Category: issues

“If the 1970s saw an increase in performing arts organizations, the 1990s and 2000s have seen a notable increase in places built to house them. The boom is reflected nowhere better than in the Washington area, which – economic crises be cursed – has seen at least nine arts centers open since 2000.”

“The unexpected, turbocharged success of the $265 million Potter playland has not only given a new bounce to Ms. Rowling’s literary creation, it has also ignited Florida’s version of the Jets versus the Giants: a friendly hometown rivalry between Universal and Walt Disney World.”

“It’s a bit dispiriting, as a Washingtonian, to listen to a lecture on great public squares. We have none, of course. Washington is a city of avenues and streets, coming together in circles that do not function well as public spaces. Our grand ceremonial spaces, such as the Mall, are too large to be great public squares.”

“Encompassing 400 events in 40 states [throughout 2011], the project, ‘Imagine Ireland,’ will finance programming related to the country at major New York cultural institutions such as the New York Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It will also support U.S. tours by at least three of Ireland’s historic theaters: the Abbey, Gate and Druid.”

London Councils’ new list of strategic priorities will result in the majority of the cultural services it supports losing all of their funding by the end of June 2011.

“The ‘talent’ cult is wrong in itself. No worthwhile art has ever been made by talent alone. Art is about ideas, feelings, original views of the world, new styles and profound insights: art, even the very greatest art, exists in and seeks to act on the social world of human beings.”

“Across the Internet the use of dear is going the way of sealing wax. Email has come to be viewed as informal even when used as formal communication, leaving some etiquette experts appalled at the ways professional strangers address one another” – even as others endorse the change.

“What’s clear is that “free” isn’t working anymore, and hasn’t been for quite some time. With the exception of Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello and a few others, the top concert draws at Taste and the other, more music-intensive city summer events in recent years have been below par, a parade of has-beens, journeymen and cover bands.”

“The current cuts to the arts and humanities spell out the end of the British people’s emancipation through culture. For me, it’s like ripping up the Magna Carta.”