“Students across the United States have been getting suspended and arrested for written work that authorities have deemed threatening. After two students in Colorado opened fire at Columbine High in 1999, killing 12 other students and a teacher, states and schools have been scrambling to find ways to protect students before violence occurs. But critics say they’ve been overreacting and violating constitutional rights.”
Tag: 08.22.03
50 Ways To Improve The Movies
Movies seem worse than ever this summer. “It’s been a year when flicks about talking fish, a freak horse and an ancient Disney ride have rocked the box office, and unbearable lovers Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have been only slightly less lethal than unstoppable killers Freddy and Jason.” So here are 50 ways to improve things…
John Coplans, 83
John Coplans, a founder and former editor of Artforum magazine, who was also a painter, critic, curator, museum director and “finally a photographer of discomfiting images of his own aging body,” has died at the age of 83.
Ft. Lauderdale’s New Museum Chief
“The new chief of the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, is Irvin Lippman, 55, a man credited with doubling the annual budget and raising attendance at the Columbus, Ohio, art museum over the past eight years.”
Time To Politicize
Politicl theatre has made a big comeback at the Edinburgh Fringe. “A lot of this much-vaunted new political theatre has, admittedly, suffered from the problems that administered a lethal injection to the genre 20 years ago. Way, way too much of it has been designed solely to massage the lazy prejudices of its audiences. One more routine about how Americans are all obese imbeciles, and I think my head might have burst; one more person howling at some smugly inactive audience that “children are dying, children are dying”, and I might have lapsed into a coma. But from this sea of predictable, knee-jerk tedium, two stunning (and very different) new voices have risen.”
BBC To Broadcast Play Live
The BBC will broadcast a performance of Richard II live from London’s Globe Theatre. “It is thought to be the first live screening of a theatre play: while operas and concerts are often broadcast live, the theatrical community is far less willing to let in the cameras.”
Sydney Symphony – Going For The Personal Connection
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s new music director is rethinking how the orchestra operates. “Gianluigi Gelmetti is determined to strengthen the orchestra’s links with its community by taking a personal interest in relationships with sponsors, governments and funding bodies, actively helping the careers of young conductors and instrumentalists, and electing to lead SSO touring in his first year to Lismore, Armidale and Newcastle.”
German Observatory Predates Stonehenge
The oldest observatory in Europe has been discovered in Germany. It predates Stonehenge. “The site, which is estimated to be around 7,000 years old and measures 75 meters in diameter, provides the first insights into the spiritual and religious worlds of Europe’s earliest farmers.”
Do We Really Miss Katharine, Bob and Gregory That Much?
“America seems to be rather ghoulishly prolonging, and even luxuriating in, the grief attendant upon the recent spate of top-table Hollywood demises. This is a measure of the affection that these old warhorses inspired in many people. But I wonder if this enduring nostalgia doesn’t also arise from a widespread wish not to have to gaze upon the present, on the haemorrhaging economy and rising unemployment, on what’s been so disastrously wrought in the Middle East through lies and manipulation, or the ghastly triumphs of NeoCon-corporate feudalism.”