Over the last two decades, public funding for the arts has dried up, been tapped out, and fought for with all the fervor of the Tributes vying for lifeblood at the Cornucopia in The Hunger Games.
Archives for January 16, 2014
Will Osmo Vanska Return To The Minnesota Orchestra? Here’s A Clue
“A tantalizing item appeared in the Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest newspaper. In response to Facebook pleas for his return to Minnesota, the conductor reportedly posted: “I’m going to try! But they have to ask me!”
Is Texting Killing Our Ability To Write Well?
The popularity of “textisms,” a research team led by Australian psychologist Nenagh Kemp writes in the journal New Media and Society, “has not undermined university students’ ability to write words using conventional spelling when appropriate.”
Amateurs With Metal Detectors Found 990 Historical Objects In The UK In 2013
The public reported more than 74,000 other historical items to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which experts say has “revolutionised archaeology”.
Study Suggests What Motivates Young Musicians To Be Great
According to newly published research that checked in with budding virtuosos as they started their studies, and again 10 years later, successful students tend to be those who have “a sense of where their future learning may take them, and whose personal identity includes a long-term perspective of themselves as musicians.”
Urban Versus Rural – Where Should Arts Money Be Spent?
“It’s generally accepted – for a host of artistic, historical and economic reasons – that London should indeed receive a greater share of funding. But the proportion of Arts Council money that gets spent outside of London has been falling for decades, even though the Government’s own surveys show that the average Londoner is no more likely to enjoy the arts than his country cousin.”
Norway Puts 135,000 Copyrighted Books Online (For Free) (And Pays Authors)
“More than 135,000 books still in copyright are going online for free in Norway after an innovative scheme by the National Library ensured that publishers and authors are paid for the project.”
The FCC Lost the Battle But Won The War On Net Neutrality (And We Should Worry About That)
“Indeed, the court has very nearly given the FCC — and state utility commissions, to boot — carte blanche to regulate the entire internet. And that’s the real story here.”
A Couple Of Ways To Think About What Reality Is
“The uncertainty principle says that you can’t know certain properties of a quantum system at the same time.”
Judge Orders Stolen Renoir Found In Flea Market Returned To Baltimore Museum
“A federal court judge signed an order Tuesday clearing the way for a stolen landscape painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir to be speedily returned to the Baltimore Museum of Art, 62 years after the painting was stolen.”
Hustle: A Complete List Of Oscar Nominations
American Hustle and Gravity are tied for the most nods with 10 apiece; 12 Years a Slave is close behind with nine nominations total.
No Fuss, No Muss. Detroit Symphony Musicians Sign New Contract
The deal, which will raise minimum salaries to nearly $88,000 in year three, comes a full eight months before the current contract expires and with none of the public posturing and partisan rancor accompanying the 2010 meltdown.
New MoCA Chief: I Can Fundraise
“My vision is to commit to the most experimental artists of our time, but also to contextualize their work within a broader context. And I think MOCA’s collection is one of the best to contextualize that kind of experimentation.”
Architect Elizabeth Diller Defends MoMA Building Plan
“I think that the press has been too fast to reduce the conversation to heroes and villains and martyrs, and to suggest that what MoMA is doing is necessarily bad. We want to get more information out. We want to share the problem with others and invite them to really take a hard look.”
Interest In Sundance Suggests Indie Film Surge
“The films on show at Sundance were chosen from a staggering 12,218 submitted to the selection committee for consideration, a figure that reflects the renewed confidence in a sector which had been hit hard by the global financial crisis in 2008.”
Martin Filler: MoMa Building Plans Are A Blunder
“Not since the vandalizing of Charles Follen McKim’s Pennsylvania Station half a century ago has New York City’s architectural patrimony been dealt such a low blow.”
Sarasota Ballet Keeps Director Iain Webb For Ten More Years
The former Royal Ballet star, who came to Sarasota in 2007, is credited with giving the small company in a smallish Florida city an international reputation.
This Ballerina Danced Through Her Entire Pregnancy
“The ballerina in question is Mary Helen Bowers of Ballet Beautiful, and the photos she took of herself striking stunning (and difficult) ballet poses while carrying her little baby girl have taken the Internet by storm.”
L.A. MOCA Names New Director
Philippe Vergne, director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York, replaces the controversial former art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, whose rocky tenure ended after three years of a five-year contract.
What It Really Means to Be ‘Kafkaesque’
Think about it: the word is hardly as clear as, say, “the ‘Proustian’ reminiscence, the ‘Dickensian’ slum, [or] the ‘Orwellian’ surveillance program.” Ben Marcus argues that Kafka’s parable “A Message From the Emperor” gives us the real essence of Kafkaesque-ness.
Chinese Women Are Mad for Sherlock Holmes Gay Fan Fiction
The ladies are writing and reading countless stories wherein the detective (specifically in the Benedict Cumberbatch incarnation) gets hot and heavy with Dr. Watson, Prof. Moriarty, and even brother Mycroft. (Wait till you see what the Chinese call them.)
There’s an Art Jihad in Uzbekistan
“Jihad” has become a loaded word, but a group of video artists in the Central Asian republic are “using it to brand their own subversive, humorous criticisms of the overpowering central state.”
Juan Gelman, 83, Argentina’s Great Poet
The Cervantes Prize winner, considered one of the Spanish language’s greatest 20th-century writers, was known for both his stark, powerful verse and his opposition to his country’s military junta. (Gelman’s own son and daughter-in-law were disappeared.)
Meryl’s Right – Walt Disney Was a Bigot, Says Grandniece
Filmmaker and social activist Abigail Disney: “I LOVED what Meryl Streep said. I know he was a man of his times and I can forgive him, but Saving Mr Banks was a brazen attempt by the company to make a saint out of the man.”