Category: issues

“I may have blotted my copybook with the government, but I don’t want it to [appear] that way. This isn’t anger. It’s disappointment. And concern.”

“A group of enterprising young Canadians is Kenya-bound in January, trying to help bring back what they fear the country has sorely lacked in recent years: arts education.” The project, called Artbound, is “committed to putting arts back into global curricula by building dedicated arts schools that piggyback on the existing educational networks.”

“After a series of presentations by many of the city’s top performers and major cultural organizations, council’s executive committee voted to recommend the city stay the course on its long-term strategy of raising funding levels to $25 per capita by 2013.”

“We need to put out of our minds this widely held notion that there is such a thing as “the economy”, a monster outside the door that needs to be fed and propitiated and whose values conflict with things – such as sports, tourism and the arts – that make our lives agreeable and worthwhile.”

“English National Opera does not tour, which makes a mockery of its name, though it does sing in English and employ overwhelmingly English talent. English National Ballet certainly does tour, and at affordable prices, but it’s hard to see quite how its largely foreign stars make it an English national company.”

“Eight hundred yards from Manhattan’s shores, Governors Island has been shaping its own cultural identity, Mr. Rothstein wrote, which he characterized as eccentric, surprising and fanciful. On the ArtsBeat blog, New York Times critics from several disciplines discussed the island’s role as a cultural destination.”

“Middle-class Americans are fed up with paying more for less, fed up at being taken for granted, especially since their salaries remain stagnant and their jobs insecure. The people who run our tax-exempt cultural institutions ignore this anger at their peril.”

“An international team of researchers using computer time lent to them by Google has found every way the popular Rubik’s Cube puzzle can be solved, and showed it can always be solved in 20 moves or less.”

“Arlington County plans to open the Artisphere, an expansive cultural center, in October. It will include three art galleries, two theaters and a 4,000-square-foot ballroom.”

“In a marketing move that has drawn some criticism, graveyards across the nation are opening their grounds to concerts and clowns, barbecues and dance performances – anything that might bring happy families through the wrought-iron gates.”