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)

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

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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

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

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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

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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

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

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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

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

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

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

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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

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

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

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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

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

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

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

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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

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

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

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

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