In January it was revealed that TV networks have received millions in exchange for working anti-drug messages into their programming. Now federal drug policy-makers are taking their campaign to Hollywood, urging studios, writers, and directors to promote (and profit from) films with similar messages. – CNN (AP) 07/11/00
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OR SHOULD WE CALL IT ENTERTAINMENT ART?
Performance art got a lot of attention in the ’90s. What’s it up to now? “People seem more interested in packaging it than in actually doing it. Let’s just say that if performance grew out of a wish to make art more present, more visceral in the ’60s and ’70s, that trend has decidedly reversed itself. Over the past decade, this art form definitely shifted toward entertainment—or, at least, the proscenium.” – Village Voice
IN FROM THE FRINGE?
Glasgow’s Citizens’ Theatre “revolutionised Scottish theatre in the 1970s with highly-charged, visually-striking productions, and scandalised the good councillors of the city with blood, nudity, and cross-dressing.” Artistic Director Giles Havergal reflects on how the Citz has reinterpreted itself in recent years. – The Herald (Scotland)
THE GUTHRIE’S EXCELLENT YEAR
Minnesota’s Guthrie Theatre had a good year – record subscriptions and box office, commitments for building an ambitious new home and the extension of its artistic director’s contract. – The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)
THE JOYCE INDUSTRY
More exciting than a dotcom (and more profitable too), the cult around perpetuating James Joyce is a big and fascinating business. – New Statesman
FIGHTING THE SAME OLD
It seems the more conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt likes a piece of music, the less he’s inclined to perform it. He’s a sworn enemy of routine. This and his thoughts on Bach, Bruckner and Beethoven. – The Independent (UK)
AN EXPENSIVE NAME
Comic book writer is told to pay a hockey player $24 million after the writer uses the name of the hockey player as a character in a comic book. The court judgment sends a chill though all those who need to name the characters in their books (or comics or songs). – Inside.com
WHEN SAID MET SARTRE
- Edward Said met Jean Paul Sartre in 1979: “For my generation he [Sartre] has always been one of the great intellectual heroes of the 20th century, a man whose insight and intellectual gifts were at the service of nearly every progressive cause of our time. Yet he seemed neither infallible nor prophetic. On the contrary, one admired Sartre for the efforts he made to understand situations and, when necessary, to offer solidarity to political causes. He was never condescending or evasive, even if he was given to error and overstatement. Nearly everything he wrote is interesting for its sheer audacity, its freedom (even its freedom to be verbose) and its generosity of spirit.” – London Review of Books
TOXIC PARKECOLOGY
Who says parks have to be in beautiful idyllic places? Artist Julie Bargmann creates parks on land no one would ever call pretty – on the site of a befouled abandoned mine. “Its central feature will be a stream of acidic water that will percolate out of the mine and course down a limestone-lined canal into aerating basins and finally to a wetland for a final rinse.” – Time
RESTORATION FOR THE REAL WORLD
The former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan is restoring Bukhara, a stop on the ancient ‘Silk Road’ trading route that became an Islamic center of learning. “Restorers desperately want to maintain the city’s vitality and avoid the mistakes that turned the historic center of Samarkand, a Silk Road city 150 miles to the east, into a gleaming, but lifeless museum piece.” – CNN