Techno-trends author Steven Johnson offers a critical response to the idea (and the NEA report advancing the idea) that Americans are reading less now than they used to. The NEA study, released last November (available for download here), raised media concern and national discussion about the demise of voluntary reading. Said NEA Chair Dana Gioia […]

Social-networking maven Kevin Kelly posts some fascinating thoughts on the past and future of user-generated content systems (Wikipedia, distributed networks, smart mobs, blogs, and such). At issue is how such systems balance the aggregated, bottom-up insights of non-experts against the editing, filtering, curating, and clarifying energy of top-down, ”elite” content managers. We all know by […]

The decision by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad not to donate his vast art collection to the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art is causing quite a ripple in the museum world (CultureGrrl explored the topic last month, as did Tyler Green, following the New York Times January article on the decision). Rather than donate […]

Charles Isherwood in the New York Times has mixed feelings about emerging theater works with an emphasis on active audiences, where the viewer plays a significant role in the way the event unfolds. It may be event-worthy and alluring to new audiences, he thinks, but it lacks many of the essential qualities of complex narrative […]

As I was upgrading my Microsoft Office software to the new version last week, the dialog box shown here popped up on my screen. I know we all define ourselves, in part, by the goods we purchase and the tools we use. But I thought it was particularly thoughtful of Microsoft to upgrade my sense […]

In the arts and entertainment world, there’s a distinction that’s often misunderstood as semantic, when it’s actually driven by law: the difference between a manager and an agent. In film, touring performing arts, theater, publishing, and other realms of creative expression, both agents and managers work to advance their clients’ work. The difference is that […]

Thanks to BoingBoing for pointing me to this Lawrence Welk show performance of ”One Toke over the Line” (if you’re out of the loop, ”toke” is slang for smoking Marijuana…I’m guessing Gail and Dale didn’t figure that out). The cultural disconnect recalls the recent Washington Post article on the songs used in presidential campaigns, and […]

I was pleased to get a comment on my post yesterday from Bill Ivey, former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, and current director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt. I had a great visit to the Curb Center just last week for an intriguing conversation between […]

Some interesting threads about ”authenticity” are tracking around the web, many in response to the new Pine & Gilmore book on the subject (haven’t read it yet, but it’s in ”the stack”). Included in the thread are posts by Grant McCracken, then Sam Ford, and then Sam Ford again. At issue is what we all […]

If you’re fond of tracking multi-hundred-million civic structures (and who isn’t?), your eyes would be fixed on Texas and New Jersey, where the money is flowing like Mentos and Diet Coke. The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts just bumped its fundraising goal from $275 million to $338 million. The Dallas Cowboys new stadium is […]