Category: issues

“The arts, through sheer ubiquity, are making doomsday way too familiar. And frankly, there was a time when large-scale disaster unsettled — when each time a movie or book or TV movie gave it serious thought, the moment could be unnerving.” Not any longer.

“A construction accident at the future home of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts killed one man and critically injured a second this afternoon. A portable boom lift with a basket on top toppled over about 1:45 p.m. … Both workers were in the basket before it plummeted about 50 feet to the pavement.”

A survey of 100 people on the street, opining on whether and how much they’d pay for digital music, news and books. Fourteen of them said they’d pay for subway musicians if they had to.

“Crisis is sexy. Crisis shakes you up. And if it changes our habits when it comes to looking at art, reading about it, or even making it, then that’s probably good, too. Artists, if they’re any good, are engaged in a war against habit, complacency and indifference.”

The NEA chairman’s unflagging ebullience during “a grueling day of arts appreciation” reflects “his natural tendency to play the extrovert…. But it should be remembered that he hasn’t come all this way simply to launch his national cultural crusade, under the NEA slogan he dreamed up: ‘Art Works.’ He’s also here because being off-the-cuff can land you in the soup.”

“After decades of standing close to the edge, pushing the envelope and tearing down barriers, Britain’s comedians find themselves … [facing] a surge of online outrage that can have broadcast executives fearful for their jobs and theatre managers pulling out of contracts.”

In an open gallery at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, calligrapher Julie Seltzer uses a turkey feather quill to write out on parchment a new copy of Judaism’s most sacred object, meticulously following age-old rules – despite the fact that those rules say she shouldn’t be doing this at all.

“Twenty years ago tomorrow, the Berlin Wall came down. The [New York Times] Op-Ed editors asked nine poets – Eastern European, American, Russian and German – to write new works inspired by that event.”

“What is the future of this thing called college? What became quickly and painfully obvious in their deliberations is that the center will not hold. In something of an irony, higher education leaders acknowledged here Thursday that the very system that put them in the position to run the nation’s colleges and universities is no longer fit to groom their successors or the rest of the U.S. work force.”

Want to get appointed to the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities? It’s a star-studded group. Here’s a little something to think about…