Egypt Restores Its Historic Synagogues
"Egypt will shoulder the costs of restoring the country's Jewish houses of worship, said the culture minister Tuesday, two days after a historic synagogue in Cairo's ancient Jewish quarter was rededicated … [The] ministry views Jewish sites as much a part of Egypt's culture as Muslim mosques or Coptic churches, and the restorations would not require any foreign funding." - Discovery News 03/09/10

Vegas Arts Groups Face Down The Downturn
"On paper, the arts are looking grim. In less than two years the city lost the Las Vegas Art Museum and two critical downtown galleries, Naomi Arin Contemporary Art and Michele C. Quinn Fine Art Advisory. The Las Vegas Philharmonic nearly collapsed, Nevada Ballet Theatre restructured for financial reasons, and museums and cultural centers cut hours and programming." - Las Vegas Sun 03/11/10

How Teaching To The Test Snuffs Out Children's Creativity
"Imagine the future actress, who is told there's no time to play in the dress-up area because she has to learn all her letters and memorize 25 sight words at the age of five. Imagine the up-and-coming Picasso who is chastised for turning in a picture of a blue cat eating a potato when the assignment had been to draw a self-portrait. Not realistic enough! Follow directions!" - ARTicles 03/11/10

What Critics Talk About When They Talk About The Nose
Kentridge, Gogol, Shostakovich: It only made sense to round up classical music critic Anthony Tommasini, art critic Roberta Smith and book critic Dwight Garner to talk with classical music reporter Daniel J. Wakin about "the music, the art and the literary threads" running through Kentridge's Metropolitan Opera production of "The Nose." - The New York Times 03/11/10

In Vancouver, The Cultural Paralympics
"The Paralympic Games begin tomorrow, and art exploring the disability experience is very much in evidence in Vancouver's continuing Cultural Olympiad. But the people behind these shows say it is essential that the physical challenges of the protagonists, stars and/or creators do not overwhelm the subject matter of the works." - The Globe and Mail (Canada) 03/11/10

Critics, 'The Dung Beetles Of Culture'
David Cote: "We consume excrement, enriching the soil and protecting livestock from bacterial infection in the process. We are intrinsic to the theatre ecology. Eliminate us at your peril. … [If] this trend continues, only the stupidest among us will believe a critical rave. We'll know that reviews are just part of the marketing …" - The Guardian (UK) 03/10/10

Panel Names Fifty UK Women To Watch In The Arts
"The list includes directors, producers and curators who make a contribution to cultural life across the UK. ... The women to watch are expected to lead the way in design, libraries, literature, museums, heritage, music, performing and visual arts, the historic environment and creative businesses." - BBC 03/10/10

Variety Film Critic Todd McCarthy On Being Cut Loose
"I've been fiercely and proudly reviewing at full speed since all the [previous] cutbacks. I made sure we had no slippage in our festival coverage and film reviewing, I've worked hard in recent times to make sure nothing slipped. The reviews have been the most unchanged part of Variety, period. Forever." - TheWrap 03/08/10

A Painter-Critic Wishes For A Broader Education
Peter Plagens: "If I had it to do over again, I don't think I'd want to be an actual subatomic-particle physicist or a bona fide neurosurgeon. But I sure would like to be an abstract painter and art critic who's fluently bilingual, can comprehend the pages with the funny little symbols on them in the popular science books, is able to rattle off soliloquies by Shakespeare...." - ARTicles 03/06/10

Before Long, Another Respected Critic Will Get The Axe
"As an art form, criticism should be placed on the endangered species list. Dozens upon dozens of critics have been laid off or taken buyouts at newspapers and magazines in the last several years. And the ones who have survived have less influence than ever before. " - Los Angeles Times 03/08/10

Trimming Budget, Variety Cuts Chief Film, Theatre Critics
"[T]he trade let go chief film critic Todd McCarthy and chief theater critic David Rooney. Longtime film critic Derek Elley also was cut, as was features editor/indie film reporter Sharon Swart, along with several copy and design desk employees." All three critics were asked to work as freelancers. The paper's editor said the "changes won't be noticed by readers." - TheWrap 03/08/10

Two NJ Arts Companies Succumb To Economic Crisis
"The American Repertory Ballet in New Brunswick announced today it has canceled the remainder of its season, opting to not perform in order not to make an already six-figure shortfall even worse. At the same time, the smaller 12 Miles West Theatre Company of Madison, has suspended operations, and it's unlikely it will re-open." - The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) 03/09/10

Why Critics Seem To Miss The Boat On Vegas Shows
"When it comes to Vegas and Elvis, the prejudice toward stereotype and mockery and the expectations of banal schlock are so intense that anything even remotely elevated seemed to the out-of-towners like brilliance incarnate." - Las Vegas Sun 03/06/10

Is Making Adelaide Festival Annual A Good Idea?
"As the dust settles on the Premier's announcement, which will come with increased funding of $11 million every two years, the state's resident artists have begun questioning whether staging a festival that seeks to attract interstate visitors with big flashy international acts would make SA a better place for artists to live." - The Australian 05/06/10

Claim: Board Games Are Back
"Those who play insist that board games never really went away, but they acknowledge the comeback in popularity and categorize play as "classically social" in a world consumed with faceless social networking." - Hartford Courant 03/05/10

Are Disabled Being Shut Out Of Aussie Arts?
"Australians are increasingly embracing the arts, with fewer people regarding them as elitist compared with a decade ago, and about 17 million people engaging with forms from music and theatre to literature. But... people with disabilities and migrants from non-English-speaking countries are being left behind." - Sydney Morning Herald 03/07/10

Report: How US College Grades Have Been Inflated
"Since the 1960s, the national mean G.P.A. at the institutions from which he's collected grades has risen by about 0.1 each decade - other than in the 1970s, when G.P.A.s stagnated or fell slightly. In the 1950s, according to Rojstaczer's data, the mean G.P.A. at U.S. colleges and universities was 2.52. By 2006-07, it was 3.11." - InsideHigherEd 03/05/10

Orlando Officials Hope To Forge Ahead With New Performing Arts Center
"Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer will defy the downed economy Monday and pitch a $69 million bond sale to city leaders that would allow construction to start on a new -- albeit pared back -- downtown performing-arts center." - Orlando Sentinel 03/07/10

How Ireland Supports Culture - Reset Needed
"The situation in Dublin highlights the scale of disarray. We know that around €200 million of taxpayers' money is spent annually on mainstream cultural services and facilities, including arts, film, heritage, libraries, local authorities, national cultural institutions, and so on. There is, however, no strategic purpose behind this spending and it is hard to imagine how this way of working can contribute to Ireland's recovery." - The Irish Times 03/07/10

Where Is The Fact Checker For Documentaries?
Over the past quarter-century, the Pew Charitable Trusts "has supported documentary filmmaking to the tune of $26 million. But that was mostly for films of the Ken Burns variety, straightforward educational fare destined, in many cases, for public television. Now the organization is on the receiving end of a polemical blast from a small, independent filmmaker who has mastered the art of asymmetrical documentary warfare." - Washington Post 03/07/10

The Doubts Of Great Artists
Few artists, no matter how celebrated they may be, are strangers to fear and uncertainty. No less a giant than John Keats died sure that "I have left no immortal work behind me--nothing to make my friends proud of my memory," and requested that the sentence "Here lies one whose name was writ in water" be engraved on his tombstone. - The Wall Street Journal 03/06/10

Participatory Art Yes. But Good Art?
"Some forms of interactivity are obviously good for art, as they are good for society. The more democratically ideas and information are shared, the more accessible art will be. So democracy is great - except when it shapes the actual work of art. I do not believe a great work of art has ever been created by communal consensus, let alone by multiple editors." - The Guardian (UK) 03/04/10