A World Of Trends? How Yesterday!
"Today, fads ping across continents and disappear so quickly that the coolhunter, even the whole notion of "cool," has become passé. Every big-city scenester or bored teenager on the planet has a blog or mass e-mail anointing the moment's hot restaurants, hobbies and handbags. Add to this, mass obsession with celebrity style and global corporatization and you can get nearly the same chai latte or straight-off-the-runway skirt in Columbus, Ohio, that's available in Manhattan or Milan. Trend-spotting has, in essence, become just another trend..."
Los Angeles Times
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 10:54 am
Are Computers Failing Our Children?
"A University of Munich study of 174,000 students in thirty-one countries, indicates that students who frequently use computers perform worse academically than those who use them rarely or not at all. Whether or not these assessments are the last word, it is clear that the computer has not fulfilled the promises made for it. Promoters of instructional technology have reverted to a much more modest claim?that the computer is just another tool."
Orion
10/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 10:48 am
What's Missing In Our Great Cities
"For decades now, we have been witnessing the slow, ruthless dismantling of America's urban infrastructure. The crumbling levees in New Orleans are only the most conspicuous evidence of this decline: it's evident everywhere, from Amtrak's aging track system to New York's decaying public school buildings. Rather than confront the causes of that deterioration, we are encouraged to overlook it, lost in a cloud of tourist distractions like casinos, convention centers, spruced-up historic quarters and festival marketplaces. The inadequacy of that vision has now become glaringly obvious. And the problem cannot simply be repaired with reinforcement bars or dabs of cement. Instead, our decision makers will have to face up to what our cities have become, and why. The great American cities of the early 20th century were built on the vision of its engineers, not just architects..."
The New York Times
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 9:31 am
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Sprucing Up Security
A few years ago Washington DC got uglier, littered with hideous concrete barriers put in place to protect buildings from terrorist attack. But new designs incorporating security are proving that security can be attractive. "Ingeniously, the architects combined benches with that tired staple of curbside security, the heavy flower pot, to make the basic, repeating unit of their design. Measuring about 9 feet long by 4 feet wide by 3 1/2 feet high, this clean-lined unit looks very solid. Yet it is unquestionably attractive."
Washington Post
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 9:03 am
Vettriano - Art? Really? (But The Public Loves Him)
"Last week the long-running debate contrasting Jack Vettriano's lack of critical acclaim with his public popularity was reignited by the revelation that The Singing Butler was, in fact, inspired by a £16.99 artists' reference manual. Long derided by critics, Vettriano has fought artistic battles before. The art establishment is distinctly sniffy about his work. Despite his huge popular appeal, no national gallery shows his paintings. Reference works either ignore him or grant passing mention, but there is a voracious public appetite for both his romantic early paintings and later works which focus more on the highly charged sexual atmosphere of human relationships."
Scotland On Sunday
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 8:40 am
When Freedom Crashed - Questions About WTC Project
The Freedom Center at the site of the World Trade Center was a controversial project from the start. But the way New York Governor George Pataki killed it arbitrarily has some people wondering if the whole process for building at Ground Zero is just a sham.
New York Observer
10/06/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 6:50 am
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Is Digital Downloading Classical Recording's Saviour?
So says a spokesman for Naxos. "This is all pure profit for us. There are no post-production costs - no booklet to print, no (disc) pressing costs, no jewel case costs. And really, it hasn't hurt our CD sales. People out there look at the price of a download in a different way. This is disposable music. It's a way for them to sample something without making a large investment. They'll pay the 99 cents for one cut and either decide to try the whole album or not. If they like it, they'll maybe go out and purchase the CD."
Rocky Mountain News
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 10:24 am
Scots Look Enviously At Welsh Opera
While Scottish Opera languishes, the Welsh National Opera thrives artistically. What's the difference? "It is simply the fact that good-quality opera is not something that can be done cheaply and cannot be done with uncertainty over year-to-year financing, which is what we have had. In opera, we have to think at least three years ahead when we book people and organise our events. When we don't know from year to year how much money we are going to have, we can't plan properly. In Wales, they make it a priority."
Scotland On Sunday
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 9:43 am
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Aussie Arts - Money And Censorship
"In John Howard's Australia, libraries, museums, theatres and orchestras are on the same list as ports and roads and hospitals - traditional institutions, and necessary parts of the civic fabric. To understand what's happened under Howard to the arts in general and theatre in particular - the odd mix of generosity and meanness, celebration and indifference, abuse and support - it's best to keep in mind the lessons learnt in the kafuffle over the orchestras: that the bedrock arts policy of the Howard Government is not support for the arts - it's support for arts institutions. Big, traditional institutions. And in the way we understand these things in Australia - let's not talk of what's possible in Europe - the big traditional arts companies are flourishing under John Howard as never before."
Sydney Morning Herald
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 10:05 am
Is Toronto Living Beyond Its Artistic Means?
Toronto has gone on a tear of arts building in recent years. "After they have congratulated themselves on the arts building boom, Torontonians should start to wonder about who's going to pay the price in the years ahead. Most of us would rather forget it, but the truth is that Canadian arts institutions are seriously underfunded and have been for at least 10 or 15 years."
Toronto Star
10/08/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 9:59 am
Silicon Valley Leaders: We Need Culture To Stay Ahead
A survey of business leaders in California's Silicon Valley reports that they believe their ability to "recruit creative talent is dropping compared with other global centers of technology. They cited the lack of an energetic urban core and insufficient leisure and cultural activities as among key reasons."
San Jose Mercury-News
10/07/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 8:56 am
Polisi: Today's Artists Have To Be Missionaries
Juilliard president Joseph Polisi is celebrating the school's 100th anniversary. "With the future of art at stake, Polisi says Juilliard's mission is no longer just to teach talented young people to sing, act, play instruments or dance. 'In my view they're responsible for more than getting the notes right or the words right or the steps right. They have to be missionaries for the arts. I can't find a significant national politician who really will take a major stand for the arts because there's not much political capital in it and in fact there may be some downside."
Backstage
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 6:20 am
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Marin Alsop, Conductor
She talks about the stresses after her controversial appointment to lead the Baltimore Symphony. " 'It was a very trying and stressful experience in many ways. To be perfectly honest, my initial reaction, when it all started, was to run: 'Gosh, who needs this?' She described a candid private meeting with the whole orchestra at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, the orchestra's home, before she appeared at a news conference on July 20. She wanted to look the musicians in the eye, she said, before signing the contract. She told the players she needed to get over her own hard feelings. By her account, she made it clear to them that she had already been hesitating about taking the job, given the orchestra's large debt and poor attendance. At the same time, she praised the players as part of a gifted and deeply musical orchestra."
The New York Times
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 9:20 am
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New Volley Of Plays Take On The Iraq War
"As the Iraq war approaches year three, a new volley of war-themed plays is landing on the stages of the United States and Britain, the countries that led the assault on Saddam Hussein. Most express strong opposition to U.S. and British policies. Many of these scripts will surely have a short shelf life. But most of the playwrights say that the theater offers ways of thinking and feeling about the war that go deeper than the images on TV ? and that the communal experience of theatergoing is likelier to change attitudes than the solitary experience of looking at a screen."
Los Angeles Times
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 10:58 am
Is Stratford Sick Under The Surface?
Ontario's Stratford Festival "currently has the ruddy bloom of financial fitness in its cheeks." But Richard Ouzounian writes that "a distressing number of voices feel that its artistic arteries are clogged to the danger point."
Toronto Star
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 9:52 am
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Poetic Preoccupation
"It may be going too far to call this a 'golden age' for poetry, as this year's Forward judges have done, but most of the poets jostling for these prizes do seem to be reaching for a readership beyond the seminar room. Sales of particular volumes may often be counted in the hundreds rather than thousands, but poetry does escape to what Milton called a 'fit audience, though few'. Free, unlike novelists, to be as recondite as they wish, they have surprising taste for accessibility. It might surprise traditionalists to find a common interest in poetry's formal polish and patterning, even rhyme and scansion. So what preoccupies the nation's poets - aside from obtaining the university posts teaching creative writing that now sustain many of them?"
The Guardian (UK)
10/06/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 8:47 am
Canadian Network To Telecast Gillers
CTV has picked up national broadcast of Canada's Giller Prize for literature. "The winner this year will be announced at a black-tie gala in Toronto Nov. 8, during a one-hour telecast live on CTV Newsnet. Three repeat airings will take place on the main network - after midnight, the following afternoon and the following weekend. In the past the Giller was broadcast on CBC and CHUM's Bravo and Book Television specialty channels."
Yahoo! (CP)
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 6:32 am
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TV - The Modern Movie PR Machine
"Kissed off by critics as a sad emblem of the state of modern journalism - loud, jaggedly edited amalgams of gossipy supermarket tabloid and studio press release - shows like "Access Hollywood" and "Entertainment Tonight" have nonetheless never been more important to the marketing of Hollywood, and have never had more competition. At a time when high-profile movies can live or die on the strength of their opening weekend, such shows offer a big potential audience - an average of 3.2 million viewers a night for "Access," 6.7 million for "E.T." - as well as a prized commodity in Hollywood: free exposure." The New York Times
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 9:38 am
Poll: Texas Chainsaw Is Scariest
Readers of Total Film magazine have voted the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" the scariest horror movie of all time. Made in 1974 "for just $140,000 US, it is based on the exploits of real-life serial killer Ed Gein and stars Gunnar Hansen as the axe-wielding Leatherface." BBC
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 6:13 am
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Ballet Pacifica Makes A bid For The Big Time In Southern California
The company has a new director, and the Irvine-based group has ambitious expansion plans. "Ballet Pacifica would make its debut in fall 2006 outside Orange County. The company's first home repertory season would include three different programs performed in spring 2007 at the new $200 million concert hall. Again, dates have been 'penciled in,' but contracts have not yet been signed, Arts Center officials confirmed."
Orange County Register
10/09/05
Posted: 10/09/2005 10:39 am
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