The president of Mexico proposes slashing arts funding. “President Vicente Fox’s proposal to get rid of everything from government-owned movie studios to the national news agency has sparked fears that Mexico will be overwhelmed by an American cultural invasion. We will be left to the mercy and whims of distributors of Hollywood’s worst productions.”
Tag: 11.13.03
Where Virtual Law Rules
The virtual gaming community gathers to discuss the laws of cyberspace. “A host of questions are on everyone’s minds: Are virtual worlds the new Wild West or a legitimate province of the courts? Is game play equivalent to speech as defined in the First Amendment? Is there such a thing as fraud in a metaverse? As the game universe becomes intricate, as transactions start to cross the boundary between the game world and the real world, it becomes more complicated as to what you’re going to call defamation.”
Seattle Art Museum – Time To Expand
The Seattle Art Museum shows off its expansion plans. “SAM’s downtown expansion is a unique, mutually beneficial partnership with Washington Mutual Bank that allows the museum to expand incrementally into its new 300,000-square-foot space. In the first phase, SAM will occupy about 95,000 square feet. The bank will lease the unused upper floors from the museum, allowing it to amortize the financing of the $63 million expansion. When SAM fully occupies its new building, it will triple its current size to 450,000 square feet.”
Online Library For the Blind Launches
The Canadian National Institute for the Blind debuts a new online library for the blind. “There are more than 10,000 audio, text, and Braille titles available on-line, including recent bestsellers such as Life of Pi and The Stone Diaries. Users can also search and order from a collection of more than 60,000 titles.”
Seattle Fringe In Danger
The Seattle Fringe Festival is in crisis, and must raise $120,000 in the next six weeks in order to survive, according to its executive director. The fiscal crunch will apparently not affect the separate FringeACT theater festival presented each spring in Seattle, but the main FringeFest has suffered mightily in recent years from slumping ticket sales and a drop in corporate and individual giving.
Is The Canadian Bloom Off The Hollywood Rose?
“Hollywood studios are threatening to pull all of their film productions from Quebec if they can’t resolve their conflict with the Quebec producers association. Local industry players are taking the threat very seriously, given that Hollywood producers spent a record $368 million in Montreal last year. The studios are seeing red because the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec wants to force them to be represented by the Quebec group when the Americans film there.”
No Books About Chimneysweeps In the Works Just Yet
Who better to launch a children’s book imprint than Mary Poppins? Julie Andrews, the actress who played Poppins, has contracted with mega-publisher HarperCollins to launch just such a project. Andrews has written multiple children’s books herself, and the new imprint will feature only books which have her personal stamp of approval.
Money For The Arts? Get In Line.
The city of Cleveland is trying to get voters to support the idea of putting public money into the arts. But even in a city which which desperately needs to reinvigorate its cultural scene, that sort of ballot measure is a tough sell, and the levy which arts supporters are seeking to bring before the public seems to be stuck in a complex set of negotiations over timing and budget priorities. Specific levies for individual projects are common in Ohio, and the arts levy may have to wait its turn behind levy requests for schools, parks, and a convention center.
Glover Takes Governor General’s Award
Canadian expat Douglas Glover has won his native country’s Governor General’s award for fiction, beating out Canadian über-author Margaret Atwood for the $15,000 prize. Glover’s winning novel, Elle, is a fictionalized account of 16th-century French noblewoman Marguerite de Roberval’s years as a castaway. Other winners in the GG awards, which celebrate the best Canadian writing of the year, were Vern Thiesson (drama,) Tim Lilburn (poetry,) and Margaret MacMillan (non-fiction).
Nat’l Medals of Arts Handed Out
The National Medals of Arts, the U.S. government’s highest honor for artists, is leaning heavily towards the music industry this year, with conductor Leonard Slatkin, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, country star George Strait, and bluesman Buddy Guy being selected to receive the award. Among other NMA recipients are director Ron Howard, and PBS’s live music showcase, Austin City Limits.