Blair To Bush - A Winston Churchill In 2001 Tony Blair loaned George W Bush a bronze bust of Winston Churchill to put in the Oval Office. "The British government's huge hidden collection is held inside an anonymous underground storehouse in Soho and contains around 12,000 works of art (five times more than the National Gallery owns). The curators are given £200,000 a year to buy new pieces and the art is available for government ministers to request for display in their private offices. It is also sent out all over the globe to foreign embassies and consulates. Intended as a showcase for British cultural life, the work has always stayed inside property owned by Britain. Until, that is, March 2001, when Blair's officials requested the President of the US should be loaned a bust of the British war-time premier." The Guardian (UK) 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 10:31 am
Copy This Building "Copying in architecture is at least as old as tracing paper. Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia was an effort to import Palladio's neo-Roman vision to the New World. And the first United States copyright act, passed in 1790, made no provision for architecture. It wasn't until 200 years later, in 1990, that the United States added buildings to the list of things - including movies, books and recordings - that qualify for copyright protection. But even among architects with instantly recognizable styles, it's rarely possible to state with certainty which similarities result from direct imitation and which are coincidental." The New York Times 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 9:36 am
King Tut - Icon Of International Politics The differences between the first visit of King Tut to America and the second are instructive. Both visits served political goals. But "the Cold War is long since over, and the technique of cultural diplomacy that characterized the era has withered as a Washington pastime. Instead, corporatism is the new driving force. The change from public sponsorship to corporate packaging mirrors the political sea change in the U.S. between 1979, when Tut 1 finished its blockbuster national tour, and 2005. It brackets the Reagan-Bush era and the decline of liberal democratic ideals and the rise of corporatist political philosophy." Los Angeles Times 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 8:39 am
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Chicago - Then And Now Chicago has always been a great music town. But the last 40 years have expanded the depth and breadth of classical Chicago. "Seed money from the National Endowment for the Arts (founded in 1965) and other granting institutions created fertile ground for new performing arts groups in the late '60s and throughout the '70s and '80s. And many of those groups sustained their growth through the new practice of subscription ticket sales, which in turn fanned individual giving. As a result, the city now pulses with dozens of music ensembles made up of local professionals, almost all of them founded since 1967." Chicago Sun-Times 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 12:29 pm
Oxford Does Piano The Oxford International Piano Festival is a different breed of dog. "It has nothing to do with winning anything or brokering careers. It's about the exchange of views and opening of ears. We try to explore the world of the piano from every aspect: the virtuoso, the chamber musician, the accompanist, the pianist in academia. And being in Oxford, we're interested in the relationship between playing and learning, performing and informing. I think that's clear from who we invite and what they do while they're with us." The New York Times 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 10:06 am
Selling Symphonies - More Than Just Marketing New York Times readers respond to Daniel Wakin's story about classical music marketing: "Why are symphony audiences shrinking? It's obvious. The majority of the public has zero connection to the standard repertory, and therefore little reason to hear it or care about it. Whereas video-game-music concerts take advantage of an emotional investment players make in characters and scenes which they not only observe, but actually control." The New York Times 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 9:05 am
End Of An Era - The Last Opera Recording A new recording of Tristan und Isolde with Pacido Domingo marks the end of an era. "No more spending hundreds of thousands of dollars coddling famous singers' egos. No more waiting decades to, with luck, recoup an investment. No more recording works with singers who have never performed their roles onstage and are long past their primes. No more sessions spread out over weeks, months, years. No more relying on technology that permits a soprano and tenor to record a duet without ever setting foot in the studio at the same time. No more shifty studio magic. But then again, no more of that legerdemain to bring the music alive in ways it may never be in the opera house. This new "Tristan," which EMI Classics will release in the U.S. in September, turns out — against all odds — to be glorious." Los Angeles Times 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 8:51 am
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How America Is Failing At Public Diplomacy A nation's culture, exported to the world, acts powerfully in the arena of diplomacy. But "despite a mounting stack of reports recommending drastic changes in the organization and funding of public diplomacy, very little of substance has been done. And most Americans, including many who make it their business to analyze public diplomacy, seem unmindful of the negative impression that America has recently been making on the rest of humanity -- via our popular culture." Washington Post 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 11:49 am
Miss Manners Weighs In On The "New" Heckling Miss Manners has observed that "heckling is attempting to reinvent itself under the popular name of 'audience participation.' The Internet having given us the means of widely disseminating immediate personal reactions to just about everything, the idea has arisen that doing so will enhance any format. Sorry, all you little whizzes who thought you could outsmart Miss Manners: Using a new method of achieving a rude aim does not catapult you into etiquette-free territory." Washington Post 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 11:35 am
What's It Take To Be A Star In The Arts? "It's not just about spotting talent, it's about spotting what might strike a chord with people." Ten prominent British star-spotters talk about what it takes to make it big... The Observer (UK) 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 11:21 am
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Going Out In Style (Some Famous Funerals) Not just anyone gets a funeral sendoff in a rocketship like Hunter S. Thompson. But "while Thompson's pyrotechnic pyre last week must be one of the most extravagant and expensive funerals in recent history (price tag: $2.5 million, paid by Johnny Depp, who played Thompson in the film version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"), it's not unusual for people who lived in the limelight to shuffle off this mortal coil in some colorful fashion." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 8:06 am
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America's Greatest Living Playwright? Lindsay Posner nominates David Mamet. "His plays are challenging and uncompromising, all the more moving for their lack of sentiment. He has an uncanny knack of catching the zeitgeist." The Observer (UK) 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 11:25 am
Shakespeare Wrote In Political Code? Clare Asquith claims in a new book that Shakespeare embedded "dangerous political messages" in his work. "She argues that the plays and poems are a network of crossword puzzle-like clues to his strong Catholic beliefs and his fears for England's future. Aside from being the first to spot this daring Shakespearean code, Asquith also claims to be the first to have cracked it." The Observer (UK) 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 11:07 am
A Rarity - Woman Wins Prestigious Comedy Prize For the first time in 25 years, a woman has won the Perrier Prize for Comedy. "Laura Solon, 26, won the £7,500 prize for her show Kopfrapers Syndrome, in which she plays eight different characters. She was one of five acts shortlisted." BBC 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 8:24 am
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The Publishing Conspiracy - You Have To Publish Something People Want To Read It's a well-peddled myth that the publishing industry is a cartel. "Curiously unsatisfied with the idea that being a successful novelist requires the ability to write books that a consistently large number of people are prepared to buy, jaded scribblers search instead for an explanation that will permit them to retreat with their pride and delusions intact." The Guardian (UK) 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 11:14 am
Don't Books Need A Jolt Of Contest Popularity? Some in the book industry are grumbling that the rich Quills Prize is just a reward for popularit. "But worried publishers, and the Quills organizers, say that show biz is just what publishing needs. Book sales have been in the dumps for several years, and with newspaper review space dropping, publishers are desperate to get public attention. The Quills appear after a year in which the National Book Award, funded largely by the publishing industry, drew sneers and grumbles for nominating five poor-selling novels by relatively unknown writers. The Quills idea is that if consumers participate in naming the best books and get to see the winners announced on national television, they'll have a heightened interest in books." Boston Globe 08/27/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 8:19 am
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Korean Soaps Find American Audiences "As Americans flee network television in droves, Korean dramas are grabbing audience share. In the Bay Area, "Dae Jang Geum," or "Jewel in the Palace," aired this spring, dubbed in Mandarin on the Chinese-language KTSF. For the finale, more than 100,000 fans tuned in, handing the show higher ratings than ABC's "Extreme Makeover," the WB's "Starlet" or PBS' "Live From Lincoln Center" in that time slot. The 'Korean wave' of pop culture -- known in South Korea as hallyu -- is a point of national pride, helping introduce the country to the world and breaking down historical grudges with its neighbors. The soaps have also boosted the popularity of South Korean movies and singing acts." San Francisco Chronicle 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 12:18 pm
The Year VHS Tapes Died Make no mistake - teh videotape format is dead. "In fairness, the remains of VHS haven't been interred yet. After all, 94.7 million American households still own VCRs. And more than $3 billion was spent on video rentals and purchases in the United States last year, according to Home Media Research. But if VHS isn't quite dead, it's at least on life support, comatose, all industry signs indicating it will not be resuscitated." Washington Post 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 11:42 am
MTV For All Your Devices Can MTV be an arbiter of mass-market music tastes in a world where entertainment flows from everywhere? The network is branching out from pure TV to other platforms. In addition to the traditional celebrity-studded ceremony of Sunday's MTV Awards, "viewers will also be offered backstage shots and bonus content simultaneously on the MTV Overdrive broadband channel: while watching an acceptance speech from, say, Coldplay on live television, a viewer can also be logged onto Overdrive and see Kanye West in his dressing room or the Killers performing outside American Airlines Arena. It's all about circulating people back and forth between the different screens," The New York Times 08/28/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 8:59 am
California Movie Tax Credits - Corporate Welfare? Reaction to a proposal to give tax incentives to movie producers in California has brought a wave of protest. "Critics have pounced on the estimated $50 million outlay since its unveiling last week, claiming that it amounted to 'corporate welfare' when basic social services are being cut. 'Those who will benefit mostly by this are those independent movie producers who really are operating on very very thin margins. Really what this is about is stabilizing the middle-class workforce in California'." Backstage 08/27/05
Posted: 08/28/2005 8:28 am
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