CITY EDITION
 
THREE SPECIALISTS CHECK THE VITAL SIGNS OF THE ART MUSEUM
by William Grimes
"At the Whitney Museum of American Art, they don't do things by
halves. The topic of a sold-out three-way debate on Sunday night
was supposed to be the death of the museum audience. About 90
minutes into the evening, however, Arthur C. Danto, the art
critic for The Nation, lobbed a hot potato.
 
'The art museum as an institution is only 200 years old,' he said.
'There's no reason why it has to go on forever. It's not like a
hospital, after all.'
 
David A. Ross, the Whitney's director, handled the potato and
pronounced it edible. Calmly waving farewell to his own job, he
allowed as how the museum might very well disappear, just another
road kill on the data highway. Paintings could be stored in a
warehouse, perhaps, while all other functions of the museum
would be farmed out.
 
Adam Gopnik, the art critic for The New Yorker, was so shaken by
this line of argument that he reached for the most powerful
metaphore in the modern-day intellectual's arsenal: baseball.
 
'This is like baseball fans saying, oh, well, there won't be any
more natural grass, and the game will never be played outdoors
again--in fact, it may be generated on a computer screen--
but that's life,' he said." (p. C13,18)
 
WHAT DO MEN WANT? by Syed Zubair Ahmed
"SHILLONG, India -- The matrilineal Khasi society in northeastern
India, one of the few surviving female bastions in the world, is
making a fervent effort to keep men in their place." (p. A21 OP-ED)
 
CLASH ON FOSSIL SALES SHADOWS A TRADE FAIR by Malcolm W. Browne
"TUCSON, Ariz. -- There was something for everyone: $5 fossil sea
urchines for customers on tight budgets, museum-quality dinosaur
skeletons at prices up to $1.1 million and hundreds of thousands
of other fossils of all types and values.
 
...Federal officials were looking for new ways to crack down
on fossil trading." (p. C1,9)
 
CHRISTOPHER LASCH IS DEAD AT 61; WROTE ABOUT AMERICA'S MALAISE
by William Grimes
"...the author of 'The Culture of Narcissism,' 'The Minimal Self'
and other theoretical works on modern culture, died yesterday
at his home in Pittsford, N.Y. He was 61...the cause was cancer,
said his wife, Nell Commager." (p. A19)
 
That's all.
 
Robbin Murphy
(All the news that fits)
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