Category: issues

“Leading cultural institutions have joined together to try to stave off predicted government cuts to the arts. In Cultural Capital: a Manifesto for the Future, 17 key organisations–including Arts Council England, English Heritage, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Museums Association–argue that investing in culture will help bring the country out of recession. The report was launched at the British Museum on 25 March.”

“The integration of markets and the Internet have certainly brought billions of people into closer contact. Everybody has access to the same American movies and music now, and not just American, also Indian, Romanian, South African and Chinese. … [M]ore and more people [have] the technological resources to decide for themselves, culturally speaking, who they are and how they choose to be known, seen, distinguished from others.”

“This [condition] can roughly be described as the experience of attending an event at which much of the audience appears to be having a rollicking good time, while you sit in stony silence, either bored to stupefaction or itchy with irritation.” New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood and his readers discuss the phenomenon.

“The sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday were serious yet chummy” as “a parade of cultural agency administrators … appeared this week before the House Appropriations subcommittee that controls the purse strings of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center and others.”

“One of the oldest buildings on the National Mall, closed since 2004 because of structural problems, could become a high-tech education center for the Smithsonian Institution under a concept presented Monday. Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough unveiled the draft plan for the 129-year-old Arts and Industries Building to the board governing the museum complex.”

The Full English Breakfast is “an icon of Englishness, as much of a symbol as the flag of St George, but here’s the thing: who really eats it these days? … [And if] the full breakfast is so representative of the English, what does it say about us? … Come with me, if you want to see what the English are really like now. But prepare for some very strong and surprising tastes.”

“Nolen Bivens, who served 32 years in the Army, including a year in Iraq during 2003-04, was an unusual enlistee in arts supporters’ annual ‘arts advocacy day’ deployment to Capitol Hill in a push for an elusive objective: ample funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.”

It includes “a handful of initiatives and policies: a biennial Festival of Britain to celebrate British achievements in the arts from 2013; a £10 theatre ticket scheme to be rolled out nationally to ape the National Theatre’s Travelex £10 tickets; primary legislation for national museums so that their independence may be increased; and new incentives for philanthropy.”

“The GAO report says that impact of piracy” in the movie industry and elsewhere “is ‘sizable,’ but determining its exact impact on the economy is next to impossible.” The report suggests “that oft-mentioned government figures about piracy either don’t really exist or aren’t fully supported by studies.”

“Some of the coveted print jobs have simply vanished. The shuttering or shrinking of newspaper book sections has meant fewer reviewers. Variety stunned the industry by laying off its chief film critic and its theater critic. Ruth Reichl was one of the last towering food critics, but Conde Nast closed her magazine, Gourmet, last fall.”