Author: Douglas McLennan

BANKING ON ART

An art sale in Mexico is attracting a lot of attention. The work for sale was stripped from the walls of Mexico’s failed banks. “The exhibition is the first time many of the works have been displayed publicly since being seized by the government following Mexico’s 1994-95 banking crisis. The auction – part of the government’s efforts to recoup some $100 billion paid to bail out the industry – has sparked a ‘morbid curiosity’.” – Financial Times

TO SEE AND BE SEEN

The New York art scene is hotter than ever. “Gone are the somnolent years of the early ‘90s, when ‘art party’ conjured up images of cramped gallery openings or struggling artists convening at someone’s loft to consume white wine from plastic cups and white powder from bathroom counters. With the economy revving like the ‘80s, the art market is also back to eighties-style extravagance, from the inflated price tags to the high-velocity socializing.” – New York Magazine

KNOWING YOUR PLACE

“When you add up the radio stations, the dingy used-record stores, the $1.3 billion market for rap and the $1.9 billion spent on revivified country and western, music ranks among the largest industries ever to exist. In the midst of this fantastic investment in an all-enveloping cloud of sound, hardly anyone seems to remember that music stands fairly low on the scale of devices by which we try to understand human experience. A people that takes music as its highest expression has cut itself off from narrative, epic, allegory – the explanatory arts that could put to use the emotions that their music represents.” – New Statesman

DIGGING OUT DOWN UNDER

Opera Australia is at a crossroads. “OA is saddled with a $5.9 million accumulated deficit, largely the result of its 1996 merger with the debt-crippled Victoria State Opera, and there has been a run of poor box office returns in Melbourne.” The company’s future is threatened, and the government is reviewing the company’s operations. But the “OA plans to sing and play its way out of debt.” – Sydney Morning Herald

PLAYING IN POVERTY

Why is Canada’s National Youth Orchestra languishing? “The NYO is limping through the summer, barely recognized, tightening its belt at every stop. Its training period has been reduced from four weeks to three. Its annual summer tour schedule has been slashed virtually in half. Its government funding has been cut from 77 per cent of revenues to 48 per cent. And the size of the symphony has fallen from 105 members to 84.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

THE TRUTH ABOUT STORIES

Why do literary critics seem to be tripping over distinctions between fiction and non-fiction? “The trendy new genre ‘creative nonfiction’ is just a clever marketing tool — a way to sell the old tall tale, part fact, part fiction, by assuring us that what we are reading is ‘real.’ And that sense of clarity is not just reassuring, it also demands less of the reader — who does not have to suspend disbelief — and of the writer, who does not have to work as hard at rendering a story believable.” – San Francisco Examiner

DOING THE MATH

Xlibris, the book self-publisher believes it will make money in increments. “I’d say it’s around two bucks for each copy of each title. Let’s say I make $600 per title and I have 250,000 titles. Okay, well my calculator just broke, so it’s a big enough number that my calculator’s not happy. I think it’s about $150 million. So, you see, the whole industry only makes sense if you believe that in, say, six to seven years, there will be close to half a million books published every year. We’re doing 500 titles a month by ourselves, and our growth rate is around 20 percent a month. So, you do the math.” – Inside.com