Why PBS Programming Is So Timid

PBS programming is staid and unadventurous. Why? Consider an acclaimed 36-year-old one-man show about Mark Twain and why PBS declined to air it: “What could literary legend Mark Twain have said 130 years ago that would cause PBS programmers of two different regimes to reject an acclaimed performance of his wit and wisdom by one of America’s most respected actors? Well, about 35 minutes into the one-man show, after the first intermission, Twain/ Holbrook includes a passage ofHuckleberry Finn. In this five minutes of the program, “Twain” acts out the parts of young Huck, his drunk father Pap and old Jim, a slave…”

File-Swapping Bad! (Unless There’s Money To Be Made…)

“The recording industry, it seems, doesn’t hate absolutely everything about illicit music downloading. Despite their legal blitzkrieg to stop online song-swapping, many music labels are benefiting from — and paying for — intelligence on the latest trends in Internet trading… One company, Beverly Hills-based BigChampagne, began mining such data from popular peer-to-peer networks in 2000 and has built a thriving business selling it to recording labels.”

Can’t Tell The Music Without A Program…

So you’ve decided to take the plunge and buy and download some classical music from one of the hot new legal paysites. First you’ve got to find it, writes Greg Sandow: “As I rooted around, I came across all the Beethoven sonatas in the old and greatly respected Artur Schnabel performances. All of them! Ninety-nine cents per track. There’s only one problem. What you get, when you look these up – and it’s the same on all three services I’ve mentioned – is a track listing. As follows (transcribed verbatim): 1 The Complete Piano Sonatas, I. Allegro/ 2 The Complete Piano Sonatas, II. Adagio…”

“Producers” Sets Broadway BO Record

Just last week stories were being written about The Producers losing steam at the Broadway box office. Then Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick agreed to return to the roles they originated. Presto – a box office record. “The show sold some 6,000 tickets in less than 90 minutes, both in person and through Telecharge, after the box office opened at noon. By 10 p.m., when the St. James’s box office closed, more than 39,000 tickets had been sold, the producers said, and the day’s take stood at nearly $3.5 million. Orders were still being taken through Telecharge. The previous record for one-day sales was also held by “The Producers,” which sold $3.3 million in tickets on the day after the show’s opening in April 2001.”

California – Art On 3 Cents A Year

State support for the arts in California is low, after recent budget cuts. How low? “To better understand how low public support has sunk, consider that Canadians spend an annual $145 per capita to fund the arts; Germans, $85; New Yorkers, $2.75; Mississippians, $1.31; Californians, 3 cents. ‘That’s gum balls,’ says Barry Hessenius, director of the council. Three gum balls a year.”

Want State Arts Support? Run Artists

In a speech, Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm apologizes for declining state support for the arts. “About this disconnect between art and politics: It is true that politics ends up flattening down the artistic edge. For in this line of work, you are either a zero or a sum. You are a Democrat or a Republican. You are pro-this or anti-that. There is little room to be nuanced, textured, deep or subtle. So, I think that we just ought to elect more artists. Not just wrestlers and movie stars, either, but musicians and painters, dancers, filmmakers and poets. Just don’t run for governor for another 7 years.”

Rediscovering Sartre

“When Jean-Paul Sartre died in 1980, some 50,000 people turned out for the funeral of France’s most famous modern philosopher. Six years later his lifelong companion, Simone de Beauvoir, joined him here in Montparnasse. The stream of people coming to pay tribute has never really dried up. Growing interest in Sartre is by no means an exclusively French phenomenon. Strangely enough, his philosophical writings may now be receiving more scrutiny in the United States than in his native country.”

Poetry And The $100 Million Gift – A Year Later

Ruth Lily’s $100 million bequest to Poetry Magazine last year has resulted in nicer offices and financial security for the publication. But the magazine certainly hasn’t gone on a spending spree. “In some ways, there is an oil-and-water mix to poetry and money. Poets just are sort of ill at ease around a lot of money. This thing has been a shoestring operation for years. I don’t think anyone wants to get too fancy. You know, it tends to make me nervous to go out and buy a lamp or something.”