Category: issues

I hate clapping along at concerts. “I don’t think the clapping has yet been brought forward as an issue, and in this time of Olympic-level whingeing and control, I think it’s time we looked at legislation to contain it. Of course, being in a crowd of rhythmless hand-bashers does have its spiritual upside. I now truly understand what the Buddhists mean when they talk about the beauty of the sound of one hand clapping.” – Sydney Morning Herald 09/18/00

“Australian culture is for the most part deeply democratic, and joyously so as well. It is no longer “provincial”, a distant and nervous response to norms generated in imperial centres. It is the result of a bloodless and slow-developing social revolution conducted over 40 years as a small society grew larger and immeasurably more complex, shook off its sense of derivative Englishness and its fear of American domination, and learned to trust its own talents.” – The Guardian 09/18/00

“Today at the White House, the Smithsonian Institution will confer on Frank O. Gehry and Apple Computer the status of national treasures.” – Washington Post 09/18/00

Textbook publishers have been slow to hit the internet, but that’s all changing. “Now it’s a race. If you don’t have a significant e-learning strategy then you’re going to be left behind.” – Wired 09/18/00

In a few years, if students can get all their research online and access most books electronically, does that mean the traditional library will be obsolete? – Wired 09/18/00

Larry Harvey’s Burning Man Festival attracted 30,000 to the Nevada desert earlier this month. ” ‘This will be Rome to the colonies. The problem with utopias is that they are based on some theory of human nature,’ he says, as he is joined on his couch by a topless woman, a punk called Chicken John and a transvestite glam rock star named Adrian Roberts.” – Time Magazine 09/18/00

They’re getting more money, so why are they griping? The Australian government decided in August to award an extra $70 million to arts groups. But the announcement that came yesterday also informed the groups they would have to wait nine months before they get it. – The Age (Melbourne) 09/15/00 

 “There is a rooted assumption that popular culture is easy, especially popular music. But millions who try and fail to create it find out the hard way that it is just that – hard. And that’s why the Spice Girls – so denigrated by the toffee-nosed culture snobs – have managed to notch up a remarkable 500 million sales worldwide, whereas a posh, pampered ‘hard-to-work-out-what-they’re-saying’ writer like Henry James has yet to make any mark on the pop charts.” – The Guardian 09/15/00

Often arts education gives too much information at the expense of too little imagination. But “imagination is the fuel of art, the engine of growth and the frank pleasure of life. No less a brainiac than Einstein insisted that imagination is more important than knowledge, yet most folks –  education bureaucrats or not – seem to shudder at the thought. In our modern Information Age, imagination regularly withers from neglect.” – Los Angeles Times 09/15/00

Edinburgh’s summer Festival draws the best artists from around the world. Makes one critic wonder about the state of Scottish arts: “The arts have been ill-served down the years by successive governments. Over the last decade, leaving aside additional funding for the National Companies, we have seen a base grant to the arts in Scotland rise… a niggardly 1.1% a year, not only way below inflation, but less than any comparable public sector area.” – The Scotsman