Freedom of speech is under attack on American college campuses. “On one campus or another, speech that is discomforting, embarrassing, flirtatious, gender specific, inappropriate, inconsiderate, harassing, intimidating, offensive, ridiculing or threatens a loss of “self-esteem” is banned by speech codes.”
Month: April 2005
What’s Behind Entertainment’s Religious Kick
Why is mainstream Hollywood suddenly making religious-themed programming? “First, and perhaps most important, is the general misperception – shared by Hollywood – that the number of evangelical Christians in the United States is growing. According to church estimates, the actual number (somewhere between 25 million and 75 million, depending on the definition) has remained steady over the past three decades. Instead, the Christian entertainment industry has simply become more sophisticated.”
Is US Falling Behind In Basic Research?
The US has been a world leader in basic research for generations. But budgets for that research on many levels is being cut. Many scientists fear that “the United States unwittingly may be positioning itself for a long, steady decline in basic research – a key engine for economic growth – at a time when competitors from Europe and Asia are hot on America’s heels.”
Star: Bollywood Needs Marketing Help
Bollywood is the world’s biggest producer of movies. But its marketing efforts are weak and uncoordinated, says a top Indian star. “Bollywood is a movement known to Americans only through satire. That needs to change. The Americans have a very good marketing system in place… which can, and should be emulated.”
Do Critics Count Anymore? (Nope)
Today’s art critics have been marginalized. “Ultimately, the critic seems trapped in an inherently reactive and ever-more marginalised position. After all, the function of critics has remained largely static while the art world metastasised, growing too big to allow them any real overview, charging too fast for their publication deadlines and developing a slew of new information channels that bypass critics altogether. Not so long ago, Europeans depended upon travelling critics to relate the latest developments in New York or London. Today, fairs and biennials function as seasonal trend updates, and anyone curious about a faraway show can simply hit the gallery’s website for JPGs and a press release.”
Video “Cleaning” Riles Artists
A growing number of companies are offering “sanitized” versions of music and movies. They remove scenes or language they believe is offensive and sell the cleaned up versions. But what about the integrity of the original work? What about the rights of the artist to control how his or her work is used? “The challenge of ensuring artistic integrity in a digital age will only grow as the free market offers new ways to customize what we view, read and hear. Copyright protections have changed enormously since the introduction of the printing press to England in the late 15th century. They’re about to change again.”
The First Fiction Tour
Take a group of emerging writers, put them in a bar and watch the crowds roll in. “Whenever I would see a band in a bar, I’d be amazed that the place would be packed even if the band was terrible. So I started to think, what if we brought book writers and readers together in places other than bookstores. Of course, we didn’t invent this — Allen Ginsburg did this years ago in bars in New York. But we also wanted to take books to where the people are since they weren’t coming to bookstores. And we wanted to try to make writers of literature as cool as rock stars.”
Ex-Concertmaster And Seattle Symphony Dispute Gets Very Public
A dispute between the Seattle Symphony and violinist Ilka Talvi, who was the orchestra’s concertmaster for 20 years until he was fired by the SSO last summer, has gotten ugly and very public since Talvi started a blog (http://schmaltzuberalles.blogspot.com/) airing criticisms of the orchestra. Talvi’s accusations have “led to Internet accusations, police involvement and the threat of legal action.”
The New Walker – Exhilarating
“For decades now, the Walker has been one of the liveliest museums in the country, an institution that maintained a strong independent voice despite its ties to the mainstream art world. When the museum hired the Swiss team of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron to design a $67 million expansion and renovation of its existing 1970’s-era building, it seemed like a match made in heaven. The architects had built their reputations on museum projects like London’s Tate Modern and the Goetz Collection in Munich, known for their meticulously refined materials and a sense of inner tranquillity. The result is an exhilarating place to view art.
The World In A Click
Major music labels may not think world music is worth the bother, but thanks to small labels there’s never been so much music easily available. “The broad rubric holds a wealth of music that is now more accessible than ever before. And while major labels have largely lost interest in world music, independents have been busy, while listeners are no longer dependent on the shelf space or classification skills of local record stores.”