Category: issues

“New performing arts centers both large and small, both publicly and privately funded, are sprouting up around the state. In Denver, a couple of upstarts are building a colony of artists in three trendy RiNo locations north of downtown. New theaters are in the works in Grand Lake and Creede. Major renovations are underway at the Mizel Center and Fort Collins’ Lincoln Center.”

“The half million hereditary deaf in this country, they say, should be understood as an ethnic group, with many of the same qualities that define more commonly recognized ethnicities: A common language, shared ancestry, common stories and artistic traditions, and a community that perpetuates cultural norms through the generations.”

“There has long been a feeling in Italy that the project of national unity was flawed from the start, and will never work satisfactorily–that the country’s government will always be stalled, and the south forever the unmanageable territory of organized crime.”

“Sir Patrick Stewart, Penelope Wilton and Samuel West are among the stars who have signed and delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for a “coherent” arts policy. Last week, more than 200 organisations lost out on annual funding from Arts Council England.”

“Why such disdain for scalpers? Why such pleasure at their discomfort? Economists have been pointing out for ages that tickets to events are commodities like any other and that resellers merely create a market allowing the price of such goods to reflect supply and demand.”

“Whether they are buying music, listening to the radio, reading newspapers or watching television, media consumers are ageing even more quickly than the overall population. Rather than trying to reverse this trend by attracting younger people, many companies are attempting to profit from the [trend].” (After all, older consumers tend not to download.)

“The change, as reflected in budget legislation submitted by the Gray administration, would end a sales tax exemption long extended to ‘live performances of ballet, dance, or choral performances, concerts (instrumental and vocal), plays (with and without music), operas and readings and exhibitions of paintings, sculpture, photography, graphic and craft arts’.”

“For centuries, Egyptians have turned to humor, often dressed up in dark sarcasm, as a tonic for a battered soul.” And the Tahrir Square uprising “inspired a resurgence of that famously biting Egyptian wit. … But now that moment has passed, damped by the recognition that for many people life today is even harder than before.”

In a blog post on Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” and the nature of the poet’s feelings toward the man for whom he grieves, Ta-Nehisi Coates wonders “how identity changes what we see. In that vein, I’d like to ask some of our gay commenters to weigh in here. On Tennyson particularly, and more broadly on the realm of artists beautifully expressing affection for humans of the same gender.” (And weigh in they do.)

“Edmunds, who has been hired to program three seasons starting with 2012-13, made her name in Portland, Ore., as a builder of new contemporary arts programs. Her four years as artistic director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia extended her reputation as an impresario with impressive contacts and a flair for the adventurous and the offbeat.”