Category: issues

THE SPOOKS AND MR. ORWELL

The CIA went into the cultural propaganda business in a big way in the 1950s. After George Orwell died in 1950, the CIA acquired the rights to produce “Animal Farm.” But, “for the CIA to finance and distribute Animal Farm, however, something had to be done about the ending. In Orwell’s anti-Stalinist original, the pigs who overthrow the farmer ruling class end up mingling with their former oppressors. As pigs and farmers toast one another in the farm house, ‘the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.’ The CIA solved this problem of the symbiotic relationship between capitalism and Communism by eliminating the farmers from the final scene.” – The Nation

TO PAINT OR NOT TO PAINT…

“Why dwell on artists anyway? What makes them so special compared to ‘ordinary’ humans? My considered view is that there is no essential difference, as the human condition is innately artistic. Everyone is potentially an artist: all it takes to become one is the self-realisation that that’s what you already are. It is not what you do that makes you an artist, but your awareness of something within that constitutes an artistic or aesthetic dimension.” – *spark-online

WHEN MICKEY SNUBBED WINNIE

Newly discovered documents show that during World War II, Winston Churchill secretly asked Walt Disney to make an anti-Nazi cartoon based on St. George and the dragon. “Noël Coward and officials from the Ministry of Information went to America to try to persuade Disney to help with Britain’s propaganda campaign. Their requests, however, were ignored by Disney who was determined to keep America out of the war and was anxious to protect the international market for his films.” – The Telegraph (UK)

LOSING FAITH

Jane Alexander began her term as head of the National Endowment for the Arts with optimism. Her new book shows that by the time she left the NEA, her “health, idealism and forbearance all suffered. She gripes about flying coach. She complains that the government won’t pay to move her back to New York. ‘The system is so corrupt that it may never be fixed,’ she concludes, sweepingly.” – The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

QUAKE-PROOF

  • San Francisco’s de Young Museum was damaged in the 1989 earthquake. Plans are well along to rebuild. But “if local community activists have their way, the design for the ambitious $135 million project will soon be subjected to a process that many observers believe could doom it. And although the proposed building, by acclaimed Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron Architekten AG, has been hailed by those culturally-in-the-know as a masterpiece of contemporary Modernism, it has come in for some blistering criticism from an unexpected quarter: other architects.” – Metropolis

SAVING FACE

The Chinese government has protested the showing of “Inside Out: New Chinese Art” in Australia, saying the exhibition could damage their “international standing.” A disclaimer note above the entrance to the exhibit reads: “The National Gallery of Australia wishes to advise that this performance contains nudity, live animals and Chinese firecrackers.” What on earth are they worried about? – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)  

BEWARE THE PIRATES

Disney’s Michael Eisner tells the US Congress that copyright piracy damages more than the entertainment industry’s bottom line. It also “puts the U.S. Constitution and the nation’s balance of trade at risk as well.” – Variety