Librarian Of Congress: A Technological Revolution "Libraries are inherently islands of freedom and antidotes to fanaticism. They are temples of pluralism where books that contradict one another stand peacefully side by side just as intellectual antagonists work peacefully next to each other in reading rooms. It is legitimate and in our nation's interest that the new technology be used internationally, both by the private sector to promote economic enterprise and by the public sector to promote democratic institutions. But it is also necessary that America have a more inclusive foreign cultural policy -- and not just to blunt charges that we are insensitive cultural imperialists." Washington Post 11/22/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 6:13 am
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Harvard To Sell Cassatt Harvard has decided to sell a Mary Cassatt painting worth as much as $5 million. "Painted in 1906, the work was given to Harvard in 1922 by Ernest G. Stillman, a member of the class of 1907. The painting has rarely been on display. Money from the sale will go into the museums' acquisitions fund and is most likely to be used to buy a work by the same artist." Boston Globe 11/23/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 7:49 am
Met Agrees To Return Antiquities To Italy New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is prepared to return disputed antiquities to Italy in a compromise discussed at a meeting in Rome Tuesday between the Met's director and Italian officials, Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione said. The items include a 2,500-year-old wine pot, or krater, by the Greek artist Euphronios that Italian prosecutors say was robbed from a tomb outside Rome, and a 15-piece set of Hellenistic silver they say was looted at Morgantina in Sicily." Bloomberg.com 11/22/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 7:51 pm
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Why The Recording Industry Is Failing The Piracy Test "The biggest mistake the labels are making is they're letting their lawyers make technical decisions. Lawyers don't have any better understanding of technology than a cow does algebra. They insist on chasing this white whale." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 11/23/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 7:33 am
Cologne Orchestra - Opportunity Or Exploitation? Musicians of the New Cologne Philharmonic are freelancers and earn less than their European union colleagues. "While other major orchestras charge anything from $21 to $72 for a seat, the Cologne New Philharmonic has just one price — $24. It opts out of the familiar European formula of state support and job security, gets no state subsidies and relies on box-office receipts alone. The influential French and German musicians' unions contend that his use of mostly Eastern Europeans at nonunion wages amounts to exploitation." Los Angeles Times (AP) 11/23/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 6:59 am
Will Musicians Return To New Orleans? "The musicians of New Orleans have been blown to the wind and the big question is whether they will ever return. The thing about musicians is that they play to make a living so they go where the work is - and that place now is New York or Houston or even London or Lyon in France." BBC 11/23/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 6:51 am
A Plan For A Cole Porter Museum Citizens in Peru, Ind., have bought Cole Porter's boyhood home and are planning to open a museum dedicated to the songwriter. "Led by town mayor Jim Walker and working largely from donations, the group raised the cash to buy the house last year. They plan to refurbish it and open it to the public next summer." The Guardian (UK) 11/22/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 6:02 am
Seattle Newspaper Cuts Classical Music Critic The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reassigned its classical music critic, making him a general assignment arts writer. The paper says it's not cutting back on classical music coveraqge, and that it wants to cover it differently. But "even if the classical crowd winds up with as much coverage as ever, some fret that the switch from a staffer to a freelance critic might signify to readers a lesser commitment to the arts." Seattle Weekly 11/23/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 5:52 am
When Jazz And Hiphop Got Together "The jazz/hip-hop nexus is simply a cultural and genealogical fact. Turntablists, MCs, and jazz musicians are collaborating every day. And yet the impact of hip-hop on some of the best new acoustic jazz still isn't widely understood." Slate 11/22/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 10:37 pm
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Boston Globe Arts Staff Takes A Big Hit The Boston Globe's A&E section takes a big hit as prominent critics take buyouts. "Veteran reporters slated to leave that section of the paper include pop/rock music writer Steve Morse, theater critic Ed Siegel, feature writer Jack Thomas, classical music critic Richard Dyer and arts reporter Maureen Dezell. The Globe announced the buyout package in October as a cost-cutting attempt to avoid layoffs by cutting 35 newsroom positions." Boston Herald 11/23/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 10:55 am
Canadian Arts Funding Questioned Canadian Auditor-General Sheila Fraser says oversight of Canada's cultural spending is a mess. "The general state of oversight in funding and tax credits for the arts is poor, Fraser's report found. Canadian Heritage, Telefilm Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency do not apply controls rigorously enough to ensure that requirements covering Canadian content, project selection and eligibility of expenses are met." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/23/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 7:14 am
In Buenos Aries: A Historic Theatre's Hard Times "Over the past decade, the Colón, which opened in 1908, has had seven different artistic directors or coordinators, including one who held the job twice. That chronic instability might have reached a peak in October, when the new management was forced to suspend the entire 2006 season, only to reverse course in early November when a tentative labor accord with one of the theater's two unions was announced." The New York Times 11/23/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 9:40 pm
Auditor General: Canadian Content Rules Need More Attention "Ottawa spent $2.2 billion on culture in 2002-3, including $1 billion for the CBC, Fraser said in her report. But Canada's Heritage Department does not have a clear strategic plan for Canadian culture and the many agencies involved in cultural funding all seem to go their own way, Auditor General Sheila Fraser said." CBC 11/22/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 7:49 pm
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Ronald Crichton, 92 Former Financial Times music critic Ronald Crichton, who died last week, was a force on the newspaper's arts page in the 1960s and '70s. "A man of broad culture and wide horizons, Crichton wrote with belle-lettriste style and elegance, which led some to assume he had an old-fashioned mind. Not so: he was decidedly modern in outlook, following the new music scene with unquenchable curiosity and showing an early appreciation of avant-garde productions. Crichton would often see the less obvious side of a performance, in a way envied by other critics. He was not a spectacular writer: you had to live with his writing before realising what an interesting, enjoyable and illuminating critic he was." Financial Times 11/22/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 8:52 pm
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World Libraries To Contribute To International Digital Library The Library of Congress is leading a project to build a world digital libraray. "Librarian of Congress James Billington said he is looking to attract further private funding to develop bilingual projects, featuring millions of unique objects, with libraries in China, India, the Muslim world and other nations. This builds on major existing digital documentary projects by the Library of Congress -- one preserving an online record of Americana and another documenting ties between the United States and Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain." Wired 11/22/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 6:06 am
A Few Minutes With The NYer's Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman feels the weight of history as fiction editor of the New Yorker. "I carry the weight of this 80 years on my shoulders. Everyone puts the magazine on a pedestal and they spend all their time staring up at you adoringly or trying to knock you off that pedestal. There’s such an engaged relationship with the magazine because it’s been around for so long. Even though I’ve only been there for 8 or 9 years, I’m accountable for 70 years before that, somehow." The Stranger (Seattle) 11/24/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 9:31 am
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Hollywood's Disappointing Fall Box Office Hollywood has not had a good fall. "The North American box-office total for the fall was $1.34-billion, down nearly 4 per cent from the $1.39-billion registered in 2004. The latest tally was down 18 per cent from the record-shattering $1.63 billion collected in 2003. Because ticket prices have increased slightly, estimated admissions for the fall presented an even bleaker picture of the season. Estimated ticket units were 208.1 million, down nearly 8 per cent from the 223 million reported a year earlier and well shy of the record 268.3 million rung up in 2003." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/23/05
Posted: 11/23/2005 7:17 am
BitTorrent Caves To Movie Studios Owners of the popular downloading software BitTorrent have settled with major movie studios over downloading policies. "The agreement requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to prevent his Web site, bittorrent.com, from locating pirated versions of popular movies, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of films. BitTorrent must remove Web links leading to illegal content owned by the seven studios that are members of the Motion Picture Association of America." Backstage (AP) 11/22/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 10:38 pm
Hollywood Counts On Religion Strategy "A raft of companies offering specialised media services has sprung up, eager to lend Hollywood a helping hand in producing and marketing films with a Christian-friendly message." New Statesman 11/22/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 10:36 pm
TV Viewers: Bad Language Increasing UK TV viewers say there is more bad language than ever on TV. "Overall, the Ofcom report said viewers felt that swearing started earlier in the evening and that soaps and reality programmes had contributed to this decline more than other genres." The Scotsman 11/23/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 9:57 pm
Movie Tentpoles.... Maybe Not Such A Good Idea? "Because the studios are trying to respond to a clear audience demand for more material that's fresh and unpredictable, they are greenlighting riskier fare. The results this fall were disastrous. A spate of fall movies crashed and burned, movies that if they had been produced and marketed at the independent level might have worked." Backstage 11/22/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 8:06 pm
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Broadway Dance May Lose Home New York's Broadway Dance Center, "which has shaped the dreams - and the legs - of Broadway-bound hoofers for more than two decades, may lose its home, becoming the latest example of how the heated real estate market is squeezing arts groups in the city." The New York Times 11/23/05
Posted: 11/22/2005 9:21 pm
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