Apathetic For a Reason Today's twenty-somethings are constantly tagged with the 'apathetic' label, due in large part to their disdain for traditional activism and their embrace of an overtly cynical worldview. But could the apathy and cynicism stem from the devastating reality that a small but vocal band of activists can no longer have the world-changing impact they once did? Anyone who sits and watches a film like "Fahrenheit 9/11" or "The Corporation" will be angry at the world afterwards, but if you don't believe that you can do anything about it, what's the point of trying? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 9:51 pm
Thoreau the Survivor "Survivor" was not the first reality TV series. And it wasn't "The Real World," either. No, the first individual to conceive of the idea of performing ridiculous stunts in public in order to prove a point (or just amuse the neighbors) was Henry David Thoreau, says Julia Keller. But in all seriousness, the importance of Thoreau's little stunt - abandoning city life to live like a hermit in the middle of nowhere - has been twisted and misconstrued over the years since "Walden" was written. And just as in most reality shows, Thoreau wasn't above a slight varnishing of the truth if the editing process could help out the narrative flow. Chicago Tribune 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 9:27 pm
The Concrete Renaissance Concrete is cheap, and efficient, and comparatively easy to work with. What it is not is attractive, and so it is understandable that architects and artists have not frequently embraced it as a medium. "But concrete has a rich history in aesthetics. Though it has been responsible for much that was dreary and utilitarian, it was also the glop that built the Pantheon in Rome. And now architects have returned to it as an aesthetic device." The New York Times 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 5:44 am
Missing The Point: The Architect As Superstar Frank Gehry's addition to the Art Gallery of Ontario is doomed to be a disappointment, says Christopher Hume, because Toronto has always refused to view Gehry as an architect when it can view him as a home-grown celebrity instead. "Not that Gehry's famous for being famous anywhere outside of Toronto. In some cities, he's famous for his buildings. Indeed, in some cities, his buildings are more famous than their creator. It's enough to make you feel sorry for the man. Sure, he's a celebrity, but he's also an architect, a great architect even. Even if it turns out brilliantly, the AGO addition was always too limited to give Gehry, the architect, the scope to do something major, something spectacular." Toronto Star 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 10:34 pm
Adding To The Discussion Gottfried Helnwein is an artist whose work - "giant color portraits of stillborn babies, paintings that merge Nazi-archive photographs with pictures Helnwein has taken, enigmatic portrayals of apparently wounded or menaced children" - tends to provoke strong reactions, and in recent years, several individuals have expressed their displeasure with some of his images by defacing them. Helnwein confesses to being initially startled by the vandalism, but these days, he has decided that the viewer has as much to contribute to the larger discussion as the artist, and if people are moved to destroy what he has created, he can at least salute their passion. San Francisco Chronicle 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 10:23 pm
Columbus Negotiations Go Public The Columbus Symphony Orchestra has joined the growing roster of orchestras for whom contract negotiations have become a public affair this summer. "Sunday's [Columbus Dispatch] carried a half-page ad from the musicians asking the public to step in and make their voices heard... Last week, sky banners touted a new grassroots website. Now [the] new ad is asking people to write the symphony board and express their frustrations." Talks between musicians and management at the CSO broke off earlier this summer. Ohio News Network 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 6:29 am
Calgary Phil Back in Black "The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, which was forced into bankruptcy protection two years ago, said yesterday it has eked out its best operating surplus in a decade... The orchestra suspended operations in October, 2002, when it filed for court protection from its creditors and embarked on a $1.5-million fundraising venture to stay afloat. The orchestra streamlined operations, hired a new management team, cut musicians' pay by 20 per cent and sought out new sponsors, donations and ticket buyers." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 6:08 am
Cleveland Turns Summers Over to Welser-Möst The Cleveland Orchestra has announced that music director Franz Welser-Möst will take over the job of planning the orchestra's summer music festival once current summer director Jahja Ling's contract expires in 2006. The orchestra will save about $60,000 with the move, but that appears not to have been a factor in the decision. Welser-Möst, like many of his predecessors, wanted to have more of an active role in planning the summer, and while he will not increase his summer presence on the podium, the programming will likely change noticably under his directorship. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 6:01 am
This Implies That There Are Good Bagpipers? A national "piping expert" in Scotland is accusing the Edinburgh Festival of forcing attendees to endure substandard bagpiping buskers in the name of tradition. "[Roddy McLeod] said most of the performers who lined the capital's streets during August were 'shockingly bad' players. Many could not tune their instruments properly and did scant justice to their musical potential, he added." Festival organizers agree that their pipers are not exactly ready for a Saturday night at the Sydney Opera House, but insist that they are merely upholding centuries of Scottish tradition. The Herald (UK) 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 10:08 pm
Can The President Be Copyrighted? The extent to which copyright law plays a role in the increasingly divisive debate over politics and the media which reports on politics is exemplified by a new documentary focusing on the Iraq invasion. Filmmaker Robert Greenwald wanted to use a clip of President Bush ham-handedly defending the invasion on NBC's Meet the Press, but his request was denied by NBC, which owns the content that goes out over its affiliate stations. But if networks can truly withhold such content from public use, the public persona of a president who chooses to hold very few public press conferences, and who speaks mainly in controlled (and copyrighted) settings is in serious danger of manipulation by the handful of companies that control Big Media. Wired 08/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 5:53 am
Cleveland Seeks Funds For An Arts Festival The city of Cleveland does not have a large, annual, tourist-attracting arts festival. It would like to have one. And plans are well underway for the launch of the "Festival of Arts and Technology". And all it will take to start it up is $1 million from the Cuyahoga County general fund. But that's not chump change in a metro area of Cleveland's size, and the county authorities are taking a close look at the plans before signing on. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 10:19 pm
Cirque du Soleil Scouting Olympians "The Cirque du Soleil is reassuring coaches and athletes that it will not be poaching Olympians in the prime of their career, as acrobatic talent scouts head to Athens next week to scope out the scene. But despite Cirque's best efforts, some coaches still resent its presence... Cirque recruiters routinely attend gymnastic championships, as well as dance and theatre festivals. Cirque has been sending scouts to the Olympic Games since 1996. Coaches are also scouted, and he knows of three top Canadian coaches who are working for Cirque." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 9:49 pm
Marketing The Hip-Hop Culture "Many former and current hip-hop producers and performers... have turned their attention away from the Top 40 and toward Madison Avenue. While hip-hop performers have been running marketing divisions as part of their business, [hip-hop capitalists] are building successful full-service agencies with a roster of clients that they run apart from their other businesses." The New York Times 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 8:54 pm
Poet Donald Justice, 78 Donald Justice, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Midwestern poet whose works were renowned for their precision of style, has died following a stroke. "Mr. Justice was acclaimed as both a poet and a teacher. His poetry followed an unusual trajectory over the decades, starting out in a traditional way, diverting into the experimental and surreal, and returning to meter and rhyme in the end." The New York Times 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 5:48 am
Improving A City's Look (Primarily With Big Nudes) Photographer Helmut Newton was already in the late stages of setting up a foundation in his name in Berlin when he was killed in an auto accident earlier this year. He did not live to see the opening of the foundation. "But now more than ever it has become his memorial, and an eye-catching one at that. Where stern portraits of bewhiskered generals once presided over the foyer of the officers' club at Jebensstrasse 2, near the Berlin Zoo station, five of Newton's trademark 'Big Nudes' now proclaim his place as a pioneer of erotic fashion photography." The New York Times 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 5:40 am
Fay Wray, 96 "Fay Wray, an actress who appeared in about 100 movies but whose fame is inextricably linked with the hours she spent struggling, helplessly screaming, in the eight-foot hand of King Kong, died on Sunday at her apartment in Manhattan. She was 96." The New York Times 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 5:38 am
The Biggest Donor W. Jerome Frautschi is a man of his word, and it's a good thing for the city of Madison that he is. When Frautschi offered to pay the full cost of constructing Madison's Overture Center for the Arts, that cost was projected to be $50 million. Instead, the final price tag was $205 million, and Frautschi's gift is now believed to be the largest amount ever given to a single arts organization by a single donor. Chicago Tribune 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 9:32 pm
Closed Captioned Shakespeare A new concept is being tested in a few North American theaters: closed captioning. The idea is simple - patrons whose hearing loss makes it difficult to hear the voices coming from the stage can read the full text of the play in real time on a small screen placed near the stage. The captions are smaller than the surtitles used at many opera houses, and can be read easily from roughly the first ten rows of the theater. The hope is that the new technology will bring older audiences back to the theater. Canada East 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 6:21 am
Independence Pays Off A year ago, Detroit's Meadow Brook Theatre severed its ties with Oakland University after the university tried to shut it down, determined to make it as an independent company. Not many observers gave the perennially money-losing troupe much of a chance. But "under its new management, [Meadow Brook] stopped losing money... [and] the organization finished in the black for the first time in seven years." Detroit Free Press 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 9:38 pm
Tired Of Playing Second Fiddle The Boston Theatre Conference, going on in the Hub this week, is partly a chance for the theater crowd to reassure each other that their medium is still relevant. But more importantly, it's the first time that so many in the local scene have gathered to assess their position in Boston. "Noting that theater has often been the "stepchild" in the Boston arts scene, taking a back seat to such renowned institutions as the Boston Symphony Orchestra or the Museum of Fine Arts, [one moderator] asked the six panelists from a range of local companies to look at Boston's current position in the theater world and to talk about how it might develop." Boston Globe 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 9:17 pm
Looking For The Next Generation of Writers Australia's theater scene is thriving in many cities, but at least one veteran of the industry says that the country is lagging far behind in the art of creating new plays. What would help is some sort of national program to encourage and instruct young playwrights... The Age (Melbourne) 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 9:09 pm
Trove of Unpublished Poetry Found in UK 250 pages of unpublished poems by Philip Larkin have been discovered in the library archives of the poet's hometown. "Larkin, who died in 1985 aged 63, was chosen as the [UK's] best-loved poet of the last 50 years in a 2003 survey by the Poetry Book Society." BBC 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 5:30 am
Unscripted? Get Real. One of the attractions of the "reality TV" genre for programming executives and networks is the comparatively low cost of production. One of the biggest cost savings is that no writers need to be paid, since all the action is unscripted. Or is it? The union that represents Hollywood writers says that reality shows unquestionably "have scripts, called 'paper cuts' in the trade. Jokes are penned for hosts, banter for judges. Plot points and narrative arcs are developed. In some cases, lines are fed directly to contestants." Not surprisingly, the union would like to see someone getting paid for this. Washington Post 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 6:50 am
FCC Ruling May Show The Limits Of Broadcast Sex The FCC has responded to complaints from a right-wing watchdog group by ruling that two popular TV shows - Will & Grace and Buffy the Vampire Slayer - did not violate the commission's decency standards by airing episodes which contained, respectively, simulated lesbian sex and two principal characters (of opposite genders) engaging in sex. Neither program contained any nudity, and the FCC ruled that while sex was clearly shown to be taking place in the Buffy episode, there was "little evidence that the activity depicted was dwelled upon". The ruling may give broadcasters a guideline for what the FCC will find acceptable in future. BBC 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 5:34 am
Short Films Gaining Traction A decade-old London film festival devoted exclusively to short films has begun to have a real impact on the prominence of a frequently neglected corner of the film industry. "When the inaugural festival was held nine years ago, it attracted around 1,000 viewers. This month's event will screen almost 400 shorts to an estimated total audience of 13,000." The Telegraph (UK) 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 10:16 pm
TiVo The Mighty, TiVo The Vulnerable Television was changed forever when TiVo arrived on the scene. In fact, it's not going too far to suggest that the digital recorder/on-demand video machine is a bona fide cultural touchstone. But even as TiVo, the concept, continues to captivate the world, TiVo, the company, is floundering in the face of increased competition from other, more flexible, companies. The New York Times 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 8:56 pm
The Mysterious Disappearing (Reappearing) Demographic About a year ago, the people who track TV ratings and the people who pay attention to them sounded the alarm: 18-34-year-old men, the most desirable advertising demographic, had stopped watching television! Millions of 'em! "Commentary abounded that a significant cultural shift had taken place and that a generation of men was steadily quitting television-viewing, forsaking both network and cable programs in favor of video games, DVD's and the Internet." Now, the young men are inexplicably back watching the tube. Were the Nielsen ratings wrong? Not according to Nielsen. But several critics of the system say otherwise. The New York Times 08/09/04
Posted: 08/09/2004 8:45 pm
Pittsburgh Ballet Fills Vacancies From Within "Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre will have a wide-ranging new look next season. Artistic director Terrence Orr will increase the company's size from 28 to 30 dancers, with six promotions from within. Ten new members will fill the corps de ballet and apprentice ranks to replace departing soloists." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 6:45 am
Why Dance Is Worth Covering What keeps dance critics so passionate about an art that society increasingly views as expendable? Perhaps it's their own importance in the struggle to keep the form alive. "Dance is more dependent on the musings of its critics than, say, poetry and music are on the writings of their critics. Unless you live in a culturally significant city, your chances of seeing a wide range of live dance (much less different casts of a single work) are slim... Even the most obscure post-minimalist or Renaissance composer is more likely to be culturally available—at least, satisfyingly enough on CD—than any well-established or even world famous choreographer." Maisonneuve (Montreal) 08/10/04
Posted: 08/10/2004 6:14 am
