It’s a race to the finish here, as grades for my classes are due in just a few short days. In less than a week, I will be officially done with business school! As for the Around the Horn feature, the response to my query last week was limited but uniformly in favor of keeping the horn around, as it were. So here’ s what I’m going to do: Around the Horn will continue, but I will try to be a little more selective about what I include in it, and I will write up mini-articles based on things like the news about Rocco Landesman from last week a little more readily. Let’s see how that goes and things can always be adjusted later if necessary.
- Picking up where last week’s pro-Europe screed left off: Britain now decides it’s not only going to fund rehearsal space for bands, it’s going to create up to 10,000 entry-level jobs in the culture industries. Iceland, on the other hand, is having some problems.
- And over in this hemisphere? The latest out of Massachusetts is that the Mass Cultural Council might be in for a 57% cut. (h/t Parabasis) I haven’t seen this reported on or corroborated anwhere else since then, so maybe it’s just a false alarm, but if it’s not, it would be a gut punch to arts in the Bay State. Yes, in times like these, it’s always nice to read headlines like NEXT YEAR COULD BE A WHOLE LOT WORSE. Thanks, Barry. At least SF Foundation arts program head John Killacky offers these helpful survival strategies for arts organizations at Blue Avocado.
- OK, so it’s not all bad: Creative Capital just got a $15 million challenge grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation in honor of its 10th anniversary, and the White House is keeping the door open for dialogue, meeting with a group of “grass-roots activists” organized by the Nathan Cummings Foundation last week.
- The real reason CEO pay has skyrocketed in recent times? A horribly unscientific conception of “the market” for CEOs, rife with selection bias toward already highly-compensated individuals.
- So apparently, structured search is the Next Big Thing. For a demonstration, check out this nifty video advertising Wolfram Alpha, which is being hyped as a “Google killer” (early returns: not so much). For its part, Google is not about to give up the throne without a fight.
- Here are some more art/community/development nonprofits learned about in the past week (jeez, they’re everywhere): Chattanooga’s CreateHere, DC’s Cultural Development Corporation, and New York’s Municipal Art Society. Plus, there’s this story on a community art center in Detroit (the “Power House”) on NPR from back in March. I’m starting to think this field is ripe for an interest group.