The economy might be down, but Cleveland-area politicians are talking about putting a new tax of the arts on a Novermber ballot, hoping to raise $14 million to $18 million per year for the arts. “I think it’s definitely time that we have to put our money where our mouth is with this particular industry. We’re trying to team up the arts-levy request with another popular issue. We thought a combination request would be an easier sell.”
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Still Trouble Ahead For The Good Ship Broadway
The Broadway musicians strike may be over, but Broadway is facing a number of other headaches. Like more trouble over broadcasting the Tony Awards. And those pesky “theatre restoration” fees theatres have been tacking on to the cast of tickets – turns out the fees are “a violation of New York’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Law 25.29.”
Wake Up… Now How Did You Do That?
A new book examines the properties of human consciousness. “Scientists tend to concentrate on the locations, mechanisms and functions of consciousness. Philosophers, meanwhile, worry away at problems that used to be very old but, thanks to neuroscience, are now very new again. What has the mind to do with the brain? Is it true, as Descartes argued, that if I think, therefore I am? If so, what precisely does the thinking?”
Lessons I learned From the Broadway Musicians Strike
So what are the lessons from last week’s Broadway musicians strike? Frank Rizzo has made a list. At the top is respect for the stagehands union. The stagehands work and musicians lose. The stagehands walk and there’s no show. Say it again – the stagehands rule. Other lessons: people inherently like musicians, but distrust producers…
Record Retail For Romance Novels
While some book publishers are hurting with the down economy, the romance-novel business has never been better. Harlequin reports “a revenue increase of 3.5%, to C$618.1 million ($414 million), combined with better operating efficiencies to produce record operating profits of C$119.2 million ($80 million). The company’s 4th quarter was particularly strong, “when revenue increased by 8.6%, to C$164 million, and operating profit jumped 31.7%, to C$30.8 million.”
TV – Down And Out On Staurday Night
What happened to Saturday night television? Saturday night used to be the premiere night of the TV week, the most important night. But “it’s been TV’s most ignored and neglected night for years, the video equivalent of a landfill. Saturday now is where TV series go to live out their last useful seasons, or where they escape from to thrive on another night. Saturday night television has become so degraded that it no longer sustains a single original sitcom.”
The Best Art: Perceptions Over Ideas
“Most debates about what is good or bad in art, desirable or undesirable, significant or insignificant are debates about preference. Theories are evolved to vindicate that preference and, like ideologies, are stultifying. The best artists are driven by their experience to reflect that experience. Few artists worth their salt begin work with a theory of art. If they do, they end proving theory rather than reflecting perceptions about experience. Perceptions are everything.”
Art Matters When The World Goes Strange
What use is art as the world looks to be headed to war? Aren’t there more important things to be thinking about? “I agree that art is useless, but so is life, and it’s precisely our awareness of the ‘uselessness’ of life that makes us want to struggle to give it purpose, and to give that purpose meaning. We’re told that we’re engaged in a Manichean contest between ‘civilisation’ and ‘terrorism’ to create ‘a new world order’. If anything is to change, what we need is to understand ourselves better as well as understanding those who are different from us.”
Art Theft – A Nice (Not So Little) Business
Art crime is flourishing. “It is an area of crime that costs insurers £500m a year. The database Invaluable, a London private company, lists more than 100,000 stolen art and antique works. Among them, I discovered 26 Renoirs; eight Warhols unstrapped in transit from Heathrow to New York last year; 180 George III walnut clocks; Goyas, Gainsboroughs and Rubens. Unfortunately this activity is not matched by stories of thieves being collared, receivers incarcerated and “mad collectors” being sent up the river. Profits are high, punishment all too easily evaded.”
DVDs Rule – They Earn More Than VHS Or Theatres
“Money measures success in Hollywood, and industry figures show just how successful the DVD format has become in its six-year history. People spent nearly $20.3 billion last year to buy or rent movies to watch at home. DVD accounted for 57 percent of that total or $11.6 billion, compared with $9.3 billion in theatrical ticket sales, according to various financial analyses. Money also means power, and DVD has become a major creative force in Hollywood, changing how movies are made by giving filmmakers a new and vast canvas on which to work.”