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Press Releases
Week of 11/15/09
What's The Etiquette For Spoilers?
In this era of live blogging and TiVo time-shifting, "[p]eople are, if
anything, more insistent on keeping their bubbles of cultural innocence intact.
Heaven forbid they should learn that, in a romantic comedy that opened three
weeks ago, the guy gets the girl in Act 3." Chicago
Tribune 11/20/09
Panicking Over A 2012 Apocalypse? NASA Says You Can Relax
What with the movie, the Mayan calendar, and the solar-galactic-alignment
thing, one NASA astronomer has "been getting about 20 letters and e-mail
messages a day from people … scared out of their wits," seriously wondering if
they should euthanize themselves and loved ones before the end of the world
less than three years hence. So the agency "felt it was prudent to provide a
resource." New York Times 11/17/09
Get Ready For Graphics Transmitted Right Onto Your Contact Lenses
"A contact lens that harvests radio waves to power an LED is paving the way for
a new kind of display" - graphics transmitted right onto the lens and into its
wearer's field of vision. Uses might "include subtitles when conversing with a
foreign-language speaker, directions in unfamiliar territory and captioned
photographs." New Scientist 11/12/09
Tampa Bay PAC Gets A New Name (And Several Million Dollars)
"Thanks to what was billed as the largest individual philanthropic gift made to
a cultural institution in the bay area, the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center
will be renamed the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts." The
donation is thought to be upwards of $20 million.
St. Petersburg Times (Fla.) 11/17/09
Studying Aboriginal Art To Death
"Modernity both exalts and threatens remote Aboriginal societies, yet there is
no path of retreat back to some gilded pre-contact time. In fact, the academic
penetration of the north is now at its height, our knowledge of the Yolngu, the
clan groups round Oenpelli and the people of Groote Eylandt is incomparably
greater." The Australian 11/16/09
Copyright Bomb Set To Disrupt Music, Publishing Industries
"At a time when record labels and, to a lesser extent, music publishers, find
themselves in the midst of an unprecedented contraction, the last thing they
need is to start losing valuable copyrights to '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s music,
much of which still sells as well or better than more recently released fare.
Nonetheless, the wheels are already in motion."
Wired 11/14/09
A New Approach To Selling Tickets Online
"Teams are focused on season tickets, big theater groups are focused on
subscriptions, that kind of stuff. We are really focused on viral
social-marketing technology that will allow music venues and promoters to sell
tickets." The New York Times 11/14/09
Week of 11/8/09
Where's The Arts Audience? Probably Playing Video Games
"How many video game addicts also do drama? Probably very few. Away from
central London, professional theatre and music struggle to compete with
multi-channel television, video games, pubs, clubbing and IT networking, a
situation exacerbated by 25 years during which arts and culture have been
downgraded in the curriculum, and the chance of being enthused decreased by the
daunting documentation and fear of litigation that deters schools from
organising trips." The Guardian (UK) 11/13/09
How The Arts Coped With Life Behind The Iron Curtain
"The cultural responses to totalitarianism and the censorship of the arts
differed from country to country. But one common thread through the
undergrounds of the Eastern Bloc was that artists wanted their ideas to spread
and be considered by the general population. A freedom of speech, however
constrained, was very much fueled through the arts."
The New York Times 11/13/09
Most Late-Night TV Watchers Are Women, The Writers Men
"In the 1980s, [David] Letterman pioneered the kind of college-age male humor
that dominates late night. But now, his audience is almost 55 percent women;
[Jay] Leno's is more than 53 percent, and [Conan] O'Brien's just over one half.
Yet the writing room and sensibilities of the show itself remain largely male."
The New York Times 11/12/09
Royal Opera/Ballet's Manchester Plans Uncertain Due To Ambassador-Live Nation
Merger
The Royal Opera House plans a full-fledged northern branch at Manchester's
Palace Theatre, which was owned by Live Nation; new owner Ambassador Theatre
Group may or may not want to proceed with the deal. Says ATG's CEO, "At a time
when everybody is tightening their belts, we need to all be sure we can find
the money to do it." The Stage (UK) 11/11/09
How Doomsday Lost Its Scare Power
"The arts, through sheer ubiquity, are making doomsday way too familiar. And
frankly, there was a time when large-scale disaster unsettled -- when each time
a movie or book or TV movie gave it serious thought, the moment could be
unnerving." Not any longer. Chicago Tribune
11/11/09
Worker Killed During Kansas City PAC Construction
"A construction accident at the future home of the Kauffman Center for the
Performing Arts killed one man and critically injured a second this afternoon.
A portable boom lift with a basket on top toppled over about 1:45 p.m. … Both
workers were in the basket before it plummeted about 50 feet to the pavement."
Kansas City Star 11/11/09
Does Information Really Want To Be Free?
A survey of 100 people on the street, opining on whether and how much they'd
pay for digital music, news and books. Fourteen of them said they'd pay for
subway musicians if they had to. New York Magazine
11/08/09
Same-Sex Couples Come To The Fore As Arts Donors
"It's no surprise that gays and lesbians are strong supporters of the arts.
What has changed in recent years is that they are choosing to be recognized as
couples. Quietly in some cases, more publicly in others, these philanthropists
are providing vital support and spurring the organizations to recruit other
like-minded couples...." Boston Globe 11/10/09
We're All In Crisis, And That's Not Necessarily A Bad Thing
"Crisis is sexy. Crisis shakes you up. And if it changes our habits when it
comes to looking at art, reading about it, or even making it, then that's
probably good, too. Artists, if they're any good, are engaged in a war against
habit, complacency and indifference." The Guardian
(UK) 11/09/09
Philanthropy Isn't Working -- But We Can Fix That
"Much of current philanthropic giving, by foundations and individuals, neither
meets the needs of our charitable organizations nor addresses some of our most
urgent public needs. ... Here are nine changes that would go a long way toward
making philanthropy do what we all claim we want it to do."
Wall Street Journal 11/09/09
Rocco Landesman In Peoria (Or: Humble Pie! Yum!)
The NEA chairman's unflagging ebullience during "a grueling day of arts
appreciation" reflects "his natural tendency to play the extrovert.... But it
should be remembered that he hasn't come all this way simply to launch his
national cultural crusade, under the NEA slogan he dreamed up: 'Art Works.'
He's also here because being off-the-cuff can land you in the soup."
Washington Post 11/09/09
Britain Wonders If Its Comedians Have Gone Beyond The Pale
"After decades of standing close to the edge, pushing the envelope and tearing
down barriers, Britain's comedians find themselves … [facing] a surge of online
outrage that can have broadcast executives fearful for their jobs and theatre
managers pulling out of contracts." The Independent
11/07/09
Breaking How Many Barriers? Female Scribe Copies Torah Scroll In Public
In an open gallery at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco,
calligrapher Julie Seltzer uses a turkey feather quill to write out on
parchment a new copy of Judaism's most sacred object, meticulously following
age-old rules - despite the fact that those rules say she shouldn't be doing
this at all. New York Times 11/08/09
Nine Ways Of Looking At The Fall Of The Wall
"Twenty years ago tomorrow, the Berlin Wall came down. The [New York Times]
Op-Ed editors asked nine poets - Eastern European, American, Russian and
German - to write new works inspired by that event."
New York Times 11/08/09
Week of 11/1/09
The Future Of College
"What is the future of this thing called college? What became quickly and
painfully obvious in their deliberations is that the center will not hold. In
something of an irony, higher education leaders acknowledged here Thursday that
the very system that put them in the position to run the nation's colleges and
universities is no longer fit to groom their successors or the rest of the U.S.
work force." InsideHigherEd 11/05/09
Who "Advises" The President On The Arts
Want to get appointed to the President's Committee on Arts and Humanities? It's
a star-studded group. Here's a little something to think about...
Politico 11/06/09
Durham, NC, PAC $1M In Black, Gives $400K To City
Eight months after opening, "the Durham Performing Arts LLC [has] made a profit
of $1,004,265, of which 40 percent, or $401,706, is to be shared with the city,
which owns the building." (Who says the arts aren't an economic engine?)
The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC) 11/05/09
Foundation Giving To Fall More Than 10%, Farther In 2010
"Despite the reduced resources however, more than three-quarters of the survey
respondents said the field of philanthropy would become stronger and more
strategic as a result of having weathered the financial crisis."
Crain's New York Business 11/04/09
The Dreaded Early Morning Lecture Class, Now On Commuter Trains
"Passengers on the 9:00 am train from the suburban community of Modiin to Tel
Aviv put away their morning tabloids and iPods to listen to a talk from
Professor Hanoch Gutfreund [of Hebrew University of Jerusalem] on 'Einstein's
love letters.' The lecture was the first of the university's 'scientists on the
rails' programme." Agence France-Presse 11/04/09
'From Sanctuary To Snake Pit': A Photographic History Of The Insane Asylum
Today the very term "insane asylum" conjures up images of the squalid, cruel
institutions portrayed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Titicut
Follies. "But asylums started out as philanthropic dreams," comfortable,
well-appointed places of refuge and healing. (Consider the very term "asylum.")
New Scientist 10/30/09 (slide show)
UK Culture Secretary Warns Of Tory Threat To The Arts
Britain's culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw, "said Tory culture policy was
totally aligned with the commercial interests of Rupert Murdoch's News
International and predicted the central tenet of British cultural policy - the
arm's length relationship between the arts and government - is about to be
swept away." The Guardian (UK) 11/03/09
Updated:
November 18, 2009
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