Americans for the Arts has pundit William Safire deliver its annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on the arts. “The surprise here is not that Safire, the self-proclaimed right-winger, has a mainstream view; rather it’s that large policy organizations, like Americans for the Arts, have gravitated so far away from the “left” position.”
Blog
Baldwin Testifies For Arts Funding
Alec Baldwin lobbied Congress for arts funding on National Arts Advocacy Day. “If you told me back in 1996, we would have a Republican president and Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, and the NEA would be flourishing and would be safe, it wouldn’t be possible,”
The Barrier To Risky Theatre?
“Today’s playwrights are a motivated, opinionated, highly intelligent, politically aware group of angry young men and women. It’s not that we don’t want to write big, demanding plays. It’s that we’re so often frustrated in our ambitions. And why? One reason comes up time and again: money.”
A Grand Unifying Theory Of Everything
Seth Lloyd believes that “the universe is a gigantic quantum computer. When you zap things with light to build quantum computers, you’re hacking existing systems. You’re hijacking the computation that’s already happening in the universe, just like a hacker takes over someone else’s computer.”
Looking For An International Digital Movie Standard
Can the international film industry agree on technical standards for converting to digital? “There are about 35,000 screens in the U.S., while the international market has about 100,000 screens. … The transition to digital cinema is not only a U.S.-driven initiative, but more importantly, the international markets will make up the lion’s share of the world’s screens in order to achieve ultimate scale and global adoption of digital cinema.”
Corporate World Discovers Theatre
The corporate world has discovered acting school. Several acting schools around the world are dispensing tips from the typically more lively world of drama. “You have a unique way of seeing the world. In the business world, we try to help bring that to the workplace and have it be more than a job. It becomes a creative platform.”
The BBC’s New Goals
The UK government has outlined its plans for the BBC. “As well as the corporation’s traditional aims to ‘inform, educate and entertain’, the government has set it six new purposes: Sustaining citizenship and civil society; promoting education; stimulating creativity; reflecting the identity of the UK’s nations, regions and communities; bringing the world to the UK and the UK to the world; and building digital Britain.”
Radio People Meters To Replace Ratings Diaries
Arbitron, the leading radio ratings company, says it will replace listener diaries with people meters. “Arbitron has measured radio station listenership since 1965 by collecting handwritten diaries from volunteers who mail them in. The people meters have been in trials since 2001. The company plans to have the meters in place in the top 10 radio markets by the fall of 2008 and in the top 50 markets by 2010 or 2011.”
Levine Says He’ll Lose Weight, Get Exercise
Conductor James Levine says he’ll use the next several months in rehab from his rotator cuff injury to exercise and improve his diet. “I’ve got three months to recover from this,” he said. “I’ve never had a period in which I’ve had to do rehab and put my mind to correcting this, in my diet and exercise.” He said his busy schedule of rehearsing and leading performances meant he never had a base line with which to judge his physical state.
Teens Read Up
More young teen readers are turning to adult fiction. “The growing exodus of young adults to adult books might be partly attributable to how bookstores display Young Adult fiction. Many lump YA in with baby lit. The YA sections in many Indigo stores, for example, are either swarming with ankle-biters or utterly deserted. Either way, it’s anathema to attracting teens.”