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So American Airlines supported the arts by giving New York’s Roundabout Theater $850,000 a year for 10 years. In return the airline gets its name on the theater. But “American Airlines isn’t supporting the arts, bless them. They are paying a tax-deductible fee in order to advertise and sell their corporate logo on Broadway. Philanthropy has sweet zilch to do with it.” – New York Observer

Cell phones and pagers going off in concerts and theater performances have become a crisis of sorts. “To receive a cell phone call during a performance is an act of violence, not terribly different from aiming a spray gun at a Botticelli. It’s worse, in fact, since a damaged painting can be restored.” – Los Angeles Times

For the first time in two decades a woman is allowed to sing onstage in Iran. “We cried when she was singing, with a feeling of happiness and sorrow, thinking of all those years that we had been deprived of the art of a woman’s voice,” one Iranian man said. Under their strict interpretation of the Koran, women were prohibited from singing in public, except to a carefully segregated female-only audience. The ayatollahs were afraid the voice of a woman soloist might arouse impure thoughts in men’s minds. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

It’s fashionable these days to lament the dumbing-down of our culture. But there are some 2,500 “Great Books” societies across North America, and the growing number of such study groups suggests that many thirst for learning more. “In these tiny cells of unofficial civilization, intellectual discourse moves outside the universities and becomes a question of personal initiative, energy, insight and need.” – National Post (Canada)