Zadie Smith On The Pressures Of Being Hyped As A Young Writer:

“The hype is an enormous psychological pressure on a writer. Not that anyone should weep for a writer who has earned loads of money. But the bottom line is, this is not a healthy thing to have in your head at eight in the morning when you’re trying to write something. It’s just very messy. Even in America you have a better chance of having a basically healthy literary career, at least in the beginning, than you do in England. We’re driven by the celebrity mania that this whole country is sunk in.”

Saltz: A Moratorium On Projectors Please!

“By now, almost everyone would agree that the traditional Warhol-Richter-Walter Benjamin defense of the use of photography in painting, the “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” argument, and the chatter about “interrogating representation” or “investigating the problem of the photograph,” isn’t just dated, it’s shtick. We all know that photography is a remarkable and remarkably complex way of seeing and picturing the world; that the space between the photograph, the photographer, and the thing photographed is incredibly rich; that the graphic field of the photograph is often scintillatingly alive, specific, and very post-Renaissance; and that reproducing photographs in paintings once represented a significant repudiation of dearly held beliefs.” But…

Nielsen To Track Tivo Viwers

In another sign that the viewing habbits of TV watchers is changing, the ratings company Nielsen says it will begin tracking viewers that record TV shows on digital recorders such as Tivo for later viewing. “The company will keep track of shows that are recorded and watched within seven days but will not collect information on ‘trick modes’ like fast-forwarding, rewinding or pausing.”

Safire: The New Improved NEA

William Safire has had a change of heart about the National Endowment for the Arts: “Remember the hoo-ha a while back about the funding of edgy art, offensive to some taxpayers, by the National Endowment for the Arts? That controversy is over. The N.E.A. has raised a banner of education and accessibility to which liberal and conservative can repair.”

Kiddieporn Charge Shutters London Gallery

London’s Spitz Gallery was shut down on Sunday night after detectives from Scotland Yard showed up in response to concerns by some patrons that a photograph by American Betsy Schneider featured a child in a pornographic pose. The photograph in question is part of a series of shots Ms. Schneider had taken of her daughter, from infancy through the age of 5. The child is nude in most of the photos, but the artist insists that there is nothing pornographic about them. The gallery is reportedly considering its legal options.

Playing It Safe In Adelaide

“Stephen Page, the artistic director of the 2004 Adelaide Festival that began on February 27 and runs until March 14, has put together a program that, by importing plenty of foreign acts, is intent on making amends for Peter Sellars’ home-grown, half-baked fiasco of two years ago… Although he defends the American director’s festival as ‘the most cutting edge’ he has seen in its ambition of embracing community, social and regional concerns – ‘it was sloppy; it had no order’. So Page, charged with bringing the the festival back from the brink, which includes regaining corporate confidence and that of the politicians who ran a mile from the Sellars fall-out, has shaped a something-for-everyone program.”