The recent flap that ensued in Canada when a former First Nations activist went on a rambling, semi-coherent, anti-Semitic rant points up a larger problem among the nation’s public figures, says John Gray. Why can’t anyone in government speak with any degree of profundity or even a basic grasp of what makes for stirring oratory? “What I find not only boring but dangerous is not the lack of imagination, nor art, nor insight, nor even intelligence — but the absence of specifics. When Canadian public figures speak, I literally do not know what the hell they are talking about.”
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Defending The Film Cleaners
Not many in the film world have stepped forward to defend the companies being sued by Hollywood for marketing “clean” versions of movies with all the sex, violence, and foul language removed. But one critic thinks the Directors’Guild, which initiated the lawsuit, is being awfully hypocritical, since its members have been releasing edited versions of their work for decades: “Those alternates are used not just on airplanes, but also for broadcast television and overseas release. If the DGA is so concerned about artistic integrity, it should work to make those personally supervised versions available to families who want to see them.”
You’ve Got To Spend It To Make It
A respected figure in British theatre, Peter Longman is imploring the government to invest more than £1 billion in the country’s theatre companies, in order to correct what most in the business have viewed as a long and dangerous slide in public monetary support. Longman is not alone in his call for increased public investment, but the word “billion” has the theatre world talking, and government officials stunned.
TV Station Under Fire For Controversial Documentary
Britain’s Channel 4 is being criticized for its plans to air a controversial documentary on Chinese performance artists. Among the controversial scenes are one “showing a performance artist eating the flesh of a dead baby” and “a man drinking wine that has had an amputated penis marinaded in it.” The station defends its plans: “The programme will be controversial and will shock some viewers but a warning will be given before it goes out on air.”
London Theatres Falling Down
“The physical condition of London’s theatreland, a unique treasury of mainly Victorian and Edwardian theatres, is beginning to cause anguish among the people who earn their living there. One estimate is that the buildings need well over £200m spent to bring them up to the modern standards that audiences increasingly expect, and to faintly humane working conditions for staff.”
Protesting The Patriot Act
Two thirds of Vermont’s independent bookstore owners have signed a letter protesting the Patriot Act. “The Patriot Act gives the government the power to seize bookstore and library records to check customers’ and patrons’ reading lists. A gag order in the legislation prevents bookstore owners and librarians from telling anyone about the seizure.”
Songs Of Protest
“The venerable tradition of American protest music still generates heat on the rally circuit, as Dylan’s constant reinvocation proves. Still, political music is marked by the same tension that always feeds pop music: the desire to connect to a legacy versus the impulse to try something new. The activist songbook includes major contributions from punk and hip-hop as well as folk-rock. Benefit concerts and albums have become part of the star-making machinery.”
Penalties For Success
The 7-year-old New West Symphony, which calls an LA suburb home, has an unusual problem – one fanned by its success. The orchestra has a budget of $2 million, and has run every year in the black. Its musicians are part-timers, professionals who for the most part make their livings playing in LA’s recording studios. The problem? If the orchestra gets bigger, it’ll lose its part-timers, and the quality of the players might decline. And yet, there is pressure to grow…
Disney Hall – Opening Times Three
Los Angeles’ dramatic new Disney Hall, scheduled to open next October, is opening in a flurry of gala fundraising benefits expected to earn $3 million for the LA Philharmonic. “On the first night they’ll hear the tried-and-true classics. On the second, the new music of the 21st century. And on the third, we’ll honor the European composers who fled Nazi Germany to come to Hollywood and were hired by the film industry.”
Brazilian Pop Star Takes Government Culture Job
When Brazil’s new government takes office on Wednesday, its culture portfolio will be held by one of the country’s biggest pop stars for the last 35 years, the singer-songwriter and guitarist Gilberto Gil.” The appointment, to say the least, is controversial. “The challenger of the establishment will now experience things from the other side.”