Category: issues

The gossip in Ottawa is that Canadian Culture Minister Bev Oda could be on her way out as part of a cabinet shakeup in the Harper government. Martin Knelman says that Oda wouldn’t be much missed by Toronto’s arts community. “Oda has not convinced a lot of people that she is passionately devoted to strengthening the arts, or that she thinks a creative explosion could lead the way to helping Canada achieve greatness in the 21st century.”

The newly minted director of the Edinburgh International Festival has threatened to quit the post or severely scale back the scope of the massive event if funding is not increased. “The International Festival — one of several held in Edinburgh during August — receives £4 million of public money, but its programme costs this year are more than £8 million, and it has a deficit of £500,000.”

“Pop star Lily Allen has had her US work visa cancelled after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport… She was held at the airport for five hours in connection with an arrest for an alleged assault in London in June.” Allen will need to apply for a new work visa before returning to the US for scheduled concerts in early September.

“One of South Africa’s greatest musicians — a hero of the struggle against apartheid — believes that he is no longer welcome as a performer in his own country. The virtuoso trumpeter Hugh Masekela claims that many of the talented musicians whose voices became symbols of protest against white domination are finding it hard to get bookings in South Africa because the ruling ANC is ‘terrified’ of music as an agent of change.”

“The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch. The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word … prompted in part by the frequent use of the word in hip-hop music.” But that’s not the only place “bitch” is popular, making passage tricky….

“For twenty-two years, the photographer Josef Astor (no relation) has had a studio above the stage at Carnegie Hall. It’s on the eighth floor, although technically the eighth is below the seventh; to get to it you take an elevator to six and walk up half a flight of stairs. The Carnegie Hall Studio Towers, as these quarters over the concert hall are known, contain many such oddities, but they also harbor one Manhattan commonplace: a band of artist-occupants whose tenancy is venerable, tenuous, and probably doomed.”

“Beyond all the cliches about duels and dances and dates, celebrity interviews are essentially collaborative performances, carefully crafted and staged to deliver a flawless portrayal of false intimacy. They are the secular confessional, the tutorials in morality (or at least manners), the chance to occupy the same normative grid that governs everyone in the world, even its best woman. Executed well, the Celebrity Interview is the very Platonic ideal of public privacy. It may be a bankrupted form, but it’s still worth saving.”

“When two researchers published a study a few years ago concluding that arts classes do not improve students’ overall academic performance, the backlash was bitter.” In a new book, those researchers, Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland, “argue forcefully for the benefits of art education, while still defending their 2000 thesis. In their view art education should be championed for its own sake, not because of a wishful sentiment that classes in painting, dance and music improve pupils’ math and reading skills and standardized test scores.”

“A Manhattan judge has ruled in favor of 50 tenants at Carnegie Hall, saying they can’t be evicted from its two towers until they have their day in court next month. The judge has issued a temporary restraining order until the case is heard September 17th.”

“Artists facing eviction from their Carnegie Hall studio space are taking their fight to court, asking a judge to block the music venue from forcing them to move out.”