Want to generate lots of ideas with other people? Great! Just don’t call it “brainstorming,” at least in Belfast. “Instead staff at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in Belfast will use the term ‘thought-showers’ when they get together to think creatively. A spokeswoman said: ‘The DETI does not use the term brainstorming on its training courses on the grounds that it may be deemed pejorative’.” To whom? People with brain disorders, of course…
Tag: 06.25.05
Debating Sartre At 100
Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre would have been 100 last week. “French newspaper and magazine supplements, as well as television panels, radio shows and bookstore displays, utterly swamped the idea, pushed by ideological enemies of bad faith, that 20th-century Europe’s most famous philosopher has long since grown passe. Did Sartre hate America or regret it? Was the “freedom” he exalted the same as George W. Bush’s? Could the “later Sartre” fairly be dubbed a “godfather of political terrorism”? The tiny, wall-eyed, serial seducer and manuscript producer would have loved every paragraph.”
What If Victor Hugo Had Been Patented? (Yikes!)
“A novel and a modern complex computer programme have certain points in common: each is large and implements many ideas. Suppose patent law had been applied to novels in the 1800s; suppose states such as France had permitted the patenting of literary ideas. How would this have affected Hugo’s writing? How would the effects of literary patents compare with the effects of literary copyright?”
In LA – A Loss Of Theatrical Diversity
Los Angeles’ largest theatre cuts its major program to encourage diversity in the theatre. So what is lost? “To what extent did the initiatives that came about in the ’80s and ’90s lead to diversification of the management staffs of theaters? In the past two years some important artistic director jobs opened on the national scene. How many people of color were on the short list for the jobs? How many women? How many women and people of color who were not right for the jobs, or not available, were brought in to be a part of the process? Did board members ask about diversity as they put together their wish lists? Did women board members ask these questions? Did board members of color ask?”
Pondering The Changing Of The Guard In Minneapolis
Small theatres often become so identified with the leader who brings them to life that it’s sometimes difficult to imagine them without their patron saint. “At least half a dozen of the Twin Cities’ best-known, most innovative, highest-quality theaters face the same situation. Penumbra Theatre Company, Mixed Blood Theatre, Park Square Theatre and Illusion Theater all are facing a future without the artistic directors who have poured their lifeblood into them. Their long-term survival depends on figuring out how to transfuse that lifeblood into a new generation of leadership.”
Denmark’s Dance Master
“Stepping back in time is an experience much more available to actors and musicians than it is to dancers, most of whose history lacks a written literature and has vanished, step by step, into the mists of fading memory. Except in Denmark. There, the 19th-century ballets of August Bournonville are part of daily dancing life… When Bournonville retired in 1877, his half-century dominance of Danish ballet threatened to diminish slowly. We can thank one of his dancers, Hans Beck, who documented the step designs in the early 1890s, for giving succeeding generations the basis for preserving Bournonville’s training program and, with it, the means to dance his ballets properly.”
The Great Governor-General’s Book Hunt
Canada’s Governor-General’s arts awards are some of the most prestigious in the country, and the literary awards in particular are most coveted. But when the current Governor-General, Adrienne Clarkson, took office, she was shocked to discover that the official residence’s library was missing an alarming number of award-winning titles, thanks in part to the sticky fingers of some of her predecessors. Clarkson and her husband made it their personal mission to rectify the problem, and as Clarkson prepares to leave office, the residence once again has the only complete collection of Governor-General Award recipients.
Twisting History To Suit A Good Storyline
Musicologist Joseph Horowitz has made plenty of waves with his new book which traces what he sees as the decline and fall of classical music in the U.S., and why that decline was inevitable. But Greg Sandow isn’t wholly convinced by Horowitz’s story, well-told though it may be: “Is this really history, the way a real historian would write it? Or has Mr. Horowitz instead staged a passionate morality play, in which he uses history as his casting office, providing him with heroes and villains?… This book is best understood not as analysis or history but as a cri du coeur.”
Is The Orchestral Sky Actually Falling?
“All over the Western world, the alarm is sounding that classical music is in trouble. Orchestra subscription sales are dropping widely, in some cases by as much as two percentage points a year. Ensembles are not balancing their budgets. Audiences are getting older; young people are turned off by classical music… So, at least, goes the refrain. Is it true that people don’t want classical music anymore? Or is it just a question of how to give it to them? And is it even possible – heresy of heresies – that they are being given too much of it?”
Pataki: No Controversial Art Allowed At Ground Zero
One day after a New York tabloid published an inflammatory screed against what it called the anti-American art being displayed by two future museum tenants of Ground Zero, New York Governor George Pataki warned that he would not tolerate any art that could offend families of 9/11 victims being displayed on the site. “While saying that he respected artistic expression, Mr. Pataki invoked the solemnity of past battlegrounds in promising to preserve the hallowed ground in Lower Manhattan and ensure that no one will come away feeling offended by the reborn site… Mr. Pataki’s demand, which was denounced by several arts groups and Democrats as a violation of free speech, is the latest episode in a series of public disputes and flash points for the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan.”