When Philosophy Met Science "One of the leading themes of current philosophy is that the notion of objectivity is utterly illusory. This is not some post-modern pose: the subjectivity of scientific knowledge has been proved with mathematical rigour. The upshot of these proofs is that data merely serves to update our pre-existing beliefs, and that its impact on those beliefs depends on such touchy-feely concepts as trust. There was a time when philosophers would have been content to point all this out, and then sit back with a smug smile. No longer..." The Telegraph (UK) 07/14/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 6:22 pm
A Brain RAM Problem? "If the computer is bringing such momentous intellectual gains, where is the evidence of it? Only 42% of the 2003 freshman class in the California State University system were proficient in math and English. SAT scores, reading levels and other measurements of achievement reported by the press show a steady decline and a consistent lowering of levels of understanding, knowledge and abilities, most markedly since the God-like computer came on the scene. Certainly there are social, cultural and economic reasons for some of it, but the most basic cause may be neurological." Los Angeles Times 07/10/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 4:07 pm
Flamboyant SF Arts Czar Resigns Arts Commission Stanlee Gatti, the "irrepressible arts advocate and event designer to the rich and famous" has resigned as president of the San Francisco Arts Commission. "He steered the agency during the boom years of the 1990s, when an unprecedented number of public artworks, paid for by the 2 percent cut public art gets from the budget of every new civic project, appeared around the city: 57 permanent pieces, including installations at the airport by noted artists such as Vito Acconci and Ned Kahn, Robert Arneson heads along the Embarcadero and a score of temporary installations by big names like Bill Viola and the late Keith Haring." San Francisco Chronicle 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 9:15 am
Earliest Village In American Northwest? Workers in western Washington state unearth one of the earliest villages ever discovered in the Pacific Northwest. "Among the artifacts to surface from the grounds of Tse-whit-zen -- a likely former winter village of the Klallam peoples of the upper Olympic Peninsula that carbon dating so far shows could be as old as 1,719 years -- are remnants of a longhouse and at least two other tribal houses crafted from cedar. Discovery of such structures is significant, Larson said yesterday, because they may be among the oldest remnants of homes ever found in the Northwest." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 8:21 am
Recalling Old American/European Controversies "Old controversies over the influence of the European avant-garde on American art seem almost quaint, if indeed somewhat paranoid. Yet some of those old polemics were characterized by a ferocity that is worth recalling, if only as a measure of how radically some things have changed for the better in this country, at least in the realm of high art." New York Observer 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 8:10 am
Zero Sum Game - Libeskind Sues Over WTC Job Architect Daniel Libeskind is suing the developer of the World Trade Center site. "In court papers filed July 13, Mr. Libeskind claimed that Mr. Silverstein owes his firm $843,750 for the architectural work it performed on the Freedom Tower between July and December of 2003. Mr. Silverstein allegedly last offered around $225,000 for the work, a figure that Mr. Libeskind has called "insulting," and which he has said is in retaliation for the way his vision for the skyscraper clashed with that of Mr. Silverstein’s architect on the project, David Childs, of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill." New York Observer 07/13/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 7:27 am
Pope Returns Icon To Russia "Pope John Paul is to remove one of the Orthodox church's most revered icons from his private chapel and dispatch it to Moscow in an attempt to improve the Vatican's tense relations with the Russian Orthodox hierarchy." The Guardian (UK) 07/13/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 6:12 pm
The Caveman's "Sistine Chapel" Artwork dating back 13,000 years has been found in a cave in England. "The site of the find, Church Hole Cave at Creswell Crags, is being called the "Sistine Chapel" of the Ice Age because it contains the most ornate cave art ceiling in the world. The ceiling extends the earliest rock art in Britain by approximately 8,000 years and suggests that a primary culture unified Europeans during the Ice Age." Discovery 07/13/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 5:01 pm
Drawing The Line - The Gatsbyesque Collector The art world has been buzzing about Shipley Miller, "head of the Judith Rothschild Foundation, ever since he hatched a Gatsbyesque plot in the spring of 2003: He would travel the globe for one year acquiring contemporary drawings with several million dollars of the foundation’s money. Then he would usher the collection into MoMA, where he serves on the drawings committee, with a museumwide show." New York Magazine 07/12/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 4:24 pm
What Happened To The Summer Concert Business It died, that's what. "A midyear business analysis just released by the trade publication Pollstar concludes that "For reasons that are still unclear, the bottom seemed to fall out of the concert market in mid-April. All three major concert promotion companies and several prominent independents reported a sudden drop in sales of anywhere from 15 percent to 50 percent." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 9:07 am
Fear Factor - Record Companies Play It Safe Where's the innovative recorded music these days? "You would think, in the age of Outkast, that there would be a lot of crazy types of innovation going on. Instead, there's a huge vacancy in left field. Declining revenue, allegedly due to file-sharing, has record execs more risk-averse than ever, particularly where a cash cow like urban music is concerned." Philadelphia Inquirer 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 9:04 am
Philly Orchestra Management Takes On Musicians On Website Contract negotiations between orchestra musicians and managements usually take place behind closed doors, but the increasingly contentious talks currently ongoing in Philadelphia have apparently escalated into open warfare. This week, the Philadelphia Orchestra's board chairman launched a new corner of the ensemble's web site, entitled "Securing the Future," which advertises itself to be an informational update on the negotiations while declaring that "it is our musicians' turn to share responsibility." Highlighted on the new site's front page is a fiery declaration that "Our current trade agreement is a roadmap to extinction." Philadelphia Orchestra 07/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 10:24 pm
A Musical Rebellion Against Music-Playing Technology "Imagine Thomas Edison going shopping for music today, however: the inventor of the phonograph would reel from one shock to another. Why have records shrunk to compact discs? How do you download songs from computers? How can thousands of them be stored on a tiny personal stereo? As for a portable telephone that plays the latest Britney Spears single - well, at that stage he would probably need a long lie down. The danger of grumbling about these new technologies is that you sound like a mildewy old vinyl bore who thinks records are intrinsically superior (which, let's face it, they are). Yet there's a perfectly sound, non-Luddite reason for resenting the attention iPods, ringtones etc are getting." Financial Times 07/13/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 6:05 pm
A Plan To Fix Boston's Strand What's to become of Boston's troubled Strand Theatre? Financially strapped and managed for two years by novice theater operators, the Strand was booked and programmed erratically. Youth programs were canceled for lack of funds, and producers were reluctant to mount shows at the theater, which garnered a reputation for inept, if not unethical, booking, marketing, and management practices." Boston Mayor Thomas Menino sommissioned a study and has some recommendations for how to fix things. Boston Globe 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 8:45 am
If You're 20, London Is The Place To Be London is draining the twentysomethings out of the rest of Britain. "In the City of London, Camden and Tower Hamlets, the proportion of twentysomethings has risen to 13 per cent, while it has fallen by 1.7 per cent to 6.6 per cent across Britain as a whole. In Wandsworth, 16 per cent of residents are aged 25 to 29. The influx of young people in some parts of London is up by 4.8 per cent in ten years." London Evening Standard 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 8:41 am
Seattle Art Student Hassled By Homeland Security A Seattle art student goes to the Ballard locks to take photographs. Police and Homeland Security officers descend, demanding identification. They show up at his home demanding ID. Why, when dozens of others at the locks are busy snapping pictures? Could it be the way he looks? Seattle Post-Intelligencer 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 8:31 am
More Arts Study Numbers From the recent Americans for the Arts study: "Arts businesses – both for-profit and nonprofit – comprise 4.3 percent of all U.S. businesses and employ 2.99 million people. California was found to be the bellwether of the country's arts industry, with more arts-related businesses – 89,719 – than any other state. New York ranks a distant second with 45,671." San Diego Union-Tribune 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 8:18 am
Why Was Austin Missing From Arts City Study? When people think of arts cities in Texas, most think of Austin. So why wasn't Austin on the recent list of best arts cities in a study by Americans for the Arts? "Austin was not on the initial list because it and other midsize urban areas such as Portland, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham were not included in the study. So the American-Statesman requested follow-up research from the advocacy group. With midsize areas counted, according to data provided Tuesday by Americans for the Arts, Austin would rank third in the country with 3.46 arts businesses per 1,000 residents. The Santa Fe and Bellingham, Wash., areas would rank Nos. 1 and 2." [sign-in requires first name: Use "access"] Austin-Statesman-American 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 7:47 am
The Perfect Mistress Priscilla Morgan is "that rare kind of patron whose phone book is more important than her pocket book. She has always been a curator of people selecting from her impeccable taste and nurturing more with friendship, encouragement, ideas and moral support than with money, though she has given plenty of that, too, over the years. She admits to having had "the most extraordinary men" in her life, including her former husband ("one of the great naval aviator heroes of the Pacific") and the countless artists who attended the frequent gatherings at her garden apartment—from Buckminster Fuller, Willem de Kooning and Richard Lindner to Christo and Saul Steinberg. But after that Bastille Day 1959, her center was Isamu Noguchi." New York Observer 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 7:30 am
Porter - DeLonely "Promiscuity and songwriting were Cole Porter’s antidepressants, at once an expression of and a relief from his neediness—the 'oh, such a hungry, yearning burning inside of me' that he wrote about in 'Night and Day.' Porter seems never to have found the love that he eloquently invoked in song after song." The New Yorker 07/12/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 5:15 pm
Contemp Theatre Fest Places American Character On The Table The 14th annual Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia is all about character. "The menu at this year's festival, one of the few across the nation devoted entirely to new work, offers a variety of perspectives on a country divided against itself. From the racially driven pessimism in Lee Blessing's playlets to the terrorism-fueled paranoia of Stuart Flack's "Homeland Security" to the lighthearted culture clash in Richard Dresser's Little League comedy "Rounding Third," the writers invited to the campus of Shepherd University find their voices by tracing the fault lines in the contemporary American character." Washington Post 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 9:29 am
Nests Of Baby Rowlings JK Rowling has sold a lot of books. But that's not her only accomplishment. "The catalyst of a fantasy renaissance, she's the unmistakable force behind a boomlet in precociously youthful (and successful) writers." Slate 07/13/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 5:57 pm
Re-Dissertation In A Time Of Plagiarism A professor discovers that a colleague at another university has plagiarized her dissertation. "Is cheating so pervasive that even someone who seeks a career in academe will violate the fundamental principle of giving other scholars credit for their work? If so, what hope do I have of inculcating that principle in students eager to escape quickly with their B.A. in hand?" Chronicle of Higher Education 07/12/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 5:37 pm
Minority Opinion "Every black writer has a piece about the special challenges of being black. Every Latino writer has a piece on growing up Latino or speaking Spanglish. Native American writers lament their treatment at the hands of Caucasian police or describe journeys they made to rekindle their lost heritage. Chinese American and Korean American writers have pieces about the difficulties their Asian-born parents have living in America. And so on. Please don't misunderstand me. I rejoice at these honest and exciting essays, and I teach some of them in my classes every semester. But it seems that writers who happen to be members of minority groups are getting pigeonholed." Los Angeles Times 07/10/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 4:02 pm
Canadian Radio Regulator Shuts Down Controversial Station "Canada's broadcasting watchdog refused yesterday to renew the licence of a controversial Quebec city radio station, setting the stage for its closure next month. The CRTC said CHOI-FM repeatedly broadcast insulting and offensive comments in violation of the Broadcasting Act." Toronto Star 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 9:22 am
Study: Movie Ratings Are More "Lenient" "A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health has found that a decade of 'ratings creep' has allowed more violent and sexually explicit content into films, suggesting that movie raters have grown more lenient in their standards." The New York Times 07/14/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 6:40 pm
Pac Man Back (And This Time It's Art!) "Twenty-five years after they colonized the arcades, the original video games have begun to invade a whole new area: pop culture and high art." They're showing up everywhere... New York Magazine 07/12/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 4:36 pm
Dance Connecticut Kaput Dance Connecticut, the producing and teaching organization that rose from the ashes of Hartford Ballet, has has gone out business because of its money problems. Hartford Courant 07/14/04
Posted: 07/14/2004 8:57 am
Same-Sex Dance Russell Halley and Jorge Guzman are "pushing against limits set by the United States Amateur Ballroom Dancers Association, which requires that a competing couple consist of a man and a woman. The two dancers say that the rules are archaic and that they have proved that two men can dance powerfully and still be artistic. Moreover, they ask, if questions of gay identity and inclusion are being engaged in the workplace and in the bonds of marriage, then why not in professional and amateur sport?" The New York Times 07/14/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 6:37 pm
UK Ballet Stars Of The Future? The graduation performances of the Royal Ballet School and the English National Ballet School show evidence of solid training. "The so-called Billy Elliott effect seems to be working; at both performances, there was a strong presence of boys, with four going into the Royal and Birmingham companies, and one into English National Ballet next season." But where's the star power? The Telegraph (UK) 07/14/04
Posted: 07/13/2004 6:29 pm
