Category: issues

Steve Outing (in his final column): “If Quentin Tarantino can produce a fantasy revisionist-history blockbuster like Inglourious Basterds, about a band of Jews killing Adolph Hitler and the Nazi leadership, then I can script how the newspaper industry’s previous 15 years should have played out.”

The recent theft of and damage to the “Arbeit macht frei” sign at Auschwitz raises an unexpected question for curators, ethicists, and us observers: With the atrocities of the Holocaust already thoroughly documented, is it really worth it to expend scarce resources on preserving and repairing the memorabilia of the Nazi perpetrators? Better to just let it all decay and say, “good riddance”?

“London alone is home to more than 50 Christmas shows, including a pair of Nutcrackers, four Cinderellas and five Christmas Carols — not to mention the 25 or so musicals that stop only on Christmas day. That means doormen, box-office staff, actors, dancers, directors, musicians and many more who worked until late on Christmas Eve….”

“[T]he government [has] confirmed £1.3 million of funding to help create 200 new jobs in the sector. They will be open to people aged 18-24, who have been claiming benefits, and will include posts such as theatre technician, costume and wardrobe assistant, community arts officer and business administrator.”

“The Barbican Centre has announced that 2008/9 was a record year for the arts venue with overall attendance up by 13% on the previous year. According to the centre, its ticket sales now number around 1.2 million annually and 2008/9 saw a particular increase in cinema and art gallery attendance.”

“New technologies have given us access to countless channels for music, television and film — and we can sample them whenever we find it convenient. But as the options multiply, are we losing our sense of a common culture?”

“[A] movement by [Cuban] artists, scholars and businessmen to change United States policy toward Cuba from the bottom up” has an American counterpart: “the Obama administration has quietly expanded cultural and academic exchanges as a way of reaching out directly to Cuban people. Many of those who participate try to avoid politics.”

“The benchmark freshmen surveys conducted each year by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute show an increasing appetite for the kind of educational experience typically associated with the liberal arts.”

“Ubiquitous communication and cheap digital technologies are empowering the striving artist who steadily cultivates his or her craft, challenging the cliché of the starving bohemian, or the superstar. At the same time, say many artists, an avalanche of output and constant accessibility might push them to rediscover the merits of handcrafted work, the necessity of disconnected contemplation and the joys of face-to-face human contact.”

“The internet is fast becoming the dominant form of publication in the UK: about a third of all works currently published are only in digital form and that number is increasing dramatically. Ministers predict the UK will host 15m websites by 2016 but under existing powers the British Library would be able to archive only 1% of them.”