The US Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can force public libraries to install and use porn filters on library computers. “Congress passed the law, the Children’s Internet Protection Act, in 2000, but it did not take effect pending the legal challenge by public libraries and civil liberties groups, which argued that any filter also inadvertently blocks access to other, noncontroversial sites, as some studies have shown. But in a 6-3 ruling, the court said the law did not violate the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech because libraries will have the capability to disable the filters for any adult patron who may ask.”
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British Museum At 250 – Lowkey
“The 250th anniversary of the founding of the British Museum has been a low-key affair. Three years ago the plan was to honor the occasion with the opening of a new $55 million Study Center in a nearby building. But lacking money the museum sold the property. So instead of a glitzy inauguration, this month’s anniversary festivities are built around music, dance, lectures and exhibitions. Yet for all that the mood inside the museum’s sprawling neo-Classical home in Bloomsbury is not glum. Credit seems due to Neil MacGregor, 56, who last year took over as the museum’s director.”
Classic Oprah – Anything Wrong With This Picture?
Oprah’s back with a book club – this time with classic literature…a little Steinbeck to start. “So what could be wrong with this? Thousands of readers will come to know a good book they might otherwise not have read. And, of course, ‘East of Eden,’ a best seller in its day, will come out of the experience no worse for wear. Maybe nothing is wrong with this. Maybe taking shots at Oprah for “inviting” Steinbeck to her talk show will, in the end, be exposed as just grumpy elitism. Or maybe something about ‘East of Eden,’ repackaged in an eye-catching Oprah Edition for the occasion, is in danger of being quietly lost in what could transpire in coming shows.”
America’s Theatres – How’re We Doin?
Leaders of America’s non-profit theatres gather in Milwaukee to talk about the state of the business. “Last year more than 50 percent of the membership’s theaters ran deficits (compared to 29 percent the previous year). ‘For this [current] year, if I’m hearing the murmurs in the field correctly, it brings an even darker picture’.”
Joffrey – At Home In Chicago
A dozen years after the Joffrey Ballet moved to Chicago, director Gerald Arpino says the city has become the ideal home. Chicago is “a typical American city in that it’s still striving for its standards. It has that pioneer quality about it. It’s ambitious – you can see it in the architecture, you can see it in the museums. Yet it’s still always looking forward to new frontiers in the arts. This is always what the Joffrey has been about to me.”
Shakespeare’s Life – A Made-For-TV-Movie
“Amazingly, while Shakespeare’s plays have been regularly shown on television and there have been dramas and documentaries speculating on their authorship, there has never been a full-blown television biography of the national icon. Perhaps it is not so surprising, because so little is actually known about his life, particularly the early years. When Michael Wood first posited the idea, one TV executive sniffed that it would be rather dull as you would only be able to film in Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Globe, while an eminent history scholar pointed out that it was going to have to be a very short series given the paucity of solid facts known about Shakespeare’s life.”
Finding Fellini
A new documentary about Fellini spends time with the director just before he died. “Fellini was a huge narcissist, hugely generous in other ways, a contradictory man. There are a lot of nasty things we can say about Fellini because he had a diva personality, but he really was a genius. He’s someone who stayed true to his vision, and didn’t compromise one bit . And I have great respect for that.”
West End Waste
Cameron Mackintosh is spending £30 million to clean up some of his West End Theatres. But the West End itself is a dismal disgrace. “The West End is absolutely sordid. No Londoner goes there. It only exists for junkies, itinerants and tourists. It’s not London, it is something else. Having better, more attractive streets makes people behave better. Why don’t they wash the streets, as they do in Paris? I don’t know what the Mayor of London is doing but addressing the West End would be a start. Ten years ago, in Barcelona, the mayor spirited the city into something else, stopped it from being a sleazy tip. I don’t know anybody who goes to West End theatres – if you were to ask them, it would be as if you had passed them a dead rat.”
Brain Jolting
Scientists have discovered that stimulating the brain with a “transcranial magnetic stimulator” enhances brain function and creativity. “You could call this a creativity-amplifying machine. It’s a way of altering our states of mind without taking drugs like mescaline. You can make people see the raw data of the world as it is. As it is actually represented in the unconscious mind of all of us.”
How The World Solves Big Problems (But They Don’t Work)
The world has lots of big problems. But at present there are only “four types of mechanisms to finesse the world’s world-sized problems. Unfortunately, none of them are of much use.”