Category: issues

“In the US, home of professional food consumption, the governing body Major League Eating (MLE) presides over a pastime that, it claims, is the world’s fastest growing sport. Last month, 1.5 million people tuned in to ESPN to watch 23-year-old Joey “The Jaws” Chestnut defeat Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi in a tie-breaking eat-off at Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, the biggest event on the eating calendar.”

“Prestige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser. Inventors, artists and writers come and go, but buzz is forever. Maximum status goes to the Gladwellian heroes who occupy the convergence points of the Internet infosystem — Web sites like Pitchfork for music, Gizmodo for gadgets, Bookforum for ideas, etc. These tastemakers surf the obscure niches of the culture market bringing back fashion-forward nuggets of coolness for their throngs of grateful disciples.”

“Using the same basic technology that controls unmanned drones – an EZIO board crucial in robotics – Bilal and his colleagues built a paintball gun that could be aimed and fired remotely from any computer in the world. “The same technology you use to send a missile to destroy a village,” he says, “was used here to create art. That’s dual-use!”

A dance performance and an art installation showcased during this year’s Mostly Mozart Festival rethink the composer’s Requiem to express concerns about climate change and other current threats to the eco-system.

It features “20,000 performers, 30,000 fireworks, 4 billion people watching. The 3 1/2-hour opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, which starts at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the new 3.5 billion yuan ($511 million) ‘Bird’s Nest” national stadium, will team British soprano Sarah Brightman with Chinese singer Liu Huan to head a program that the government has tried to keep secret.”

“During the Blair/Brown decade we have enjoyed generally sustained increases in public spending; but as the economy cools, those who govern us will be searching for cuts. And when I hear a politician portray a certain strand of public funding as unnecessary, outdated or replicable in the private sector, I fear for those who rely on that strand.”

“One of the concerns many academics have had in recent years is that the increased financial pressures in higher education and what critics call the “corporatization” of academe would make higher education a less desirable place to work. But a study presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association finds that academic scientists — in the natural and social sciences — are more satisfied than are their counterparts outside of higher education.”

Venice, California is paving a parking lot which necessitates “the removal of a much-used, albeit shabby work-area situated behind studio spaces occupied by artists Ed Ruscha and Laddie John Dill. Prompting the low-key Ruscha to consider leaving Venice after years working here. From an economic perspective, pushing out name artists is just bad business. Shouldn’t the value of Ruscha and Dill to the community be considered in the parking stall equation?”

The Office of Cultural Affairs sends out an email Tuesday urging recipients to show support for an “exciting development” by the Ginn Co. called “The Promenade Arts District,” but once the 75 or so representatives of the arts community get there, they learn that the Ginn Co. has never heard of such a thing.

“Intellectuals and academics are just assumed to have some background knowledge of the arts, and not knowing those things can count against you. Ignorance of math and science is no obstacle, though. I have seen tenured professors of the humanities say — in public faculty discussions, no less — ‘I’m just no good at math,’ without a trace of shame. There is absolutely no expectation that Intellectuals know even basic math.”