“A strange thing has happened in the American arts during the past quarter century. While income rose to unforeseen levels, college attendance ballooned, and access to information increased enormously, the interest young Americans showed in the arts — and especially literature — actually diminished. That individuals at a time of crucial intellectual and emotional development bypass the joys and challenges of literature is a troubling trend. If it were true that they substituted histories, biographies, or political works for literature, one might not worry. But book reading of any kind is falling as well.”
Month: April 2005
France: Fighting Off Google’s World-Wide Domination
Does Google’s global reach create “the risk of a crushing domination by America in the definition of the idea that future generations will have of the world?” The president of the Frnech National Library believes so. “Europe, he said, should counterattack by converting its own books into digital files and by controlling the page rankings of responses to searches. His one-man campaign bore fruit. At a meeting on March 16, President Jacques Chirac of France asked Mr. Jeanneney and the culture minister, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, to study how French and European library collections could be rapidly made available on the Web.”
Vintage US Propaganda Films From The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe after WWII. “But in addition to rebuilding, it also plowed about $650-million into information dissemination, including the creation of more than 260 films to help convince the populations of 16 disparate countries to jointly accept American aid and embrace U.S.-style democracy. The films were seen everywhere, from movie palaces in big cities such as Paris to tiny, mountainous villages in countries like Portugal and Italy. But until recently many of them had never been seen in the United States because of a 1948 law prohibiting Americans from being propagandized with their own tax dollars, a restriction removed only 15 years ago.”
Land Of (Theme Park) Lincoln
A new theme park/museum based on Abraham Lincoln opens this week. “The museum, which opens to the public April 16 a few blocks from the Illinois state capitol, is an architectural flop that turns Lincoln’s life into the storyline for a mawkish indoor theme park. It puts us on a slippery historical slope, where the unreal blurs with the real and ultimately upstages it.”
Chicago Jazz Gets A Slug Of Cash
“In an unprecedented development, jazz — specifically Chicago jazz — is about to get a large infusion of funding and opportunity. Three Chicago-area corporations and one local foundation have joined forces to pour an estimated $1.5 million into the city’s jazz scene in the next three years, with possibly more money to come during that time. Boeing Co., Bank One and Kraft Food have teamed with the non-profit Chicago Community Trust to create the Chicago Jazz Partnership, which will begin funneling approximately $500,000 into the city’s jazz scene this year, with hopes of expanding that support in years to come.”
Official Artist To The ’05 Election
If you can have a Poet Laureate write verse for official events, why not commission an artist to record an election? That’s exactly what the British Parliament has done. “The artist, who was commissioned by an all-party parliamentary committee to present a unique portrait of Britain en route to the polls, will spend the next three weeks on the stump with politicians and plans to travel on both opposition battle buses. He is struggling to get access to Tony Blair’s strictly-controlled entourage, however.”
Opera Looks To Film, Now Film Looks To Opera
Opera once coveted the realism of film. Nowadays, film is looking to opera for its ability to create fantasy. “Opera once recruited film directors because it envied the truth vouchsafed by the frank eye of the camera. Nowadays, opera delights in illusion, which is why it can offer characters in film an escape from their grim, grounded lives: hence Cher’s trip to the Met’s Bohème in Moonstruck, or Tom Hanks’s duets with Callas in Philadelphia.”
Podcasting – Coming To A Radio Station Near You
“Executives at some of the largest radio companies are suggesting that radio stations develop their own podcasts and make them available at no charge to listeners seeking a more varied or obscure selection of tunes. The idea is to ease the pressure that broadcasters now feel to broaden the array of music on over-the-air radio. Give choosier listeners what they want, without making them wait for the 11 p.m. Sunday show, when radio has traditionally offered less popular forms of music. Once listeners get into the habit of downloading inventive podcasts from their local radio station, they’re more likely to tune in to that station’s broadcasts when they’re in the car or at work.”
US Scientists Fight Legislation That Would Restrict Kennewick Man Study
Scientists are opposing a bill in the US Congress that would “allow federally recognized tribes to claim ancient remains even if they cannot prove a link to a current tribe.” That could block study of the ancient Kennewick man. “Scientists fear that the bill, if enacted, could end up overturning a federal appeals court ruling that allows them to study the 9,300-year-old skeleton, one of the oldest ever found in North America. The skeleton was discovered in 1996 along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash., and has been the focus of a bitter nine-year fight.”
NY Public Library To Sell Off Art
The New York Public Library has decided to sell some of its art work so it can compete better in buying books, manuscripts and other works on paper and bolster its endowment. “Sotheby’s, which has been retained by the library, estimates that the works will sell for $50 million to $75 million. The transactions will be handled either privately or by public auction.”