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Epics On The Fringe

“Like a house on the borderlands, epic fantasy is haunted: by a sense of lost purity and grandeur, deep wisdom that has been forgotten, Arcadia spoilt, the debased or diminished stature of modern humankind; by a sense that the world, to borrow a term from John Clute, the Canadian-born British critic of fantasy and science fiction, has ‘thinned.’ This sense of thinning—of there having passed a Golden Age, a Dreamtime, when animals spoke, magic worked, children honored their parents, and fish leapt filleted into the skillet—has haunted the telling of stories from the beginning.”

“And you too, Brutus?”

Some school districts are now using “simplified” language versions of Shakespeare to teach the Bard. “It’s nice because all those ancient words aren’t there. It is a cool story — what with people making plans to kill one another. It can be difficult because everyone has strange names, but at least it isn’t using any of those old words anymore.”

The NY Dance Biz – Big

Dance is big business in New York City. “A first-ever study of dance’s economic impact on New York City shows a quarter of a billion dollars in direct activity and over $400 million total in 2002-2003. The report also states that over a million paying patrons attended NYC dance performances in 2002.”

Documenting The Cardinal On Stage

A new play in Chicago turns Boston Cardinal Bernard Law’s testimony about the priest sexual abuse case into drama. “Part of the power of ‘Sin’ comes from its being strictly documentary. Michael Murphy, a playwright who lives in California, distilled it from the 11,000 pages of Cardinal Law’s depositions and from hundreds of newspaper articles. He took some dramatic liberties, like condensing the dozen lawyers who questioned Cardinal Law into just two, but did not add any dialogue.”

Could Canadian Artists Be Charged With Child Porn?

“Under a proposed change to Canada’s child pornography law, depictions like that of children in sexual situations could be criminalized, say artists and writers. The proposed change removes ‘artistic merit’ as a defence for any written or visual material charged under child porn laws. If Bill C-12 is adopted, any film, painting or book depicting sexual activity involving people under 18 can only escape prosecution if a judge rules it serves ‘the public good and does not extend beyond the public good’.”

Huntington On The Attack (Wow!)

Samuel Huntington has sparked a firestorm of controversy. “Writing in the March-April issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Huntington – the noted author, scholar and chairman of Harvard University’s Academy for International and Area Studies – has identified a ‘major potential threat’ to this great nation’s ‘cultural and political integrity.’ The threat is: Mexicans. Other Hispanics, too, but mostly Mexicans.”

Call It The Christian Counterculture

“Rather than rejecting popular culture outright, a growing number of Christians are producing and consuming their own popular media on the fringes of the mainstream entertainment industry. Still others are gathering in church basements and living rooms to promote their own brand of media literacy—seeing commercial culture as a “window” into the culture of unbelievers. What we see here is consistent with what media scholars have found within other subcultural communities—a desire to make and distribute your own media and the desire to challenge and critique mainstream media.”

PBS Demands Payment From Seattle Station

PBS has told Seattle affiliate KCTS it wants immediate payment of $3.8 million in back dues, part of $5.2 million the station owes for 2000, 2001 and 2003. “KCTS has until sometime next month to come up with a plan for repayment. Should Channel 9 be unable to do so, PBS could begin sanctions to force KCTS to become a “pass through” station, taking a direct feed through satellite and forgoing local content. Worse, KCTS could lose its affiliation.”