Category: issues

BEGINNING OF THE CORPORATE END

So American Airlines supported the arts by giving New York’s Roundabout Theater $850,000 a year for 10 years. In return the airline gets its name on the theater. But “American Airlines isn’t supporting the arts, bless them. They are paying a tax-deductible fee in order to advertise and sell their corporate logo on Broadway. Philanthropy has sweet zilch to do with it.” – New York Observer

VANDALISM IN THE THEATER

Cell phones and pagers going off in concerts and theater performances have become a crisis of sorts. “To receive a cell phone call during a performance is an act of violence, not terribly different from aiming a spray gun at a Botticelli. It’s worse, in fact, since a damaged painting can be restored.” – Los Angeles Times

NOW A WOMAN CAN SING ONSTAGE!

For the first time in two decades a woman is allowed to sing onstage in Iran. “We cried when she was singing, with a feeling of happiness and sorrow, thinking of all those years that we had been deprived of the art of a woman’s voice,” one Iranian man said. Under their strict interpretation of the Koran, women were prohibited from singing in public, except to a carefully segregated female-only audience. The ayatollahs were afraid the voice of a woman soloist might arouse impure thoughts in men’s minds. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

EVERYONE’S (NOT) A CRITIC?

“There seems to be no critical culture in America today. A critical culture is one that struggles actively over how human beings should live and what our life means. Most of us can remember living in the critical culture of the sixties-a few of us can even remember the critical culture of the thirties-and we can feel the difference. When a critical culture breaks down or wears out or fades away, sources of joy dry up. What makes this happen? Why has it happened now?” – Dissent

KANT BUY ME LOVE

It’s fashionable these days to lament the dumbing-down of our culture. But there are some 2,500 “Great Books” societies across North America, and the growing number of such study groups suggests that many thirst for learning more. “In these tiny cells of unofficial civilization, intellectual discourse moves outside the universities and becomes a question of personal initiative, energy, insight and need.” – National Post (Canada)

YOUR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND YOU

Know where your US presidential candidate of choice stands on arts issues? Now might be a good time to find out. – Boston Herald

  • AN LA TIMES SURVEY:
    • McCain: “I oppose federal funding of the National Endowment for the Arts because of the obscene and inappropriate projects this organization has supported with tax dollars.” 
    • Bush: “I want to continue federal funding for the arts, but give states a greater say in how the money is spent.”
    • Bradley: “He has always supported funding for the NEA; he has voted against efforts to cut it and efforts to censor it.”
    • Gore: “…the administration is proposing doubling arts in education programs, which Gore strongly supports.” 
      Los Angeles Times