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The New Humor

Is humor the New Thing in art? “A lingering tendency among critics to dismiss artists who employ humor as mere jokers hasn’t prevented such artists from turning to satire with renewed vigor. Cartoon images now seem to be everywhere—in painting and sculpture as well as video and digital animation, tacked to walls or drawn directly on them. The funniest-looking figures, however, are less Popeye than R. Crumb’s bearded Mr. Natural, fraught with anxiety, swearing, sweating, and questioning every feeling and thought.”

Sample Ruling – The Big Chill

Last week’s court ruling requiring artists to get licenses for clips they sample could have a big chilling effect on creativity. “In the long run, this will lead to mediocrity in the music. People may say, `Well, why is [Sean “P. Diddy” Combs] just sampling Rick James, that’s not very creative.’ But if you sit down and talk to him, he’ll break it down that he could have done more creative stuff — a Rick James riff, a James Brown beat — but it would have cost him an arm and a leg.”

NY Art World As Super Paradigm

“Nowadays, different art worlds work differently. Glasgow, Leipzig, and Los Angeles are laboratories run by skeleton crews. London is the same, only crossed with a private club, a sparkler, and a sideshow. The New York art world has swallowed up all these paradigms and mutated into a kind of nebulous Super Paradigm. Think of it as a giant sponge: Bland on the outside, intricate within, it is extremely porous and permeable, takes advantage of any current, absorbs everything, and is capable of enormous engorgement. The Super Paradigm may be pluralism gone wild, or a giant oil spill—sprawling but not evolving. Whatever, there’s no avant-garde within it because there’s nothing to react against.”

Teeny Tiny Movies For Your Phone

Are you ready to watch movies on your cell phone? “We’re not talking 90-minute thrillers starring the likes of Kim Basinger and William H. Macy. A mobile movie is a smaller, two-minute affair meant for audiences on the move, not captive cinephiles. Like a TV ad in the age of TiVo, cell phone cinema has to hold your attention before your mind jets off to do something else with your phone, such as surf the Web, check your e-mail or, gasp, make a phone call.”

A New Model For New Plays?

The National New Play Network aims to make it easier for playwrights to get new work produced. “The economics are very challenging, and looking for national attention is part of everyone’s goal. We’re trying to find the best way to share and maximize resources. We’re using the model of the new Europe instead of a feudal system where companies build walls around themselves.”

The Classical Decline

Tom Strini enumerates the decline of the classical music business and wonders if classical music will “regain the standing it had in society in the first half of the 20th century?” He concludes: “No. Classical music and new music rising from that tradition will remain marginal. We can take comfort in the fact that almost every cultural commodity is marginal these days – marginality is a matter of degree.”

Anti-Induce Protest

A big protest is planned against the so-called “Induce” act under consideration in the US Congress. “Critics believe the Induce Act conflicts with the landmark 1984 Betamax Supreme Court decision, which ruled that home videotape recorders were legal because they have “substantial non-infringing uses,” even though some people might use the machines to infringe copyrights. Though the entertainment industry opposed the machine at the time, the ruling paved the way for the development of the enormous home video and DVD market, and other technological innovations of the past 20 years.”

All Ears (Each One Different)

Think you hear things differently from other people? Well, you may. “All ears are not created equal, a new report suggests, even two on the same head. Results published in the current issue of the journal Science indicate that infants process sounds differently through their left ears than they do through their right ones.”