Land Of The Undead "Do you want to know what depresses the American spirit? Do you want to know why it feels as if the center cannot hold and the tyranny of mediocrity has been loosed upon our world? Do you want to know what instills thoughts of suicide and creates a desperate, low-level rage the source of which we cannot quite identify but that we know is right under our noses and that we now inhale Prozac and Xanax and Paxil by the truckload to attempt to mollify? I have your answer. Here it is. Look. It is the appalling spread of big- box strip malls, tract homes like a cancer, meta-developments paving over the American landscape, all creating a bizarre sense of copious loss, empty excess, heartless glut, forcing us to ask, once again, the Great All-American Question: How can we have so damned much but still feel as if we have almost nothing at all?" San Francisco Chronicle 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 7:44 am
The Latest Scoop? Gossip's Cool "Gossip has long been dismissed by researchers as little more than background noise, blather with no useful function. But some investigators now say that gossip should be central to any study of group interaction. People find it irresistible for good reason: Gossip not only helps clarify and enforce the rules that keep people working well together, studies suggest, but it circulates crucial information about the behavior of others that cannot be published in an office manual." The New York Times 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 9:13 pm
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Knight: Getty Fundraising Is Troubling Michael Brand seems like a good choice to lead the Getty Museum, writes Christopher Knight. But his charge coming into the job to raise money for projects for the richest museum in America is troubling... Los Angeles Times 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 7:11 am
What To Make Of "Britain's Best Paintings"? The list, to be voted on by the public, is a familiar one. "These are the paintings in Britain's galleries most often written about, most regularly reproduced. People love them precisely because they are as familiar as old friends. Pablo Picasso is out while Sir Henry Raeburn is in. In a sense, this list - chosen by a panel but based on public nominations - is a tribute to art education. It may be predictable, but it is wide-ranging." The Telegraph (UK) 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 7:45 pm
The Dallas Art Collectors A gift of 800 contemporary artworks valued at $215 million by three couples to the Dallas Museum of Art earlier this year, vaults the museum to a new level. But the gift was only part of a remarkable pattern of support by patrons trying to build a civic collection. Dallas Morning News 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 10:12 am
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The Cliburn's Competition Within The Competition For years the Van Cliburn Piano Competition commissioned a work for the competition. This year "five composers' works were sent to all the competitors who had to select one for performance in the semifinal round—should they be lucky and skilled enough to get that far. The composer performed by the most semifinalists would be the winner. Sebastian Currier took home the top prize of $5,000, while each of the other composers who had a work played in the semifinals received $2,500." NewMusicBox 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 8:18 am
Cincinnati Symphony Raises Ticket Prices, Takes A Big Hit Last season the Cincinnati Symphony raised ticket prices by 25 percent. It was a disastrous move. "The orchestra lost 10 percent of its subscribers and its attendance dropped 12 percent in the 51-concert season that ended in May, in figures released today by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Average attendance was 1,707, meaning on most nights, the 3,417-seat Music Hall was half empty. Such a steep decline in one year is unprecedented in recent symphony history. For the past decade, attendance has hovered between 1,900 and 2,000. Last season, 1,935 concertgoers heard the symphony play on an average concert evening." Cincinnati Enquirer 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 4:10 pm
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NYC Arts Figure In '06 Elections Will the arts be an factor in New York City elections this year? "Surely, few public officials lack an understanding of culture's central place in New York City. It is more likely that these officials sense that the arts do not need a high level of government attention in the face of what they see as more pressing concerns. Arts advocates view it differently, some worrying that the city's cultural prominence is already eroding. They believe City Hall needs a comprehensive arts policy, a concrete strategy to maintain the city's position as cultural capital and to take it further." Gotham Gazette 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 8:05 am
A Debate About £100 Million For The Arts Will the Scottish government go ahead with a Cultural Commission report's recommendations to spend another £100 million on the arts? Not without a full parliamentary debate, says the Scottish executive... The Scotsman 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 9:36 pm
What Makes A Good Artistic Director? "Artistic directors are a rare breed: someone who can stoke the fire of their own art output while being charged with the success and leadership of a company - often when that company is going through a dramatic time of change." The Age (Melbourne) 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 7:15 pm
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Hadid - The Inventor Of 89 Degrees Architect Zaha Hadid is finally getting her buildings built around the world. It took many years. "There is a certain uncompromising otherworldliness to Hadid. And this, combined with the wackiness of her designs, may account for why, for many years, she remained Britain’s great unbuilt architect. Many architects take a long time to come to the fore, but Hadid’s incubation period stretched for nearly 25 years." The Telegraph (UK) 08/17/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 8:28 pm
Fo: Think 20 Years Playwright Dario Fo makes a rare public appearance. "Asked what his advice would be for writers who had not yet reached his level of achievement and recognition, an amiable Fo said: 'It is not just a question of experience, nor is it a question of age ... There are some people who live only 20 years, but many, many people remember them because they knew how to live the time that was given to them. I'm not suggesting that you should live only 20 years. Live as long as you can, but from time to time, think '20 years, 20 years, 20 years', and put them together'." The Guardian (UK) 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 7:39 pm
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Minnesota Fringe's Record Year "The Fringe broke its own attendance record, selling 44,630 tickets, up slightly from last year's paid attendance of 44,189. The festival sold 15,465 attendance buttons this year, a fair estimation of the number of people who attended the festival and saw several shows." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 7:38 am
In The UK: Nice Return On Theatre Investment "Theatre in the West Midlands creates £264 million for the local economy every year, more than a tenfold increase on its initial public investment, according to a survey by Arts Council England." The Stage 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 4:20 pm
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Textbook Prices Through The Roof The cost of textbooks has gone up twice the rate of inflation each year since the late 80s, says a new report. "The average annual cost of textbooks for a student in 2003-04 was $898 at a four-year college and $886 at a two-year college, the report found. While overall prices have increased 72 percent since 1986, the report said, college tuition and fees have increased 240 percent and textbooks 186 percent." Boston Globe 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 6:48 am
Deffending Your Life You're writing an autobiography. You're writing about people around you. But some of it might not be flattering. Indeed, some of it might be bizarre. So how much do you have to disguise your descriptions of these people, and will you be sued? These are the issues in a case brought against a best-selling memoir "Running With Scissors." The book world is following it closely... Boston Globe 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 6:40 am
A Quarter Of Us Never Read Books "For every four Britons with their noses in a bestseller, there's one adult in the UK who does not read books at all. Research by the Office for National Statistics, commissioned by the National Reading Campaign in 2001, found a quarter of adults had not read a book in the previous 12 months. The figure rose to almost half among males aged 16-24. This is despite soaring book sales - up 19% in the UK in the five years to 2004. This rejection of books is not connected to literacy - the number of adults with reading difficulties has decreased by two million in the past decade to about five million." BBC 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 6:32 am
Colin Wilson: Optimistically Yours "In books on sex, crime, psychology and the occult, and in more than a dozen novels, Colin Wilson has explored how pessimism can rob ordinary people of their powers. 'If you asked me what is the basis of all my work, it's the feeling there's something basically wrong with human beings. Human beings are like grandfather clocks driven by watch springs. Our powers appear to be taken away from us by something.' The critics, particularly in Britain, have alternately called him a genius and a fool." The New York Times 08/17/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 9:08 pm
Your Name Here (As Long As You Pay) "Next month, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Lemony Snicket, Nora Roberts, Michael Chabon and 11 other best-selling writers will sell the right to name characters in their new novels. Profits from the auction (at www.ebay.com/fap) will go to the First Amendment Project, whose lawyers go to court to protect the free speech rights of activists, writers and artists." Chicago Sun-Times 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 9:54 am
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FCC Obscenity Complaints Down Dramatically Complaints to the FCC about obscenity on TV and radio in the US were down dramatically in the last quarter of 2004. "FCC officials attributed the marked drop — which saw complaints plummet from 317,833 to 157,650 from one quarter to the next — to the end of e-mail and write-in campaigns aimed at certain television and radio stations. The report did not identify which organizations were behind the campaigns or which broadcasters were targeted." Los Angeles Times 08/17/05
Posted: 08/17/2005 7:03 am
Rethinking Your Movie Theatre Pleasure Your movie theatre experience is about to get better. "At a time when movie attendance is flagging, when home entertainment is offering increasing competition and when the largest theater chains - Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment (which has recently announced a merger with Loews Cineplex) and Cinemark - are focused on shifting from film to digital projection, a handful of smaller companies with names like Muvico Theaters, Rave Motion Pictures and National Amusements are busy rethinking what it means to go to the movie theater." The New York Times 08/17/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 8:45 pm
Da Vinci Code Filming Finds Mixed Reception "British churches are divided over whether to allow filming of "The Da Vinci Code," an adaptation of Dan Brown's biblically revisionist best seller. The novel's claim that Jesus Christ fathered a child with Mary Magdalene has drawn strong protests from the Roman Catholic Church, and the movie version has fanned whispers of discontent in the cathedral city of Lincoln, where Tom Hanks and the crew were filming Tuesday." Back Stage (AP) 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 7:10 pm
What Becomes An "In-Flight Movie"? "While many of the movies on different airlines are identical in name, the process of choosing in-flight entertainment is far more complicated than you think. With a cabin full of already edgy frequent fliers, even seemingly benign movies are carefully edited to appeal to the widest crowd possible." San Francisco Chronicle 08/16/05
Posted: 08/16/2005 7:06 pm
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