Author: Douglas McLennan

VOTES FOR SALE

Last week, someone put their vote up for bid on E-bay. “You must specify whom I vote for in the presidential and all other elections in my district, by name or party,’ the seller wrote in his description of the item. ‘Why should the American citizen be left out? Congressmen and senators regularly sell their votes to the highest bidder. Democracy for sale!’ E-bay finally canceled the sale, cooperating with investigators from the Justice Department, but not before the price had been bid up to $10,100.” – Feed 08/24/00

NOT SO SMART

The founder of Mensa, the society for geniuses, recently died in London at the age of 85. A curious society this. “The great idea of the Mensa organisation was that if only it were possible to get together all the most intelligent people in the community, they could have an overwhelming influence for good and social welfare. It has discovered the hard way that high intelligence correlates in no way with good character, emotional stability, personal charisma or understanding of other people. There are just as many nasty as nice intelligent people.” – Sydney Morning Herald

CHOKED BY SUCCESS?

Edinburgh is the world’s largest arts festival, and boasts more than 1,600 shows over three weeks. It is “made up of a number of fringes with dramatically different agendas, audiences, resources and performers all taking place only loosely beneath the tent that is the Fringe Festival.” But is the Fringe – “which encompasses theatre, dance, musicals, opera, fine art and comedy and revue entertainment – grown so diverse as to become impossible to define?” – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 08/24/00

MOVIE THEATRES IN TROUBLE

Can a whole industry declare bankruptcy? Movie theatre companies are filing for court protection after building too many megaplexes in recent years. “Edwards Theatres said Wednesday it filed for Chapter 11. Carmike Cinemas did the same a few weeks ago, and Regal Cinemas, the nation’s biggest chain, gave notice it may not be far behind. Meanwhile, United Artists is trying to hash out a deal with its bankers and bondholders in lieu of an outright bankruptcy filing.” – Variety

WORKING OUT THE BUGS

Last week it was revealed that the National Gallery of Australia had known about the presence of bugs that cause Legionnaire’s disease for at least five years. Further investigation shows the gallery’s director sent a letter of concern about the bug problem just days before a high-profile Matisse exhibition – and managed to keep her letter out of the official registry and away from the press. – Sydney Morning Herald

HISTORY OF UNREST

A number of prominent artists have come out in support of striking workers in the four-month-long strike at the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA director Glenn Lowry had similar troubles at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, where he was director from 1990 to 1994. “During that time, labour unrest roiled the gallery as Lowry oversaw enormous cutbacks in the budget. After the provincial government slashed funding in 1992, Lowry laid off half the staff of 450 and extended a planned three-month closing for renovations by an additional four months. Many felt the gallery suffered afterward from his extreme approach.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

TRIPLE CELEBRATION

This year is the 200th anniversary of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, opened as the Nationale Konst-Galllerij in 1800. “Since the emphasis of the museum’s collections has always been on the art of the Dutch Golden Age, what more appropriate than a giant show to mark the millennium, the bicentenary, and the initiation of a major structural overhaul for the fabric of the museum itself?” – The Times (UK)

HIRST UNDER GLASS

Damien Hirst has pickled cows to sharks. So what’s the subject of his latest artwork? “In a piece titled “Contemplating a Self Portrait (as a Pharmacist)”, Hirst has taken the trappings of the figurative painter; easel, canvas, smock, palette, brushes and tubes of oil paint, and encased them in a series of glass boxes.” – The Guardian

ODE TO PIERRE BOULEZ

“To those who whine, who doubt his importance to our times and to the future – a warning. To Boulez we owe the most influential musical changes of our lifetime – as a conductor, composer, educator, programme planner and superior being, he has embraced an international state of artistic achievement, and wrestled, built and triumphed on all our behalfs. He has educated a whole generation of musicians – and happily, ecstatically even, it was mine – evangelising for rhythm and form over mere miasma of sound or texture, and has been bold for all who would be creative, insisting on rigour in intellect, opinion, art and its practice.” – The Scotsman