Many libraries say they’ll give up federal funding rather than install content filters on their computers, as the US Supreme Court ruled earlier this week. “We just don’t feel we as librarians need to be in the position of telling people what they should read, see or hear. When you put filters on computers, that’s what you’re doing.”
Blog
Ragtime Opera
Scott Joplin’s only opera – which he never saw performed in his lifetime – is getting a rare production. “The only large-scale work to survive from the pen of the greatest of the ragtime composers, ‘Treemonisha’ is still a comparative rarity in performance for reasons that have as much to do with history – the piece was never performed during Joplin’s lifetime, and his original orchestrations have been lost – as with the opera’s intrinsic merits.”
Rijksmuseum To Get Makeover
Amersterdam’s Rijksmuseum, or national gallery, is getting a makeover. The new design “envisions spacious, bright exhibition halls, better facilities, and a grand entrance hall large enough to shelter guests from the characteristically wet Dutch weather – instead of having them wait in the lines that now stretch outside the building for most of the year. The $230 million renovation, scheduled to run from 2004 to 2008, will be the most extensive since the original four-towered building by Pierre Cuyper opened in 1885. It was then the southern entrance to the city and accommodated only a tenth of the 1.2 million visitors it now receives each year.”
Leon Uris, 78
“Uris died Saturday of natural causes at his home on New York’s Shelter Island, photographer Jill Uris said from her home in Aspen, Colo. Energetic and unafraid, the author was as much an adventurer as a writer, traveling tirelessly and sometimes risking his life. In researching `Exodus,’ he logged thousands of miles and ended up reporting on the 1956 conflict in the Middle East.”
Norwegian Painting Returned
A prized JC Dahl painting stolen in Norway a couple of weeks ago has been returned by the thieves. They “either got cold feet or decided the painting was more of a liability than an asset for them. They returned it using a local commercial radio station, P4, as intermediary.”
Another Plan To Ax California Arts Council
The latest budget proposal in the California state legislature calls for the elimination of the State Arts Council.
A Tale Of Two Dance Companies
Joan Acocella compares and contrasts American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet as their seasons wind down. “As A.B.T. gets more innocent, for better and for worse, New York City Ballet gets more sophisticated, for worse.”
Enough With The Potter-Mania Already
“What’s behind this Potter-mania? Clearly something other than the quality of the novels. When reviewers finally get to read the new Potter, no doubt there will be the predictable backlash of claims that it is not that good – but who cares? The discussion has gone beyond all that. Since it began, Potter-mania has represented a cultural infantilism, that only grows as the years go by. It is about what we expect from our kids, our books, our value system and ourselves. Whatever happens in The Order of the Phoenix, the story of our obsession with Harry Potter is unlikely to have a happy ending.”
Damien Hirst Has A Go At Bach
For a new BBC TV series of the complete organ works of JS Bach, the producers asked artist Damien Hirst to create the opening titles. And what did he come up with? “A cloud of bees, like musical notes risen from the score, circles and hovers before settling like a thick black and gold wig on a bust of the composer JS Bach.”
Banding Together – Small Theatres Make A Large
Four small Dallas theatre companies are banding together, hoping to find a way to share a home and resources to help them prosper. The idea is to give the companies resources of a larger organization that they wouldn’t have by themselves. “We all want to grow our companies – to take them to the next level. What we’re hoping in our starry-eyed optimism is to have the benefits of a large organization and the integrity of a smaller one.”