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One of the key things to the story is that I am a dropout from grad school in English literature. I was a semiotics major at Brown, and then I went to Columbia for grad school, where I was working on the nineteenth-century novel. I spent my early twenties sitting around reading Dickens, George Eliot, and Balzac and Flaubert, and a little bit of American literature.

At the same time, the computer world was starting to explode. The Internet was starting to appear, and some of these games were coming out: SimCity, the first iteration of that, came out in 1989.

I was following the world of humanities and at the same time the computer world. To use your phrasing, I became Steven Johnson around 1995, when the Web first appeared. I realized that those two worlds could live together in a beautiful, intellectual way.

I started putting together the idea for my first book, Interface Culture, which was about the world of computer interfaces and the world of culture. At the same time I started on Feed, which was the first general-interest Web magazine before Salon or Slate came along.

I dropped out of grad school I did everything but my dissertation and went off and started writing about these things. One of the underlying drives for all this was to write about the technological world through the lens of the cultural critic.

Arts on Radio and Television grants support projects for radio and television arts programs that are intended for national broadcast. The NEA will fund 66 grants in this category out of 156 eligible applications, for a total federal investment of $3,700,000.

Examples of projects supported by Arts on Radio and Television grants include:

Support to Bowery Arts and Science for a documentary film by Robert Levi about NEA Jazz Master Hank Jones.

Support to Minnesota Public Radio for the production of arts features for the weekly radio magazine program Weekend America.

Support to the University of Iowa for a documentary on visual artist Grant Wood's iconic painting American Gothic.

Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth grants support projects that help children and youth acquire knowledge and understanding of and skills in the arts. Projects must provide participatory learning and engage students with skilled artists, teachers, and excellent art. Funded projects also must apply national or state arts education standards. The NEA will fund 171 projects in this category out of 553 eligible applications, for a total federal investment of $5,291,000.

Examples of projects supported by Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth grants include:

Support to the AjA Project for a series of after-school photography workshops targeted to refugee youth, ages 12 to 17, living in the San Diego area.

Support to the Grand Canyon Chamber Music Festival for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project for youth.

Support to the Snow City Arts Foundation to provide creative writing, music, and visual arts workshops with professional artists for hospitalized children.

Raphael was a realized artist, a superb artist in my view, but he died comparatively young. Leonardo was a flawed artist of great originality, but he couldn't finish things. Hardly anything of his is finished, or very few, or sometimes he made a mess of it like The Last Supper. And Michelangelo, who was another flawed genius. Michelangelo was a very great sculptor. His Pietà is arguably the greatest piece of sculpture ever, though personally my favorite is Donatello's David, which I have, incidently, a Florentine replica made of crushed marble, about 1800, in my garden.

Michelangelo was a very great sculptor and in some ways a magnificent architect--I think the Medici Library is one of the greatest works of art--but as a painter, he had very, very serious limitations. I think the Sistine Chapel is rather overrated.

Incidentally, the last time I saw that it was during the closure hours. Margaret Thatcher and I were in Rome to see the pope, but the pope said he was busy writing an encyclical and he couldn't see us that morning so would we like a private visit to the Sistine Chapel instead? But I think it was an over-ambitious failure myself and I'm not sure that the restoration has improved it.

The fact that it's come to light offers an opportunity to think seriously about the very dangerous threat that we in the West face from militant Islamic states and their collaborators.

And that threat may very well be far more imminent than any of us have previously considered, and one that warrants more than just considerable attention; it's time to begin to consider thinking about taking serious preemptive measures that include actions beyond economic sanctions, despite the misguided attempts by the Left and their Democratic supporters in the Congress and the media to unravel and misrepresent progress in Iraq and elsewhere in the War on Terrorism and Islamofascism, and in spite of the current pressures on the Bush administration.

Andre Zantonavitch, in his very interesting, intuitive, and yet somewhat irrational piece entitled, " The West vs. Islam," wrote, in referring to the many Islamic tyrannies throughout the world (of which Iran would of course by a prime example) that "The Western states need to carefully but viciously bomb the hell out of all of their government, military, party, and religious institutions. All the evil Islamic leaders thereof should be taken down and out.

This lesson introduces students to the writing, art, and religious beliefs of ancient Egypt through hieroglyphs, one of the oldest writing systems in the world, and through tomb paintings. Hieroglyphs consist of pictures of familiar objects that represent sounds. They were used in ancient Egypt from about 3100 BC to 400 CE.

In the first part of this lesson, the class creates a pictorial alphabet of its own and then learns and uses the symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet. In the second part of the lesson, students identify and represent in their own drawings figures from the Book of the Dead, a funereal text written on papyrus and carved on the walls of tombs to help guide the deceased through the afterlife.

Discuss with the students what they've learned about the picture story of The Book of the Dead. Then hand out the copies of the graphic you printed from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Talk about the various figures, noting the special attributes of each one. Notice that some have animal heads or bodies, others don't. The falcon at the top is Horus, son of Osiris and protector of the living pharaoh.

Hand out large pieces of paper and markers or crayons. Have the students draw their figures. Those who are ambitious might even try to write the name of the figure in hieroglyphs. When the drawings are finished, have each student share his or hers with the class, explaining who it is and what his or her special functions might be. Later, hang the figures near the exhibit of hieroglyphs for all to enjoy.

In taking a stand for justice and equality, Rosa Parks stirred the conscience of our country in a way that changed American history. She has become such an enduring symbol of moral courage that it is only fitting that she be recognized by Congress with a sculpture in Statuary Hall," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "The NEA is honored to partner with the Architect of the Capitol and the Joint Committee on the Library for this historic project. We're also grateful for the support of the Chrysler Foundation."

"The Chrysler Foundation is proud to be a part of such an historic event as the creation of a permanent remembrance of Rosa Parks," said Frank Fountain, Senior Vice President, External Affairs and Public Policy-Chrysler LLC. "Her display of quiet strength has benefited generations of Americans and will be forever honored in the Capitol."

The Rosa Parks Sculpture design competition, to be administered by the NEA, is open to U.S. citizens. Interested artists should submit an application, including a proposal for the sculpture and work samples that demonstrate their ability to cast large-scale bronze sculptures and to work in the portrait mode.

The Office of the Architect of the Capitol is responsible to the United States Congress for the maintenance, operation, development, and preservation of the United States Capitol complex, which includes the Capitol, the Congressional office buildings, the Library of Congress buildings, the Supreme Court building, the U.S. Botanic Garden, the Capitol Power Plant, and other facilities.

You're invited to the Arts Out West Regional Arts Gathering this Friday April 18, 5-9 at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery. With special guest speakers Ian Milliss and Wendy Carlson on Can save the world?, performances by Cirkus Surreal and Mitchell Conservatorium, presentations on 2007 regional arts projects and a tour of the BRAG 'A Brush with Heritage' exhibition. Followed by the Arts Out West AGM and supper. RSVP to 6338 4657.

For all the other great arts and cultural events happening in the central west view the What's On database here...

To have your event listed fill in an Event Details Form (Word). Or, enter your event details online

Hear the arts round up with Arts OutWest on a radio near you:

New York City was a capital on the rise. Its skyscrapers soared superior than any other buildings in the world, manifesting the surging objective of a young country that was transforming itself with technological prowess. Europe was at war while American industry was generating jobs and products that promised to recover daily life. But American inventiveness complete beyond industry. In New York City, a handful of artists were determined to create American modern art.

The book and its companion showing present an overlooked chapter in the history of American modernism. Between the wars, artists on both sides of the Atlantic were creating a new illustration language celebrating an America not of virgin wilderness but of ingenuity and invention. They used tools of the new styles--cubism, expressionism, and dadaism--to make America's sinuous, glistening, engineered world, from spark plugs and dynamos to factories, suspension bridges, and skyscrapers.

Generations of artists across the twentieth century have turned to this pioneering group as a source of inspiration, says McDonnell. Any number of contemporary painters still look back to them and find pleased and formal devices to emulate, including the incredible paint handling and pictorial vocabulary that they generated.

National Endowment for the Humanities is piloting a program to bring high-quality reproductions of forty works of American art into classrooms and libraries in every state of the union. Cosponsored by the American Library Association, Picturing America will survey a variety of subjects and styles from Anasazi pots to modern architecture, from eighteenth-century portraits to contemporary sculpture. These large laminated reproductions will be accompanied by a teachers guide containing background essays and lesson suggestions for each work of art as they are sent out to 1,557 schools this fall.

Picturing America tells the story of the United States through forty of its masterpieces, says NEH Chairman Bruce Cole. We are using great art to tell the story of our nation from colonial times to the twentieth century. Our goal is to reintroduce American art into the classroom, to give kids who never see art at home or in museums the chance to see this art. We want to give young people a sense that art is important, that it can play a role in their lives, as much as music or sports."

The selected works of art are accessible yet challenging, suitable for kindergartners and high school students alike. Placed side by side or around the classroom, they can be grouped to show many perspectives on American history.

John Singleton Copley's 1768 portrait of Paul Revere reveals an artisan, not a revolutionary. It was painted seven years before Revere warned colonists of the impending British attack—the scene depicted in Grant Wood's twentieth-century painting inspired by Longfellow's 1860 poem. Although Revere is the subject of both paintings, each one tells a different piece of the American story.

Copley, one of the most distinguished portrait artists of the colonial era, chose to paint Revere as a successful silversmith. The portrait captures a craftsman proud of his work, surrounded by his tools, and holding one of his teapots, which he is about to engrave. The image is emblematic of the commercial spirit of American society and the ambitions of its craftsmen.

As the century began, the academic method favored by the official Salon still dictate the success of artists and public taste. Realists turned convention on its head to give heroic character to each day subjects. Manet scandalized the communal with his images of modern life. Impressionists tried to capture fleeting effects of light and atmosphere.

Painting in the first half of the nineteenth century was conquered by Ingres and Delacroix, the first continuing in the neoclassical convention in his emphasis on linear purity and the second championing the expressive, romantic use of color as contrasting to line. Both significantly influenced a new generation of painters who sought to communicate their own personal responses to the political upheavals of their time.

For two hundred years, the Academy, the School of Fine Arts, and the Salon, the official exhibition, had fostered the French national artistic tradition. But by the middle of the nineteenth century the academic system had degenerated.

During the 1860s and 1870s, the artists who later became known as the impressionists concluded that the smoothly idealized presentation of academic art was formulaic and artificial. Their relatively loose, open brushwork underscored their freedom from the meticulously detailed academic manner. They were innovative in their subject matter, too, choosing motifs that did not teach or preach, such as landscape or ordinary activities of daily life, which were considered trivial or degenerate by the Academy. Often juries, dominated by academic attitudes, rejected the young artists' paintings altogether.

These artists thought that if their work was exhibited fairly, it would gain acceptance. They sought favorable viewing conditions such as good lighting and ample space between paintings, and they also wanted to exhibit more works than the two allowed by Salon rules. In 1874, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, Morisot, and Sisley led a number of friends to form an association and publicly presented the first group exhibition independent of the official Salon. They called themselves "Artists, Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc., Inc." to avoid descriptive titles and pejorative epithets. Critics noted their unorthodox style and especially a work exhibited by Monet with the title Impression, Sunrise and sarcastically dubbed them "impressionists." The group, which presented eight exhibitions in all, survived until 1886. By then the core impressionists were beginning to attain a degree of popular success. The exhibition strategy that had been essential to their enterprise was no longer necessary, and the group disbanded.

The Maine Arts Commission announces the deadline for the three grant programs that represent the heart of the agency's submission to arts organizations. Applications for the American Masterpieces, Cultural Facilities Accessibility, and Artists in Maine Communities programs are due on Friday, March 7, 2008. Key changes have been made to these programs to make them more available to applicants.

The American Masterpieces grants are awarded to a limited number of professional Maine arts organizations with yearly operating budgets of $500,000 or greater. The grants support presentations of major projects such as an exhibition or performance. They can also fund residencies or educational programs that quality American master works, movements or artists.

Beginning with the March 7, 2008, deadline, applications to the American Masterpieces program will be accepted in all disciplines whereas previously they were limited to the visual arts. Donna McNeil, Director of the Maine Arts Commission, welcomes this key change to the program, "We welcome the opportunity to add applications from the major performing arts institutions throughout the state into the mix. We look ahead to them to draw on their creativity to seek out and define the American masterpieces within their genre in the way that our six visual arts grantees have done in the past two years."

The second grant available at this deadline is the Cultural Facilities Accessibility grant which is awarded to professional, freestanding, Maine arts organizations to assist new capital projects and renovations as well as expertise projects and/or improvements. The agency will continue to prioritize funding for renovations or technology upgrades that provide full convenience to people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The key change here is that the grant is now open to any non-profit arts facility for "general" structural or technological upgrades, especially when a case can be made for the positive impact to the artistic quality of the organization's offerings.

The Maine Youth Excellence in Art program was developed by Maine's First Lady, Karen Baldacci, working with the Maine Arts Commission, the Maine Alliance for Arts Education and the Maine Art Education Association. In the last three years this program has given young artists from Maine's 818 public and private K-12 schools an opportunity to have their artwork exhibited in Augusta. To date, over 400 student works have been shown in the state capital. The First Lady noted, "There is an immense amount of talent in our schools and showcasing student art is a wonderful way to create a vibrant space for our citizens and visitors to enjoy."

This latest show will run until the end of March 2008, at which time participating students will be recognized for their contribution towards the artistic community of Maine at a reception at the Blaine House. During the reception the young artists will receive certificates and ribbons from Maine's First Lady. Mrs. Baldacci explains, "It is important to recognize and celebrate excellence in art from our Maine youth. We honor our young artists by displaying artwork throughout our state Capitol complex."

The current exhibit features work from schools throughout Maine: Jordan Small Middle School (Raymond), Lyman Moore Middle School (Portland), Maranacook Middle School, North Yarmouth Academy, Portland High School, Raymond Elementary School, Readfield Elementary School, Richmond High School, Riley School (Glen Cove) and St. Mary?s School (Augusta).

Picturing America are public, private, parochial, and charter and home school consortia (K-12), as well as public libraries in the United States and its territories, are eligible to receive Picturing America materials. Interested schools and public libraries can apply through the NEH, with an application deadline of April 15, 2008, for receiving of materials in the fall.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent grant-making agency of the United States government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The study of the humanities history, literature, philosophy, and the arts helps us explore what it means to be human. The humanities enable us to appreciate the world and our place in it.

Because "democracy demands wisdom," NEH serves and strengthens our Republic through promoting excellence in the humanities and conveying the lessons of history to all Americans. Through its programs, NEH provides opportunities for all citizens to embrace the humanities and benefit from their wisdom.