Author: Douglas McLennan

THE SPOOKS AND MR. ORWELL

The CIA went into the cultural propaganda business in a big way in the 1950s. After George Orwell died in 1950, the CIA acquired the rights to produce “Animal Farm.” But, “for the CIA to finance and distribute Animal Farm, however, something had to be done about the ending. In Orwell’s anti-Stalinist original, the pigs who overthrow the farmer ruling class end up mingling with their former oppressors. As pigs and farmers toast one another in the farm house, ‘the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.’ The CIA solved this problem of the symbiotic relationship between capitalism and Communism by eliminating the farmers from the final scene.” – The Nation

TO PAINT OR NOT TO PAINT…

“Why dwell on artists anyway? What makes them so special compared to ‘ordinary’ humans? My considered view is that there is no essential difference, as the human condition is innately artistic. Everyone is potentially an artist: all it takes to become one is the self-realisation that that’s what you already are. It is not what you do that makes you an artist, but your awareness of something within that constitutes an artistic or aesthetic dimension.” – *spark-online

LOVED TO DEATH

About 35 million people visit the Smithsonian museums in Washington every year, making them the most heavily-trafficked museums in the world. But the buildings are crumbling, and the Smithsonian is asking Congress for $500 million to fix them. – CNN

 A DANGER TO ITSELF: “I’m amazed that you could have the greatest portrait in the United States, of George Washington; you could have the Declaration of Independence desk, the desk on which it was written; you could have the hat that Abraham Lincoln had on the day he died, in buildings that really not only possibly endanger them, but the American people coming to look at them.” – CNN

SANITIZING ROCK?

Frank Gehry’s latest project opens next week – the Experience Music Project in Seattle. “Gehry—who admits he prefers Haydn to Hendrix—bought a bunch of electric guitars in Seattle, took them back to L.A., chopped them up and reassembled the pieces into architectural shapes. That didn’t quite work, although the building—a lot rounder—stayed largely Stratocaster-colored. From a distance—say, a high hotel room about a mile away—the 140,000-square-foot EMP looks like a peculiar dessert: purple, red, silver, gold and baby-blue Jell-O with a garnish of green trees. Up close, it’s a trademark Gehry design, a mix of metals cladding ‘swoopy’ shells covering a careful floor plan.” – Newsweek

RIGHT ANGLE

  • Work to correct some of the tilt of the leaning tower of Pisa has been so successful, limited access to the building will resume next week. The tower had been closed because of concerns for safety. [First item] – CBC

RATINGS – NOW THERE’S A CONCEPT

For the first time in its history, PBS is being run by a programmer. And big changes are coming to the way the public broadcaster does business, with an emphasis on gaining viewers. “Ultimately, more viewers and more time spent viewing by current viewers will translate into more viewer financial contributions, PBS hopes, and higher ratings nationally should make it easier to find corporate underwriting support.” – Los Angeles Times 06/12/00

THE DIPLOMAT MAGICIAN

Any sign that North Korea willing to open its doors and forsake its Stalinist, bomb-making ways? It seems there is one man who has appealed to their softer side: magician David Copperfield. Two North Korean diplomats recently journeyed to Las Vegas to catch one of his shows, and invited Copperfield to perform in Pyongyang. “The man of secrets and the men from a country of secrets got along well.” – The New Republic