A group of prominent writers has written to Oprah Winfrey imploring her to retart her book club of contemporary fiction. “There’s a widely-held belief that the landscape of literary fiction is now a gloomy place. Book Club members stopped buying new fiction, and this changed the face of American publishing,” said the letter, which was signed by 158 authors.
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Miami City Archaeologist Fired
Miami’s city archaeologist says she was fired because she wasn’t accomodating enough to developers. “What she encountered, she says, was a bureaucracy that thwarted its own preservation rules in order to make developers happy. ‘They did not understand that having an archaeologist on staff meant that if a development was going to destroy a significant archaeological site, I may object to it or, at the very least, try to get a developer to preserve part of the site’.”
The Pope J-P Insta-Biography Hits Shelves
“What is billed as “the first biography” to tell Pope John Paul II’s full story hits bookshelves on Thursday, less than two weeks after his funeral and with the new pontiff just moving in to his old apartments. The book is one of what will undoubtedly grow to form a pile of profiles on offer in book stores – the latest instant response to the death of a public figure.”
Content Control: Not Just For Creators Anymore
The controversy over “cleaned-up” DVD copies of Hollywood blockbusters – stripped of nude scenes, foul language, and references to homosexuality by specialty companies – continues to churn, but is it possible that everyone is missing the central truth about such doctored DVDs? “Control is shifting from the studios to the masses. One argument in favor of the sanitizers suggests that, if the government can’t dictate what people watch in the privacy of their own home, then the Directors Guild can’t, either… Just as unauthorized music remixes became the rage in nightclubs a generation ago, now movie re-edits are becoming cheaper and easier to do. And there’s no going back.”
A Frightening Diagnosis
The Utah Symphony & Opera is in trouble; on this point, everyone agrees. But what’s wrong with the organization? Bad leadership? Subpar marketing? Poor programming choices? Eric Snider thinks it might be something far more simple: no one really cares. “When you’re trying to convince someone that a particular city is nice, it’s always the artsy things you mention. ‘My heavens, Salt Lake City is a fine city!’ you’d say. ‘It has some great museums, and a world-class symphony!’ And it’s true, we have those things, but do you ever go to them? No. (Neither do I, but we’re talking about you here, not me.) Instead, those things languish on the outskirts of profitability, kept alive by generous donations and by the few people who actually patronize them.”
Do Opera Companies Need Quality Control?
Opera companies have been taking great pains in recent years to play up their commitment to new works, with world premieres given the type of publicity usually reserved for pop stars. But increasingly, it seems to Norman Lebrecht that the new operas to be performed at many top houses are chosen not based on quality, but on the drawing power of the composer, or even the performers who want to sing a certain part. “This is no way to run an artistic institution which depends on public goodwill and corporate support. But such is the chaos enveloping new operas that the commissioning process has fallen prey to external pressures.”
The Arts Of Politics
Politicians are in a bind when it comes to talking about the arts. “Say nothing about the arts, and you outrage influential metropolitan liberals and buffet socialists, whose cocktail-party cri de coeur is the under-funding of their cultural playgrounds. Say too much, and you force diehards in the shires to join with chavs and “neets” to protest at taxpayers’ money going to fancypants bollocks that ought to pay for itself.”
If I Ran The Arts…
How would you fix government support for culture in the UK if you ran the government? Fifty arts luminaries make their cases…
European Dance Takes An Elitist Turn
A European festival of new dance shows a distinct experimental bent. “Europe, it would seem, there is a greater willingness to explore the outer reaches of conceptualism and politicization, layered with history and fraught with context. Theorizing aside, the dance was extremely elitist, for all its bows to popular dance (hip-hop) and political immediacy. This followed in the grand tradition of provocative European avant-gardism, influential and obscure. Work like this flourishes in a climate of still-generous public subsidies (at least from an American perspective) and a sympathetic dance intelligentsia, unmindful of such tawdry considerations as potential box-office appeal.”
NEA Awards $61 Million In Grants
The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded $61 million in grants. “Just over $40 million of that amount will fund 64 grants to state and regional partnerships. The state partnerships provide support for state arts agencies’ basic plans to address local priorities, as well as funding arts education and local Challenge America initiatives. The regional partnerships provide basic support for regional arts organizations’ plans and for regional touring initiatives.”