance, music, theater and art as if they are luxury items - nice if you can find the money, but not essential?" - Philadelphia Inquirer 06/20/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20040621-48868.html
DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/dance
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MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
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Should The CBC Be Privitized? Canada's next government might try to privitize the CBC. "The truth is, since the late '70s, when independent production began in earnest thanks to taxpayer support, a huge business has grown up where once there was CBC and little else. The entertainment-media industry is not about to shrink in this wired world. Quite the opposite. So, rather than weeping and wailing about what was — or wasn't — perhaps the wiser course is to look to the future and act as if there is one. Maybe the time has simply come to rewrite this script." Toronto Star 06/21/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20040622-48887.html
Why The TV Schedule Had To Change TV "networks have a lot to gain by switching away from traditional seasons, and viewers do, too, since new shows are easier to check out when they come in small doses. It’s impossible for a normal person who has any kind of life to see all the shows that début in the fall, and within a couple of weeks it can be too late, since shows not infrequently get cancelled after just two or three episodes. But something has happened to summer in the process. Reruns are disappearing from the landscape; soon you’ll no longer have the chance to see that episode of your favorite show which you missed because your tango class interfered, and you won’t happen to catch a show that you ignored during the regular season, and that turns out to be good." The New Yorker 06/21/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20040621-48881.html
Reinventing The TV Schedule, Part I "This fall, for the first time, three of the big networks and one of the lesser broadcast networks will offer viewers regularly scheduled repeats as part of their fall prime-time lineups." The New York Times 06/21/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20040621-48871.html
Reinventing The TV Schedule, Part II American TV networks are changing their schedules in fundamental ways. "Giving new meaning to mind-numbing, phony "reality" and other unscripted shows occupy 20 percent of the lineup. This season, five new phonality shows are on the card. Last year, there were zero. An addict will be able to watch cow-eyed love seekers; rapacious, amoral yuppies; and psychologically damaged females seven days a week, in 13 of the 15 prime-time hours before 10 p.m. It's part of a youth-crazed, bottom-line mentality that also finds reruns written into the start of the schedule for the first time, helping to bump every trace of first-run scripted series TV from Saturday nights." Philadelphia Inquirer 06/20/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20040621-48869.html
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
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Muddying Maazel At The New York Phil What was the New York Philharmonic doing with its announcement of an extension of music director Lorin Maazel's contract, asks Barbara Jepson. Naming three guest conductors during Maazel's last three years does nothing but muddy the issue of leadership after Maazel's tenure. OpinionJournal.com 06/22/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040621-48877.html
St. Louis Symphony Matches $40 Million Challenge The St. Louis Symphony has raised the $40 million it needed to meet a challenge grant six months ahead of schedule. "The 125-year-old orchestra received funds toward the challenge grant from symphony patrons, board members, corporations, foundations and individuals. More than 10,000 pledges were made in 54 months, the orchestra said." St. Louis Business Journal 06/21/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040621-48873.html
Of Conductors Who Compose There are plenty of composers who take up conducting (and do quite well). There are few conductors who can turn the other way. So why are Lorin Maazel and Andre Previn both writing operas well on in their careers? La Scena Musicale 06/18/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040621-48864.html
Scottish Opera: Director Quits, Chorus Axed Scottish Opera's woes mount. The director of the company's "La Boheme" has quit over a dispute about scenery. And "the opera’s own tragedy reached a new low yesterday. After 34 chorus members singing in La Bohème were told minutes before the curtain went up on Thursday that they faced redundancy, the rest of the 88 staff facing the axe were formally informed by the company yesterday." The Scotsman 06/20/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040621-48863.html
Scottish Opera Resignation A vice president of Scottish Opera has resigned in protest of the government's funding decisions. "I believe the company has been treated in an appalling way and as I predicted it is now being put about that the plan to diminish the company is the Opera’s choice. The Scottish Executive has made a serious mistake in not providing the necessary additional funding. However, as I have always believed that additional funding is necessary it would be inconsistent for my formal association to continue with the reduced Scottish opera that is envisaged. In these dark times the only light is the near unanimous voice in Scotland against the Executive’s actions." The Scotsman 06/20/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040621-48867.html
PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/people
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PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing
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Correcting The Punctuation Book “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” present itself as a call to arms, in a world spinning rapidly into subliteracy, by a hip yet unapologetic curmudgeon, a stickler for the rules of writing. But it’s hard to fend off th suspicion that the whole thing might be a hoax." So Louis Menand takes a blue pencil to the book and finds plenty to circle. The New Yorker 06/21/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20040621-48880.html
THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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Broadway's Post-Tony Bounce Broadway saw a little bounce at the box office in the week after the Tony awards. "Paid-attendance numbers came to 239,489, which was one of Broadway's better mid-June perfs -- down only 5,000 from 2000." Yahoo! (Variety) 06/21/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20040621-48883.html
The Theatre That Came To Town (And Never Went Away) The Adirondack Theatre in upstate New York began as a summer operation renting space in an old Woolworth's store (the owners of the store were trying to lease it as a mini-mall). The theatre kept coming back to town for the next several summers until the town realized a theatre was just what it needed. The New York Times 06/21/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20040621-48870.html
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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Portrait Prize Winner The winner of this year's £25,000 BP portrait award is an Aberdeenshire-based graphic designer and artist, Stephen Shankland. The Guardian (UK) 06/21/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040622-48885.html
Who Was Mona Lisa? (Now We Know?) Who was the woman known to the world as Leonardo's Mona Lisa? "Seventeen years of research, beginning in Germany, have led the Adelaide historian Maike Vogt- Luerssen to believe that the Mona Lisa is the lovesick former Duchess of Milan, Isabella of Aragon, and not the wife of a florentine silk merchant, as has been believed." Sydney Morning Herald 06/20/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040621-48882.html
Welsh Built Stonehenge? Archaeologists now believe that some of the builders of Stonehenge were Welsh. "The finding, which comes just before Sunday's summer solstice, not only sheds light on Stonehenge's origins, but also provides clues to prehistoric migration patterns within Europe following the Stone Age, which was the earliest known period in human culture." Discovery 06/21/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040621-48865.html
