True to their word, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) distributed all of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds (AKA Stimulus Funds, Federal Bailout, etc.) within five months of the economic recovery bill. Not long ago, the NEA posted a list of nonprofit arts organizations that received a direct grant to “support the preservation of jobs that are threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn.” Here’s a list of how those funds were distributed along with some cross tabulation not available at the NEA website…
Year: 2009
It’s About Bloody Time
Unless your internet service has been down over the past 24 hours, you’ve probably read the piece in the 7/8/2009 edition of the Times Online (UK) by Richard Morrison that reports on a patron suing a The Wizard of Oz production for failing to use live music. In essence, the patron turned plaintiff was miffed over the fact that the production was billed as a “magical family musical” but failed to mention that the singers were performing to a recorded instrumental soundtrack. Although these events have transpired across the Atlantic, US ballet and opera companies should take heed…
“A Ship Is Safe In Harbor, But That’s Not What Ships Are For.”
A short while ago, Joe Patti posed a question over at Butts In The Seats asking whether or not orchestras should confine their programming to just a few genres. The first thing that popped into my head when I read his original post was a quote from Mark Twain: “I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”
Duck Walk In Your Underwear
The Jul 2–8, 2009 of Time Out Chicago published an article by Doyle Armbrust that features fellow Inside The Arts blogger Jason Heath and his myriad of blogging activity. What’s especially interesting is how Jason recounts his path into the cultural blogosphere. It’s a well written feature and it goes a long way at demonstrating new media’s effectiveness when wielded by someone with the skills and fortitude.
I Just Might Throw My Dictionary Away
Over the past week I’ve been up to my eyeballs in writing reports and anyone who is used to tossing out tens of thousands of words in a short time span knows that after awhile, a traditional thesaurus or online synonym resource can feel awfully limited. Enter visuwords.com, a refreshingly useful online resource that functions as a sort of graphical dictionary/thesaurus. What I found particularly useful is how it uses diagrams to illustrate word relationships that actually helped me break out of the tunnel vision writing style instigated by marathon writing sessions…