Americans for the Arts is suing the bank that managed the $100 million bequest from Ruth Lilly. “The lawsuit alleges that the bank, rather than selling the stock after the creation of the trusts in January 2002, held on to it during a time when the share price declined from $75 to $47. The result, he said, lowered the overall value of the gift by some $25 million.”
Blog
Who’s Who Of UK Intellectuals
Prospect Magazine lists Britain’s top 100 public intellectuals. Its most interesting value is comparing it with lists of decades past. “The list may also seem curiously old-fashioned. It offers little room for the new “isms” that have broken through in recent decades: feminism, multiculturalism, postmodernism. There aren’t many young voices: few under 45, hardly anyone under 40. It is very middle-aged, and also very male and very white.”
A $250,000 Two-Night Hamlet
how does a man with no stage training and a poor command of the English language wind up playing Hamlet in the middle of Hollywood? And what marketing genius suggested $35,000 billboards to advertise an 85-seat theater production? Yet, given such extravagant publicity, why didn’t Hamlet learn his lines? What were they thinking? All of them?”
Big Chill – Let’s Criminalize Tech Companies Who Innovate
A proposal in the US Senate extends copyright responsibility to tech companies that enable file-sharers to download copyrighted material. “In a prepared statement, Senator Orrin Hatch compared peer-to-peer networks, which allow people to exchange any digital content over their computers, to villains of literature and film, including a character in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang who lured youngsters into danger with false promises of free lollipops. He said the networks should be held liable for creating technologies that enable often unwitting consumers to house pirated materials on their computers.”
The Cost Of Broadcasting Dirty Just Went Up
The US Senate has passed a measure that would increase fines for broadcast indecency. “Under the new measure, the maximum fine would increase to as much as $275,000 for each indecent incident. The fines would keep increasing per incident until a maximum fine of $3million a day was reached. The US House of Representatives passed a similar bill in March that set fines for indecency at $500,000.”
25 Playwrights, 1 Play
The Provincetown Repertory Theater finally has a home of its own at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and artistic director Lynda Sturner wanted to create something “spectacular” to celebrate its opening. So she signed on 25 playwrights to write a “chain” play. Each writer wrote a scene, evolving the stories and characters as they went along.
Artists, Not Buildings
Why is the Austraian government of Victoria spending most of its money on culture on building buildings? “Each year, arts and cultural buildings and the bureaucracy required to manage them, suck more and more out of the arts budget. This is not to say that we should tear down these buildings, but there must be more provision in the budget for artists to make the work that complements them; some balance between the desire for infrastructure and a genuine attempt to support the industry for which these buildings are created.”
Culture In Canada – An Election Issue
Culture has become an issue in the Canadian federal election. The parties have staked out their positions. “In this election, culture is about owning our own airwaves, being able to tell our own stories and the ability of performers to make a living in our country. These are the issues we put to the five major political parties.”
From The Words Of The Dead
“You don’t have to be personally involved or angry to notice how often dead writers’ words are lifted and put in the mouths of their novelized selves today. Their lives and ideas have been borrowed, even more insidiously than they are on screen, in three novels about Henry James, one about his brother William and two about Sylvia Plath.”
Scottish Museum To Return Maori Artifacts
“Three tattooed Maori warrior heads that have been hidden away in a Glasgow museum vault for up to a century are to be returned to their native New Zealand. The somewhat grisly relics have never been on display and have lain in storage in Kelvingrove art gallery and museum.”