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Thursday, February 9, 2012

current top story
Battles At Miami City Ballet Over Villella's (Apparently Forced) Retirement
The company "is being split by controversy over founder and artistic director Edward Villella's earlier-than-expected retirement, announced last September in a way that shocked company members and the dance world. ... [Some] board members, major donors and dancers are questioning the decision and contend he was forced out at the apex of his career." The Miami Herald 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:04AM

visual
Dismal Penn Station - Time To Rethink Public Space "To pass through Grand Central Terminal, one of New York's exalted public spaces, is an ennobling experience, a gift. To commute via the bowels of Penn Station, just a few blocks away, is a humiliation. What is the value of architecture? It can be measured, culturally, humanely and historically, in the gulf between these two places." The New York Times 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:36AM
publishing
Self-Published E-Book Tops Best-seller List "A self-published author has beaten names including Lee Child, James Patterson and Stieg Larsson to become the bestselling ebook author on Amazon.co.uk for the last three months of 2011, the online retailer said on Wednesday." The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:31AM
publishing
Opposition To Amazon Mounts Among Booksellers "The cold war between north American booksellers and Amazon has hotted up this week, with the booksellers joining together to announce that they will not be selling any of the titles published by the online retailer." The Guardian (UK) 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:29AM
music
Why Is It Taking So Long For Women Composers To Be Heard? "For some reason, it's taking a lot longer than in literature and the visual arts to reach equilibrium. It was deemed (just about) acceptable by the 19th century for female writers to be published, yet it's only in the last couple of decades that female composers have really emerged, blinking, out of their garrets and into publishing houses and record label offices; so, without a little helping hand, there might be a long way to go yet. So wherefore the imbalance?" The Guardian (UK) 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:27AM
visual
Pop Art - Just An Expensive Way Not To Think? "When, then, did pop art become mind candy, bubblegum, an uncritical adoration of bright lights and synthetic colours? Probably when money got involved, and Warhol was shot, never again to be as brave as he was in the 60s, or when Jeff Koons gave Reaganomics its art, or when Damien Hirst made his tenth million. Who knows? The moment when pop art sank from radical criticism to bland adulation is impossible to pinpoint." The Guardian (UK) 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:18AM
visual
Is The Art Market Out Of Control? (At Least It Needs Some Supervision) "As the art business continues to globalise, its growth depends upon making scholarship reliable and accessible. Because, in the end, the experts are the only candidates who can provide the adult supervision the market desperately craves." The Art Newspaper 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:14AM
issues
Hungarian Government Cracks Down On The Arts "The government, led by Viktor Orban, stands accused of systematically replacing key figures in cultural institutions, staging pro-government exhibitions, rethinking permanent museum displays and replacing historic statues to fit its political agenda." The Art Newspaper 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:12AM
media
Canadian Movie Box Office Down Slightly In 2011 "Gross box-office revenue in Canada for the year totalled $1.001-billion, a 3 per cent decline from 2010. Canadian films accounted for about 3 per cent of that, grossing $28.3-million in total, down 16 per cent from the $33.5-million tallied in 2010." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:02AM
ideas
Your Brain: Jolted Into Remembering "Researchers have found that sending an electrical jolt to a part of the brain that plays a key role in memory improved people's ability to learn -- and remember -- their way across an unfamiliar landscape." Los Angeles Times 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@07:54AM
publishing
How Science Fiction Has Changed The Real World "If the scientific community wants to engage and inform the public, science fiction is an excellent strategy. Stories captivate people, they survive the test of time, and they become part of the popular culture." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@07:49AM
dance
Battles At Miami City Ballet Over Villella's (Apparently Forced) Retirement The company "is being split by controversy over founder and artistic director Edward Villella's earlier-than-expected retirement, announced last September in a way that shocked company members and the dance world. ... [Some] board members, major donors and dancers are questioning the decision and contend he was forced out at the apex of his career." The Miami Herald 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:04AM
music
Melbourne's No. 2 Orchestra Tries To Raise Its Profile "Orchestra Victoria spends most of its time in the pit at the State Theatre supporting performances of the national ballet and opera companies. But after a year marked by tense industrial negotiations and uncertainty about its future, the orchestra has announced a program designed to raise its profile around the state." The Age (Melbourne) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:03AM
issues
Is Education Really A Public Good? "While higher education is generally regarded as a good (mainly because folks with college degrees make more than folks who lack such degrees), there has been considerable debate in the United States as to whether or not higher education is a public good" (and thus deserving of funding by taxpayers). A look at a few of the arguments pro and con. The Philosophers' Magazine 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:01AM
publishing
Romance Writing Contest Bars Same-Sex Entries - And Suffers The Consequences The 'More than Magic' competition, run by the Tulsa chapter of the Romance Writers of America, this year for the first time declined to accept any gay- or lesbian-themed entries. (Sex with vampires, werewolves and aliens is fine.) The backlash was so swift and fierce that organizers have now cancelled the event. Galleycat 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:00AM
music
Why Is It So Hard For New Musical Instruments To Catch On These Days? "It's hard to overstate the importance of new musical instruments in history. The piano's dynamic range allowed for a subtlety in composition previously unimagined. The modern drum set paved the way for jazz. Rock and roll would not have happened without the electric guitar. ... So what happened? Why has there been such a drought of [successful] new instruments - especially in rock and pop, which thrive on novelty?" The Atlantic 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:59PM
dance
Anorexia? There's No Anorexia Here, Say La Scala Dancers "The ballet company at Milan's famous La Scala opera house fought back Wednesday, after one of their leading dancers was fired for giving interviews in which she said the industry has an anorexia problem. ... 'There is no anorexia emergency, and whoever is part of our world knows that well,' said the company." Agence France-Presse 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:59PM
ideas
You Know What The Trouble Is With Confidence? It's "a completely unreliable guide to decision making. ... [We're] often confident in our intuitive judgments even when we have no idea what we're doing. And to make matters worse, we tend to evaluate the reliability of other people's decision making on the same basis - if they're confident, they must know what they're talking about." Big Think 02/09/12 (includes video)
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:57PM
people
Charles Dickens Was Obsessed With Theatre (Who Knew?) The novelist "originally wanted to be an actor. ... He was an avid theatregoer, joined the Garrick Club at the age of 25 and had many theatrical friends ... He visited circuses and melodrama houses; his periodical writings covered vents and 'grimacers', waxworks, freak shows, actors, gaslight fairies and clowns." The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:56PM
ideas
Good Urban Design Makes People Happy (Social Science Says So) From a study of polling data published last year in Urban Affairs Review: "We find that ... [cities] that provide easy access to convenient public transportation and to cultural and leisure amenities promote happiness. Cities that are affordable and serve as good places to raise children also have happier residents." The Atlantic 02/02/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:55PM
visual
Is This Africa's Art Deco Capital? Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, still has a collection of Art Deco and Italian Modernist buildings that were constructed when Mussolini's Italy controlled the country. Present-day Asmarans now seem to consider these landmarks part of Eritrean culture and heritage, rather than colonial impositions. The Atlantic 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:55PM
people
The Real Star Of The Artist - Uggie The Dog - Retires Due To Illness "Now it's been revealed that the 10-year-old Jack Russell, who will retire from feature film-making after the Academy Awards ceremony, is leaving the biz due to a mystery illness that has baffled experts and cost his trainer thousands of dollars in vets' bills." The Guardian (UK) 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:54PM
media
America's Global Blockbusters Are No Longer Set In America "Last year's top five had one film, the fourth Twilight, with a US setting; two, if you count the last Transformers, which really belongs to the multimillion-dollar globetrotters that rule the roost now. The new orthodoxy is: if a film is set in America, with strong American themes, the less chance it stands in the new globalised mainstream." The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:53PM
media
Foreign Countries Ban American Movies For The Darnedest Reasons Sure, it makes sense that India would forbid The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - all that rape and violence. But Burma/Myanmar banned The Simpsons Movie over pigment, the French government cut the entire second half of an African art documentary, Ireland banned the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business for anarchy, and China blocks all films depicting time travel. The Atlantic (Flavorwire) 02/06/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:52PM
music
Classical Music Cruise Goes Belly Up, Leaving Fans In Lurch A retired Chicago Public School teacher gets feisty after being robbed of a classical music cruise Chicago Reader 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@10:26AM
people
Meryl Streep: How Opera Training Helped Me "I learned the importance of breath. There was a thing I learned in my lessons from Estelle -- to breathe from your back. She would always say, there's room in the back -- that you expand three dimensionally. ... I use it all." Los Angeles Times 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@07:17AM
publishing
The Free Open-Source Textbooks That Will Save Students $70 Million "Using Rice's Connexions platform, OpenStax will offer free course materials for five common introductory classes. The textbooks are open to classes anywhere and organizers believe the programs could save students $90 million in the next five years if the books capture 10 percent of the national market." Inside Higher Ed 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@07:11AM
publishing
Canadian Book-Reading Program Steps In Controversy "In extending Canada Reads to include works of non-fiction for the first time since the contest's inception 10 years ago, the CBC has inadvertently transformed a friendly, domestic literary debate into a geopolitical furor focused on volatile questions of truth and justice in distant totalitarian regimes." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@07:03AM
visual
The Art Hotel That Challenged Guests To Steal Its Art "One couple failed because they Tweeted their every move. One man attempted to hook the picture off the wall with a long broom. Having eluded such elaborate ruses, Pulp Fiction will now be donated to Crime Stoppers, a division of the police, and will be auctioned off to raise funds for crime fighting." The Art Newspaper 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@06:41AM
music
The Music That Takes Over Your Smart Phone "A startup called SonicNotify embeds inaudibly high-pitched audio signals within music or any other audio track. When a compatible app hears that signal, it triggers any available smartphone function to link you to websites, display text, bring up map locations, display a photo, let you vote on which song a performer plays next and so on." Wired 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@06:29AM
visual
How Should Mike Kelley Be Remembered? "He may be an artist so identified with his own moment that his flame will gutter when individual pieces of larger enterprises are broken up and confined in permanent exhibitions. This is the context where deceased artists (without their own museums) have to compete to be noticed and live on, and it's one reason painters have an advantage in art-history books." The Wall Street Journal 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@06:21AM
visual
Ten Museums Contend For This Year's £100,000 Art Prize For Innovation "M Shed in Bristol, Turner Contemporary in Margate, The Hepworth Wakefield and Glasgow's Riverside Museum are among the 10 museums in contention. The prize rewards excellence and innovation for a project completed or undertaken in the previous year." BBC 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@06:14AM
publishing
The Craigslist Poetry "The following are real, quirkily obtuse entries from the Missed Connections section of Charleston Craigslist, broken into lines and stanzas and minimally edited for clarity..." Charleston City Paper 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@06:10AM

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events
National Arts Marketing, Development & Ticketing Conference New York, March 16-18, 2012. Where the best and brightest gather to discuss what's working - and what's not. Many organizations take advantage of the 2-for-1 special offer - you can bring a colleague for FREE! Hurry, space is limited. read more
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fellowships
The DeVos Institute of Arts Management Fellowship at the Kennedy Center is a 9-month immersive program in arts management strategy designed to prepare mid-career arts managers for executive positions. Deadline April 1, 2012. Here for more information.
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education
MA in Arts Management at Claremont Graduate University, California. Turn your passion for the arts into your profession. Attend our next info session in West Hollywood,CA February 6th at noon. RSVP: http://bit.ly/yVrqBs or matthew.tenney@cgu.edu
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education
Master of Arts in Arts Administration - Goucher College. Keep your job and earn your master's degree wherever you are - office, home, backstage, or on the road. Limited-residency, nationally recognized faculty, practical learning. www.goucher.edu/maaa or email: maaa@goucher.edu. March 30 Deadline
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education
Arts Journalism @USC Annenberg Innovation. Reputation. Opportunity. Get all the advantages of USC including a curriculum in the specific arts field of your choice. USC Annenberg's highly customized nine-month M.A. in Specialized Journalism (The Arts) will help you focus your future and expand your possibilities. Learn more now!


jobs
Dean and Associate Dean of Creative Arts Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), Ohio's first and largest community college, has two administrator level positions currently available within the Creative Arts Division. For more information and how to apply, visit our website.

jobs
Lecturer Faculty Position in Arts Management, he School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University The School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University, Bloomington campus, invites applications for a lecturer faculty position in the area of arts management. Qualified candidates will have an excellent academic record, professional experience in arts management or policy, and a commitment to high quality teaching, in areas such as arts marketing, finance and budgeting, museum or live performing arts management, cultural policy, or the economics of the arts. Lecturer faculty members are expected to...

jobs
Director of Sales and Promotions, Harris Theatre The Director of Sales and Promotions will lead the strategy, planning and execution of Harris Theater promotions including advertising, media buying, direct mail, internet sales, group sales and sponsorship to increase earned income for the HT Presents Series and special presentations. admin@harristheaterchicago.org

jobs
Research Associate for Arts & Culture. Slover Linett Strategies, a Chicago-based audience research firm, is currently seeking a Senior Associate or Associate for Arts & Culture. For the complete job description and list of qualifications, visit our website.

jobs
Facility Manager The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) seeks a Facilities Manager to manage day to day operations of its new Performing Arts and Humanities Building beginning July 1, 2012. FT staff position. See full position description on our website: www.umbc.edu/hr/employment UMBC is an EO/AAE

jobs
Director of CSU Summer Arts The California State University, Office of the Chancellor, is seeking a Director of CSU Summer Arts to develop, manage, and administer CSU Summer Arts, a CSU systemwide program of courses in the visual and performing arts, taught by CSU faculty and guest artists. This position serves as the artistic and administrative director of program and is responsible for developing program curricula and overseeing staff. The candidate should be a collaborative leader who can work with a wide variety of constituencies.

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Today's Headlines (by topic)

ideas
Your Brain: Jolted Into Remembering - Los Angeles Times 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@07:54AM

You Know What The Trouble Is With Confidence? - Big Think 02/09/12 (includes video)
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:57PM

Good Urban Design Makes People Happy (Social Science Says So) - The Atlantic 02/02/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:55PM

more Ideas...

dance
Battles At Miami City Ballet Over Villella's (Apparently Forced) Retirement - The Miami Herald 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:04AM

Anorexia? There's No Anorexia Here, Say La Scala Dancers - Agence France-Presse 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:59PM

more Dance...

issues
Hungarian Government Cracks Down On The Arts - The Art Newspaper 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:12AM

Is Education Really A Public Good? - The Philosophers' Magazine 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:01AM

more Issues...

media
Canadian Movie Box Office Down Slightly In 2011 - The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:02AM

America's Global Blockbusters Are No Longer Set In America - The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:53PM

Foreign Countries Ban American Movies For The Darnedest Reasons - The Atlantic (Flavorwire) 02/06/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:52PM

more Media...

music
Why Is It Taking So Long For Women Composers To Be Heard? - The Guardian (UK) 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:27AM

Melbourne's No. 2 Orchestra Tries To Raise Its Profile - The Age (Melbourne) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:03AM

Why Is It So Hard For New Musical Instruments To Catch On These Days? - The Atlantic 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:59PM

Classical Music Cruise Goes Belly Up, Leaving Fans In Lurch - Chicago Reader 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@10:26AM

more Music...

people
Charles Dickens Was Obsessed With Theatre (Who Knew?) - The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:56PM

The Real Star Of The Artist - Uggie The Dog - Retires Due To Illness - The Guardian (UK) 02/07/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:54PM

more People...

publishing
Self-Published E-Book Tops Best-seller List - The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:31AM

Opposition To Amazon Mounts Among Booksellers - The Guardian (UK) 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:29AM

How Science Fiction Has Changed The Real World - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@07:49AM

Romance Writing Contest Bars Same-Sex Entries - And Suffers The Consequences - Galleycat 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@12:00AM

more Publishing...

theatre

more Theatre...

visual
Dismal Penn Station - Time To Rethink Public Space - The New York Times 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:36AM

Pop Art - Just An Expensive Way Not To Think? - The Guardian (UK) 02/09/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:18AM

Is The Art Market Out Of Control? (At Least It Needs Some Supervision) - The Art Newspaper 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:14AM

Is This Africa's Art Deco Capital? - The Atlantic 02/08/12
email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:55PM

more Visual...