Category: issues

China is tightening the screws on political expression, saying it will ban foreign artists and entertainers who have ever engaged in activities deemed to “threaten national sovereignty.” Artists that could theoretically be barred under the terms of the notice could include Hollywood heavy-hitters Steven Spielberg and Sharon Stone.

Philadelphia yesterday shed its status as the biggest city in the country to lack a cultural affairs office, as Mayor Nutter issued an executive order creating the Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy.

An online ticketing system failure has been described as “an unmitigated disaster on the scale of the BA terminal 5 chaos”.

“By venturing onto the mean streets of hiphop with a dispassionate critique of a multimillion-dollar industry, John McWhorter risks becoming a target of drive-by shootings by enraged academics, book reviewers and bloggers.”

“We are living in a golden age of the pseudo-meaningful stunt…The market for everything is becoming awfully crowded. And so the desperation of the hucksters is everywhere in evidence.”

“Cartoonists are some of the most painstaking, careful, shy and sensitive people on earth, yet we do play with fire, toying with other people’s (and of course our own) most deeply held beliefs and most cherished illusions. Is it possible to go too far? Of course it is. Should we go too far? Of course we should.”

“Now practically anything on the Web collects comments the way a whale collects barnacles. In theory, it’s a great thing. We’re giving the people a voice! But the reality is that commenting either attracts loathsome people or somehow causes ordinary people to express themselves in a way that is loathsome.”

Australian soprano Lisa Gasteen says “the arts are being asphyxiated in Australia,” following the announcement that the federal government would not help to sponsor a restaging of 2004’s successful Ring cycle. “It’s a mentality and a mindset,” Gasteen says. “I think we just have to grow up as a country, really.”

“The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is heading back to Deep Creek, Md., for two more concerts at the Wisp Resort Lodge… [Meanwhile, the Maryland presenter] is moving ever closer to building an approximately $20 million performing-arts center that many groups, including the PSO and the Garrett Lakes Arts Festival, would use.”

“Monks, hoteliers, soldiers, musicians — the members of Japan’s celebrated percussion outfit Drum Tao are in some way an amalgam of all four. There is no performing troupe quite like them in the world.”