Will ISPs Kill Off Municipal Wi-Fi Before It Starts? "Plans are afoot in [cities across the U.S.] to provide residents with low-cost or free wireless internet access. It's a great idea whose time has come, like drinking fountains, public toilets and park benches." But that doesn't mean that municipal wi-fi will get done without some major fights - after all, those high-cost internet providers (otherwise known as your cable and phone companies) are dead-set against the idea of competition in general, and city-wide internet access would pretty much kill a profitable chunk of their business. "Without legislation, ISPs have no legal basis for stopping community Wi-Fi. But legislation is a distinct possibility." Wired 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 6:08 am
The Politics of Jazz (And Race, And Poverty) In New Orleans As the rebuilding of New Orleans begins, concern is growing about the direction the reconstruction will take, and whether it will benefit the city's poorest and darkest-skinned residents. In particular, New Orleans jazz musicians have begun to raise their voices against what they fear will be the "Disney-fication" of the cultural scene. "And if the plans for the future of the city don't include its humblest residents, I fear that the communities that created jazz in the first place will be dispersed -- and the country will have lost a good bit of its soul." Salon.com 10/12/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 8:19 pm
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Smithsonian Snares Huge Cash Donation "The Smithsonian Institution plans to announce today that it is receiving a $45 million donation for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, making the donor -- the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation -- the second-largest benefactor to the museum in the past dozen years." Washington Post 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 6:50 am
Big Donation For MoMA "[New York's] Museum of Modern Art has received a gift of 174 contemporary works from a Los Angeles real estate developer, including prime examples of paintings, sculptures and drawings by artists like Philip Guston, Vija Celmins and Christopher Wilmarth... These works not only help fill many gaps in the Modern's contemporary art collection, but also enlarge its previous holdings of certain artists." The New York Times 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 5:49 am
Florence Biennale Wraps Up In Typical Style "The Florence Biennale is predominantly an Old Master paintings fair, although a few dealers venture into the 19th century and one, Tornabuoni Arte, showed modern works by Lucio Fontana. Most of the mainly Italian visitors have conservative tastes and come in search of traditional paintings, drawings, sculpture and furniture produced by artists and craftsmen from their country... Despite efforts by the fair to promote itself internationally, most overseas visitors this year were Americans and Britons who have second homes in Italy. This left the field largely clear for Italian collectors." The Telegraph (UK) 10/12/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 9:43 pm
A Spectacle of Theatrical Boxes Rachel Whiteread's new installation of 14,000 white boxes in Tate Modern's massive Turbine Hall was one of the most anticipated new works of art to hit London this year. Of course, no one knew what it would look like until yesterday, but hey, buzz is buzz. Still, Whiteread was deeply worried that the simplicity of the design would cause the notoriously fickle British arts press to jump on her, and is well aware that a backlash could still happen. "I don't think it's going to be like a room full of cardboard boxes. It's going to be a room, I would imagine, full of light and space and built elements, and you'll figure out what they are, but it might take a bit of time to do that. It's going to be a spectacle, and theatrical, and it has to be." The Guardian (UK) 10/11/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 9:06 pm
Tate Britain's New Love For Shutterbugs "London's Tate Gallery used to be famous for its perverse refusal to collect or exhibit photography. Photography could only darken its doors as an auxiliary medium... All that has changed, probably in a deliberate attempt to stake a position in the shifting balance of power as Britain's photographic institutions finally edge painfully towards sorting themselves out. There are new photographic museums afoot in Britain (not a moment too soon) and Tate wants a piece of the action. Its record on photography has been dreadful. Now it is performing a spectacular volte-face." Financial Times (UK) 10/11/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 8:40 pm
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Team Commission One of the reasons that new works of classical music don't turn up more often on the programs of smaller orchestras is that they're damned expensive. Commissioning a new work from an established composer can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and few ensembles outside of the top orchestras have that kind of cash to kick around (and if they did, they'd likely have more important things to spend it on.) But this week, a new work by composer Joan Tower will get its premiere, courtesy of a first-of-its-kind commissioning program that brought together no fewer than 65 small orchestras from across the U.S. to fund the creation of the work. The composer will see an added benefit from the unusual process as well: when all is said and done, her new work will have been performed 80 times over the course of 18 months. Newark Star-Ledger (NJ) 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 5:41 am
Beamish Binge Sally Beamish is officially "Britain's most prolific composer of concertos," a distinction that frequently puts her in the position of composing especially for some of the world's finest musicians. This fall, Scottish concertgoers will have a chance to hear what all the excitement is about, and then some. "What is about to happen is probably unprecedented in Scotland, outside of a festival context. Within a period of six weeks, five of Beamish's concertos will be played, including one world premiere and one Scottish premiere." And it's not even her 50th birthday or anything! (That comes next summer, along with what will surely be an even larger wave of performances.) The Herald (Glasgow) 10/12/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 9:24 pm
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Richmond PAC Fight Getting Ugly An ongoing feud between the mayor of Richmond, Virginia and backers of a new performing arts center ratcheted up several notches this week when representatives of the PAC attempted to deliver a check for $2 million to the city. Under the terms of a 2004 agreement between the city and the PAC, the land on which the center is to be built will revert to city control in 2007 if a building permit is not secured by that time, unless the PAC chooses to pay the city $2 million. PAC officials decided to exercise that clause early, after months of wrangling with the mayor and other opponents of the project. But the mayor directed the city to refuse the check, and declared the entire 2004 agreement void, saying that PAC leaders were trying to buy the land well below market value. Richmond Times Dispatch 10/11/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 5:09 am
- Bring On The Lawyers The discussion of whether the Richmond PAC's agreement with the city is null and void may be headed for a court battle, and the city's mayor has struck a defiant tone, saying "Let's get it on! It doesn't bother me. Heck, courts scare other people, not me.". The foundation supporting the PAC has called a news conference for this morning to respond to the city's refusal of a $2 million buyout, and unless some accomodation is reached between the warring sides, it seems likely that a court will have to make the final decision on the future of the project. Richmond Times Dispatch 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 5:08 am
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Rethinking Sarah Kane It's been six years since the brilliant young British playwright Sarah Kane committed suicide, and time has done nothing to diminish her impact on the UK's theatre scene. But as is so often the case with artists struck down in their prime, the myth has begun to overtake the reality, and her entire output is frequently viewed through the lens of her final, desperate act. "Kane's work wasn't just some outpouring of the soul. It was immensely crafted... There's a danger that we see all of [her] work as one long preparation for suicide. [Instead,] we should look at the plays as the work of a writer of great anger, of sardonic humour, who saw the cruelties of the world but also the human capacity for love." The Guardian (UK) 10/12/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 8:46 pm
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Never Put Your Show's Fate In The Hands Of Critics "When a group of New York producers announced they were bringing Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White to Broadway, there was plenty of head-scratching around Shubert Alley. The $8 million show, which opened last year in London, had three strikes against it: West End critics gave it mixed reviews; reporters and critics for the [New York] Post and the New York Times who attended the opening night performance registered their reservations; and the box office never took off (an investor in the London production says it's nowhere close to paying back)." Still, tweaks have been made, and the producers are assuring everyone within earshot that the show is much better now. Unfortunately, they tried to prove it by inviting the critics back... New York Post 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 6:45 am
Arguing Evolution For Your Entertainment This week, a trial over the increasingly contentious issue of human genetic history began in Pennsylvania, where a school board member is suing to get "intelligent design" included in the curriculum alongside Darwin's theory of evolution. Meanwhile, in California, a performance kicked off a tour of a play based on the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. The rhetoric coming from both venues is white-hot, as religious conservatives and secularists continue to square off across the U.S., and while the theatre company presenting the tour says it isn't taking sides, the question of evolution, long thought to have been settled, has suddenly become fodder for dangerously political drama. The New York Times 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 5:57 am
Now That's Knowing Your Audience The British city of Bath has a new children's theatre, known as The Egg, and its designers are right proud of it, which is good, since they're also the target demographic. "Children have played a large part in creating this theatre, which has been built inside an old cinema the entrance of which is round the side of its parent company, the Theatre Royal Bath... Being inside the Egg is like being inside a traditional theatre but with none of the more daunting elements. There are no dark velvet curtains, there is no prickly plush, the seats are smooth and not flip-up." And perhaps best of all, there's a soundproof room at the back where parents can take a screaming baby away from the crowd while still being able to see and hear the production. The Telegraph (UK) 10/12/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 9:46 pm
Britain's Theatre For New Writing Turns 50 Tom Stoppard and David Hare have each been commissioned to write a new play for the 50th anniversary season of London's Royal Court Theatre. The Court has been one of Britain's premiere venues for new plays, and Stoppard said he "[didn't] want to fall under a bus before having a play on its stage." Another highlight of the anniversary year will be a rare acting appearance by playwright Harold Pinter, who will perform the role of the "wearyish old man" in a Beckett play. "The Royal Court's illustrious history as Britain's new writing theatre has seen it associated with writers such as Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, Sir David Hare, Joe Orton and Sam Shepard. In the 1990s the theatre nurtured a new wave of talent, including Sarah Kane, Martin McDonagh and Mark Ravenhill." The Guardian (UK) 10/12/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 8:58 pm
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The People's Choice Awards (Minus The People) "J.K. Rowling, Jon Stewart, and Stephen King were among the winners last night of the first annual Quills Awards, people's choice book prizes better known so far to the industry than to the public. Rowling, author of the multimillion-selling Harry Potter books, won for book of the year and best children's chapter book for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince... But the Quills can hardly claim a broad mandate with readers. According to comScore Networks Inc., which tracks the Internet, the Quills site attracted so little Web traffic during the voting period, fewer than the threshold of 25,000 unique visits a week, that it can't even offer an exact number." Boston Globe 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 6:26 am
Reinventing Comic Books For A Darker, More Cynical Age "DC Comics is in the midst of a major effort to revitalize the company's fabled superheroes for the 21st century and better connect with today's readers. The undertaking, which began in 2002, has involved a critical look at DC's characters - from Aquaman and Batman to Zatanna - and developing story lines that sometimes have heroes engage in decidedly unheroic deeds... If fans embrace the new DC superhero universe, the gamble will be worth it. Last year, the comic book industry generated nearly $500 million in sales." The New York Times 10/12/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 9:53 pm
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CBC: Glad To Be Back, But Hurt Feelings Linger The CBC is finally back up and running at something approaching normal speed, following a nearly two-month lockout by the corporation's management, which was seeking more flexible hiring practices. And though most of the returning staff are just happy to be back at work, "there [is] a sense that the decisions of upper management will now be watched much more closely by staff. Guild officials have also said that they will police the new agreement, while also saying that political pressure will continue to be put on Ottawa to hold management accountable for the lockout and to conduct an audit to find out how money was spent." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 6:38 am
Trying To Make A Narnia For All Audiences Disney's new film version of C.S. Lewis's classic children's series, The Chronicles of Narnia, comes out next month, and the studio is preparing to ratchet up the PR machine. "But Disney's tricky marketing strategy for Narnia - which includes aggressively courting Christian fans who can relate to the story's biblical allegory while trying not to disaffect secular fans - is particularly tricky when it comes to music. The spiritual character of "Narnia" is being reinforced with the debut on the charts last week of a Christian pop album of music inspired by the film. But prospects for a previously announced secular soundtrack now seem cloudy... The Christian-oriented album's status as the only Narnia musical project in the marketplace, for now at least, could upset the studio's plan to balance two audiences." The New York Times 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 5:51 am
Blasting the Beeb The BBC is under intense fire from members of the British Parliament over its lobbying to increase the country's "television license fee" (yes, you have to pay to watch even normal television in the UK) by 2.3% above inflation per year. Some MPs complain that the BBC is trying to "wallow in cash" at a time when commercial broadcasters are struggling to stay in the black. The fee could rise to £200 ($349) per year by 2013 under the proposal, although BBC estimates put that figure considerably lower. The BBC insists that it needs the cash to cover shortfalls - critics say the broadcaster needs to rein itself in. The Telegraph (UK) 10/12/05
Posted: 10/11/2005 9:13 pm
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Colorado Ballet Director Director Sacked An ugly fight has broken out at the Denver-based Colorado Ballet, with artistic director Martin Fredmann being ousted by a board he says is "trying to destroy the company." The surprise firing is only the latest crisis for the company, which earlier this year had to cancel a major premiere after failing to raise the needed money to pay for it. The co-chair of the ballet's board bizarrely described Fredmann's ouster as being "part of the board's long-term strategic planning." Denver Post 10/12/05
Posted: 10/12/2005 6:32 am
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