New Jersey Governor James McGreevey says he’ll find a new dedicated sourse of funding for the arts. McGreevey had proposed eliminating arts funding altogether, but an intense statewide lobbying effort for the arts seems to have changed his mind. “The governor made the pledge Thursday during a private meeting with the leaders of several major arts institutions. While he did not specify any details about the funding source or how much money it might generate, administration officials have been considering plans to use a portion of proceeds from a proposed new hotel tax to fund the programs.”
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A Rockin’ Good-time Feel-Good Movie In 25 Words Or Less
The British Film Council has “caused a stir with its announcement that it is paying £12,500 in development readies to young British film-makers on the basis of a Hollywood-style 25-word pitch. Four projects have been chosen to benefit from the public purse.” Twenty-five words? Just how do you go about selling a movie idea in 25 words? Imagine some classic movies pitched in a line or two…
Criticism As Conversation
Why is it that people expect reviews to have the absolute judgment on whether something was good or not? After a series of complaints about his critics’ critical judgments, the arts editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer [no byline on the online story] feels a little clarification is in order. “Criticism is an argument, done more or less intelligently, that presents years of accumulated experience with a certain rhetorical panache. It is an educated opinion whose point is to further a conversation.”
Learning To Speak Good
Grammer hasn’t been consistently taught in schools for years. “Studies from as far back as 1963 have told teachers that it is useless and even “harmful” to teach diagramming, or for that matter any formal lessons on grammar. Students, according to the studies, retained little from old-fashioned grammar lessons, which stole time better spent on reading and writing. What’s more, they suggested that focusing on grammatical errors would inhibit the students’ creativity. As a result, grammar textbooks were long ago trashed and teachers were instructed to deal with usage problems one on one, when there was time. College education programs gave short shrift to grammar – and so, some veteran teachers say, many teachers don’t know it well themselves. But grammar, once the meat and potatoes of any child’s education, is back on the table.”
Florida Phil Didn’t Make Fundraising Goal
The Florida Philharmonic is $17 million short of its fundraising goal, and its deadline for the money is today. “Philharmonic executive director Trey Devey said the group raised about $3 million of its goal of amassing $20 million in 10 days, which ends today. The money would have put the perennially cash-strapped orchestra on the road to financial stability, orchestra officials said. Without the $20 million, the 52-member board must choose from three options…”
Auctioning Isaac Stern
An internet auction of 180 items from violinist Isaac Stern’s estate has begun. “The items from the Stern estate range from violins, violin bows and photographs to his humidor and Steinway & Sons piano. Potentially the most valuable piece is a violin made by Frenchman Jean Baptiste Vuillaume around 1850. Bidding for the violin started at $47,500.”
Why People Loot
“Looting seems about as psychologically complicated as, ‘Hey, outta my way – I saw it first!’ Yet the sociologists who study crowd behavior say that looting is commonly misunderstood. ‘Looting is not just lawlessness. It’s not that looting is a good thing. But there’s a logic to it. You get a sense, from what people loot and destroy, of which things they think are illegitimate. The things left standing are the parts of society that people feel some solidarity with’.”
Are You A “Choice Machine” Or Are You A “Situation-Action Machine”?
Situation-action machines are built with a bunch of rules that say, “If in situation X, do A,” “If in situation B, do Z,” and so forth. It’s as if you had a list that you kept in your wallet and when important decisions came up, you looked at the list. If the conditions for a particular decision were met, you just did it. You don’t know why. It’s just that the rule says to do it. A choice machine is different. A choice machine looks at the world and sees options, and it says, “If I did this, what would happen? If I did that, what would happen? If I did this other thing, what would happen?” It builds up an anticipation of what the likely outcome of one action or another would be, and then chooses on the basis of how much that outcome is valued or disvalued.”
UK Lottery Losses – Arts Projects Over Budget And Poorly Planned
In the UK, 13 of 15 lottery-funded arts building projects are over budget, leading to warnings from the national audit office. “The Arts Council stands to lose £10.5 million alone on the disastrous National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield, which closed after just over a year.”
Can Culture Be Good (Or Effective) Diplomacy?
A conference mounted by the National Arts Journal Program at Columbia University considers the role of American culture in diplomacy. “Would we, for example, be breeding goodwill toward the American way of life by spawning a generation of Iraqi rappers? Or how about appointing as cultural ambassador the documentary director Michael Moore, who used his Oscar moment to pillory the president, thereby making himself a poster boy for freedom of speech? Do we stick to commercial fare and disseminate movies in which American action heroes gun down large numbers of anonymous villains? Or should we funnel funds to an independent American cultural center in Baghdad, whose director might misjudge the local sensitivity to sexually suggestive images and curate a show of, say, the pornographic sculptures of Jeff Koons?”