Crowdsourced Animation Through Facebook With dozens of animators pitching in through a specially built Facebook application, the slick clip from the crowdsourcing specialists at Mass Animation is a rare "art by committee" success story. - Wired 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@08:14AM

How Will Religion Evolve? Maybe Into 'The Church Of Green' John Tierney: "Does religion have a future? Who looks more like an evolutionary dead end: the religious American or the agnostic European? Or will both give way to some sort of compromise? … One possibility that occurs to me is a version of environmentalism, but with better music and with rituals that are more elegant than sorting garbage." - New York Times 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:22PM

Better-Looking Athletes More Likely To Win "Elite athletes distinguish themselves through hard work, grit and, most importantly, raw talent. However new research, along with a study conducted by New Scientist, points to another trait of the most accomplished jocks: a handsome face." It seems that "the same genetic variations could influence both traits." - New Scientist 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:16PM

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Has Paris Nightlife Gone To Sleep? "According to an online petition entitled "When the Night Quietly Dies," which was organized by a group from the techno and electronic music scene, the City of Lights is in danger of becoming the "European Capital of Sleep." Among the complaints listed in the petition are the closure of leading bars, strict rules on noise and smoking regulations." - Der Spiegel 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@08:01AM

And What Is Art For, Anyway? The Independent offers a debate on the question, with entries from, among others, theatre director Simon McBurney, novelist Lionel Shriver, Serpentine Gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones, and nine thoughtful readers. (Says Shriver, "This assignment is a formula for sounding like a prat.") - The Independent (UK) 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@09:53PM

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Hollywood's Ten Most Overpaid Actors Forbes has made a list based on studios' return on investment. - Forbes 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@07:36AM

YouTube To Provide Automatic Subtitles The titles will make it possible for deaf users to read videos. "The machine-generated captions will initially be generated in English. At first they will only be found on 13 channels." - BBC 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@07:26AM

Best Documentary Oscar Semifinalists Announced; Guess Who's Missing? "Most of the top-grossing and critically praised documentaries of the year [are not on the list], including Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, Chris Rock's Good Hair, the struggling rock band chronicle Anvil! The Story of Anvil and R.J. Cutler's inside peek at Vogue magazine, The September Issue. (The Michael Jackson doc This Is It was released too late to be eligible.) - Los Angeles Times 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:20PM

How Michael Moore's Oscar Snub Makes People Happy Patrick Goldstein: "Let's be honest. Is there really anyone who is up in arms over Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story being left off the Academy's 15-title short list for the best feature documentary? In fact, I would argue that when it comes to a snub of a much-ballyhooed film, the Academy has never managed to make more people happier." - Los Angeles Times 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:19PM

Oprah To End Her Talk Show In 2011 "Oprah Winfrey plans to … retire the Chicago-based syndicated talk show that made her rich, famous and, if not a kingmaker, a maker of a media empire, several bestselling authors and perhaps even a U.S. President." When her syndication contract ends in 2011, she will devote her energies to her new cable TV network. - Chicago Tribune 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:15PM

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How Downloading Is Changing Music "Digital downloading and distribution, illegally or otherwise, has had a greater effect on the recording industry than anything in its history. As the legal variety grows rapidly, driven most significantly by iTunes, so those old-school players are having to adopt radical new business plans to compete in the brave new world of music." - The Australian 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@08:08AM

Tchaikovsky's Operatic Counterpart To Nutcracker Director Francesca Zambello recounts the story (in both senses) of Cherevichki (a/k/a "The Tsarina's Slippers"), Tchaikovsky's only comic opera, which is based on a madcap Christmas Eve story by Nikolai Gogol. (Zambello is directing a new staging of the work at Covent Garden.) - The Guardian (UK) 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:23PM

The Composer Who Just Can't Write For Normal Ensembles That would be Bang on a Can's Julia Wolfe, whose latest album has works for four drum sets, six pianists, eight double basses, and nine bagpipers. She's written an accordion concerto and a piece for musicians in pedicabs. "The last time I did something practical … was [in graduate school] at Yale - I wrote a woodwind quintet." - Philadelphia Inquirer 11/15/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@09:56PM

Edward Elgar Was A Terrible Trombone Player A newly rediscovered letter reveals the awful truth. "His skills were so poor that when the composer from Worcester started playing a specially inscribed trombone for a dear friend, she ran out of the room in a fit of hysterical laughter, leaving the composer swearing in frustration." - The Independent (UK) 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@09:55PM

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Jeanne-Claude, Christo's Collaborator & Wife, Dies At 74 "Artist Jeanne-Claude, who created the 2005 Central Park installation 'The Gates' and other large scale 'wrapping' projects around the globe with her husband Christo," has died "at a New York hospital from complications of a brain aneurysm." - Associated Press 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@09:28AM

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America's 'Booker Of Bookers' (Or, How Flannery O'Connor Is Like Salman Rushdie) "In an online poll conducted by the National Book Foundation, [Flannery O'Connor's] collection 'The Complete Stories' was named the best work to have won the National Book Award for fiction in the contest's 60-year history." The competition was formidable: collected stories of John Cheever, William Faulkner and Eudora Welty as well as Ellison's Invisible Man and Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. - New York Times 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:14PM

Oxford To Get A Storytelling Museum "The Story Museum has existed online for the past four years, holding events across Oxfordshire and running storytelling pilots in schools, but [a £2.5 million] donation enables it to start constructing a permanent home in Oxford." - The Guardian (UK) 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@08:33AM

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Anti-Trust Concerns Delay Ambassador-Live Nation Merger "Ambassador Theatre Group's £90 million purchase of Live Nation's UK theatres is being investigated by the [government's] Office of Fair Trading, in a move that will prevent the two businesses being fully integrated until early 2010." - The Stage (UK) 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:25PM

NY Times Recognizes Seattle As 'A Proud And Meaningful Theater Town' Brian Colburn, managing director of the Intiman Theatre, tells the paper: "There's probably as much theater here as in the city of Los Angeles, but the population is one-sixth the size. You can walk from theater to theater here, meet friends or colleagues at a cafe." - New York Times 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:18PM

Shakespeare's Star-Crossed Lovers In An Old-Age Home Director Tom Morris's Juliet and Her Romeo, planned for next spring at the Bristol Old Vic, "uses Shakespeare's text, but casts the lovers in their 80s, with their anxious children, not their parents, seeking to prevent an imprudent and costly match." - What's On Stage (UK) 11/13/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@09:59PM

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Art Basel Miami Faces Chanes Some "60 exhibitors from last year's Art Basel Miami Beach are not returning, including Berlin's Arndt & Partner, London galleries Waddington and Maureen Paley, and New York's Per Skarstedt. Fair organiser have added 65 new exhibitors, including some who had previously been turned away. The 2009 edition now boasts 266 dealers from 33 countries. Another big change is the fair's physical appearance..." - The Art Newspaper 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@08:04AM

The Mystery Of Ancient Roman Painting "Very little remains, and what remains is puzzling. … [Most of the survivors] were mural paintings, preserved (ironically) by the lava of Vesuvius, while the paintings in other cities, such as Rome itself, were destroyed or faded away. Was the art of these two provincial towns inferior to the art of the capital? If we saw real Roman painting, would that make the work that's survived look very average? Or is this as good as it got?" - The Independent (UK) 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@09:58PM

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