TMZ's New Status Post-Michael Jackson - A Smarter Media Model? "The scoops, and subsequent red-framed 'exclusives' about Jackson's tangled personal and professional affairs, have brought not only massive attention to the site but also a journalistic reassessment as well. The question is: Did TMZ just get lucky with its Jackson coverage -- a right-place, right-time lightning strike -- or has TMZ built a smarter new-media organization that could teach the rest of the pack how to get it done?" Washington Post 07/03/09

In Australia, Individual Giving To The Arts Goes Up "A survey of corporate and private philanthropy to Australia's 28 major performing arts companies reveals that in 2008 individual support through bequests, gifts of money and prescribed private funds had increased from 2004 by 119 per cent to $20 million." The Australian 07/03/09

Michael Jackson On Architecture - Behind The Gates At Neverland "At the height of his popularity, Jackson bent the music industry toward an androgynous, perpetually childlike model of superstardom. He managed a similar trick in transforming the architecture of this classic Santa Barbara County ranch property." Los Angeles Times 07/03/09

Italy Shows Off Looted Art Returned By Cleveland Musseum "It's the latest success for Italy in its campaign to recover artifacts stolen from ancient sites and smuggled out of the country to be sold. The Cleveland Museum had bought the artifacts in the 1970s and 1980s and said it had no knowledge about the tainted past of the artifacts until contacted by Italian authorities." CBC 07/02/09

First "living Statue" In Trafalgar Square Is A Housewife "I wanted to be able to represent normal, everyday stay-at-home mums who aren't normally a feature of major artworks - to show my kids now, and when they're older, that you can do, and be part of anything, no matter how ordinary you are or feel. I never expected to get a place so hadn't thought about what to do and I never expected to be first." BBC 07/02/09

"Pop-Up" Art - Artists Take Over Vacant Stores "By opening pop up shops we are making a high streets more appealing to shoppers and visitors. And it's not just happening in London. Many of the UK's towns and cities are seeing their own high street galleries." BBC 07/03/09

A Museum That Has To Cut Back To Only A Few Hours A Month "Like those brand-new ghost towns in Nevada and Arizona, the Spertus's acclaimed building will stand mostly unpopulated, its distinctive, faceted glass facade a taunting portal to a locked vault. Treasures and programs that were easily accessible at its former location--a building of the same height, right next door--will now be available to the public a total of about 12 hours a month." Chicago Reader 07/03/09

Freedom By Any Other Definition Of Culture "Does the notion of 'freedom' really mean the same thing in Baghdad as it does in Boston? Newly published research suggests the answer is probably no. It's a question of whether one is more oriented toward independence or interdependence -- an attitude that is largely conditioned by one's cultural background." Miller-McCune 07/02/09

What Happened To Movie Music? Will anyone be fighting over any of today's crop of movie songs 60 years from now? "Lose Yourself" -- Eminem's Best Original Song winner of 2002 -- should be so lucky. The Wall Street Journal 07/03/09

A Bit Of Heresy For The Fourth-Of-July Weekend "[T]he professional fireworks display is an exercise in pomposity, aggression, triumphalism, and hubris. The pyrotechnician - and, more importantly, his patron - intends to ornament the night sky beyond the powers of God himself. … Fireworks are imperialist and, as we used to say in school, hegemonic. That they are popularly believed to be populist entertainment does not say much for the populace." Slate 07/01/09

'A Dance Lover's Paradise' In The South Of France "With 28 choreographers from 10 countries presenting 16 world premieres in as many days, … 30,000 spectators are expected to attend the [Montpellier Dance F]estival, which ends July 4. And it's here that Angelin Preljocaj took to the stage for the first time in 16 years in Un Funambule ('The Tightrope Walker')." Los Angeles Times 06/28/09

Karl Malden, 97 The Everyman actor, who earned cinematic acclaim in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront as well as television stardom in The Streets of San Francisco and decades of American Express commercials, said, "I learned in my second year of drama school that I was not a leading man - I was a character actor. So I thought, I'd better be the best character actor around." Los Angeles Times 07/02/09

How The Lilacs Bloom'd In The Dooryard Robert Roper considers how Walt Whitman's experiences of volunteering in Civil War hospitals, and of writing letters of condolence to the families of newly-dead soldiers, helped shape "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," his elegy for Abraham Lincoln. Obit Mag 07/02/09

Staged Shawshank Redemption To Play West End "Stephen King's The Shawshank Redemption is to receive its UK stage premiere at the West End's Wyndham's Theatre this September. Written by Owen O'Neill and Dave Johns, the play is based on King's 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption and follows the seven-time Academy Award nominated film of 1994, which starred Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman." The Stage (UK) 07/01/09

Big US Challenge Grant For Belfast's Lyric Theatre "The project to rebuild Belfast's Lyric Theatre has received a boost with the offer of a £500,000 grant from a US-based charitable foundation. The Kresge Foundation will hand over the money if the Lyric can raise £800,000 by June next year. … The new theatre will consist of a 394-seat main auditorium, a 150-seat studio theatre, a rehearsal room, extensive riverfront foyers and bar, backstage facilities and office accommodation." BBC 07/01/09

Caroline Baumann Named Acting Director Of Cooper-Hewitt "Ms. Baumann, who is presently the museum's deputy director, has worked at the Cooper-Hewitt since 2001, where she has also served as director of development and director of external affairs. … [She] will succeed Paul Warwick Thompson, who is leaving to become the rector of the Royal College of Art in London." New York Times 07/02/09

Harve Presnell, 75, Actor With Two Careers "[T]rained as an opera singer, [he] brought an imposing physical presence - he stood 6 feet 4 inches - and a resplendent voice to the Broadway stage, delivering a star-making performance as Leadville Johnny Brown in The Unsinkable Molly Brown." Unfortunately, "his triumphant debut led to unsatisfactory film roles and a somewhat stunted career appearing in national tours of Broadway musicals" until the "Coen brothers gave him a second Hollywood career as a character actor when they cast him in Fargo in 1996. That role led to a series of meaty film parts, including Gen. George C. Marshall in Saving Private Ryan." New York Times 07/02/09

Small Companies Say British Equity's Pay Demands Will Kill Fringe Theatre "Fringe theatre companies have warned that the sector will be 'destroyed' if proposals by Equity seeking to enforce the National Minimum Wage for all actors become law." The Stage (UK) 07/02/09

The Master's Degree: Valuable Credential, Intellectual Journey Or Waste Of Time And Money? The NY Times Room for Debate blog asks four contributors: "How do students know if an M.A. is worth it or not? What degrees might be worth getting, and which are not? How does a student weigh the risks and benefits of taking that intermediate step in higher education?" New York Times 06/30/09

Shi Pei Pu, 70, Beijing Opera Singer And The Original M. Butterfly "Mr. Shi, who was convicted of espionage in France in 1986 along with his lover, Bernard Boursicot, was believed to be 70. He had also been believed for years to be a woman, at least by Mr. Boursicot, who served time in prison after the affair and became a laughingstock in France." New York Times 07/02/09

Gustav Mahler's Physiognomy "Mahler nevertheless perceived his Jewishness to be an encumbrance, even a physical disability. He told a friend that being a Jew was like having one arm shorter than the other. … His appearance was protean to an uncanny degree. Even people close to Mahler described him in contradictory ways: old, young, sickly, strong, pallid, swarthy." The Nation 06/24/09

The Masochism Tango: Why Finland Took The Archetypal Argentine Dance To Heart "It seems the melancholic music is a perfect match for the typical Finnish soul. 'It's a little bit sad, and it's beautiful,' a woman tells me at a dimly lit Helsinki restaurant that regularly hosts dances. Paradoxically, when she moves to these sad melodies, she feels happy. (She didn't want to be named, her reason being another national trait: shyness.)" Christian Science Monitor 06/26/09

Venice To Redesign (But Not Pay For) Accademia Bridge "The city council has announced plans to redesign the Accademia Bridge, next to the eponymous art gallery, to provide access for the disabled. But architects and construction firms bidding to undertake the project will also have to prove they can raise the sponsorship to finance the work; the council will not make any contribution to the estimated €5m costs." The Art Newspaper 07/01/09

After 100 Years, Back To The Futurists "This small throng of early 20th-century artists and writers wanted nothing less than the total reinvention of Italian culture, and their recommended program - Kill the past! Embrace the future! - held an unexpected appeal for a nostalgist like me. … [Yet] their belligerence made me nervous. Along with exalting speed and technology (prescient), they were dangerously infatuated with violence (disturbing)." And in some ways, "the Futurists actually did predict the future: Is not Target-esque 'design for all' an outgrowth of the Futurist call for the immersion of art in everyday life?" (And then there's The Futurist Cookbook.) Slate 06/29-07/03/09

A Million Little Teen Novels: James Frey Moves Into YA Science Fiction "A week after submitting a young adult novel anonymously to editors, James Frey, the notorious author of A Million Little Pieces, and a writing partner, Jobie Hughes, have sold North American rights to I Am Number Four to HarperCollins Children's Books." The book is the first in a planned series of four. New York Times 07/02/09

The King Of Pop, On The Organ "Over the last few days, we've noted the many ways that homage has been paid to Michael Jackson, from sculpting him in butter to naming one's Ukrainian village after him. … Yet none of these tributes possess the grandeur of this church organ medley of Mr. Jackson's hits, performed by Robert Ridgell on Sunday at the conclusion of worship services at the Trinity Wall Street church." New York Times 07/02/09 (video)

Thirteen (Or So) Ways Of Looking At A Hollywood Knock-Off Of An '80s Video Game "Universal has acquired the movie rights to Asteroids, the bleeping, blooping 1979 video game in which crude line drawings were used to represent rocket ships and gigantic space rocks. Before the motion picture industry sinks millions of dollars into the project, we'll save it the trouble by imagining how Asteroids would be made into a film by directors like …" (Be sure to check out the reader comments.) New York Times 07/02/09

They Just Can't Stop Themselves: Two More Authors Lash Out At Critics Online After essayist Jill Lepore made a couple of uncharitable comments on Ayelet Waldman's new book Bad Mother, Waldman tweeted, "May Jill Lepore rot in hell." And in response to Caleb Crain's review of his The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Alain de Botton staged a small hissy fit in a comment on Crain's blog. (Don't these people read Miss Manners?) Christian Science Monitor 07/02/09

NYC's Film & TV Tax-Credit Fund Runs Out Of Money "New York City has exhausted its budget for tax incentives for film and TV productions as of Tuesday, city officials announced.... 'New York City's "Made in NY" tax credit for qualified film and television production -- the only one of its kind administered by a city in the U.S. -- has reached its full allocation of $192.5 million and funds are no longer available for new applications,' the NYC Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting said." Hollywood Reporter 07/01/09

In Open Library, Imagining Books As Networked Objects The Open Library's goal "is to create a single page on the web for every book that has ever been published; an enormous, searchable catalogue of information about millions of books. ... But with information about books already being processed by hugely popular websites such as Google and Amazon, the question remains - why bother?" The Guardian (UK) 07/01/09

Restored Fresco Said To Reveal Michelangelo Self-Portrait "The restoration of frescoes by Michelangelo in the Vatican has revealed what is believed to be a self-portrait of the artist. The face is in a wall mural in the Vatican's Pauline Chapel or Cappella Paolina, according to Maurizio De Luca, the Vatican's chief restorer. The chapel, which is used by the Pope and not open to the public, was unveiled this week after a restoration costing €3.2 million (£2.7 million)." The Times (UK) 07/02/09

What Rub Might Do With Gehry, He Did With Vinoly In Ohio While Timothy Rub, incoming director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "brings to his new job a resume strong on all the essential art-world skills, one of the qualities that surely impressed the Philadelphia trustees is his ability to manage a big construction project and a big architectural ego." This is key as the museum embarks on a $500 million expansion designed by Frank Gehry. Philadelphia Inquirer 07/02/09