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Greek Court Reverses Shutdown Of National Broadcaster
"A Greek court has ordered that state broadcaster ERT, which was shut down by the government last week, can resume transmissions. However, the court also upheld a plan by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to replace ERT with a smaller broadcaster." BBC 06/17/13

email this story | Posted 06/18/13@12:59AM

In Today's AJ Blogs

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jazz
Aperturistic Trio At Tsaritsino Muscovites on the grounds of a Tsar's spectacular palace hear visiting Americans in concert.... - Rifftides

media
Rocky Mountain High Colorado Public Radio hires arts editor for its new arts desk. Me.... - lies like truth

dance
Three for One Zvi Gotheiner, Cherylyn Lavagnino, and Dusan Tynek share a series at the Baruch Performing Arts Center.... - DanceBeat

visual
Everyone But the Artist: Gehry, Govan, Campbell, Barron and Prather at Ken Price Retrospective (with video) All-star cast, headlined by installation designer Gehry, at preview for artist's dazzling posthumous exhibition. Stephanie Barron describes Price's process.... - CultureGrrl

music
Criticising the Cliburn - from afar - Slipped disc

more AJ blog posts...

Today's AJVideo

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Movie dance mashup

Today's AJ Stories

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Ideas

Empathy Vs. Disgust In The Human Brain
The sight of an injured rat hauling itself along a Manhattan sidewalk prompts Arielle Duhaime-Ross to consider the struggle between the two antithetical impulses. - Scientific American 06/15/13

The Ambivalence Manifesto
"We are the Ambivalents, unable not to see both sides of the argument, frozen in the no-man's land between armies of true believers. We cannot speak our name, because there is no respectable way to confess that you believe two opposing propositions, no ballot that allows you to vote for competing candidates, no questionnaire in which you can tick the box, 'I agree with both of these conflicting views'." - Slate 06/13/13

Dance

Defecting Cuban Dancers Start Over In U.S.
"These dancers could be among the young talent of any ballet company, but for now they are something else: Immigrants in the United States trying to land dancing opportunities while navigating cultural differences. The ballerinas fled from the Cuban National Ballet while on tour in Mexico." - Yahoo! (AP) 06/14/13

Issues

Police Begin Investigation Into Embezzlement During Bolshoi Renovation
"Russia's Interior Ministry has launched a criminal probe on allegations that some 90 million rubles ($3 million) was embezzled during the six-year reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater that ended in 2011." - The Moscow News 06/13/13

Sacramento Lags In Arts Funding And Economic Benefits, Finds Study
The most recent "Arts and Economic Prosperity" study from Americans for the Arts finds that arts organizers pumped $82 million into the region's economy (with attendees contributing almost $30 million more), but that, compared to cities of similar size such as Portland and Indianapolis, Sacramento sees less arts spending and notably less economic benefit. - The Sacramento Bee 06/16/13

Media

Golden Age For TV - But Where's The Golden Revenue?
"This is, ironically, a new golden age of television, with no end of smart, sophisticated content - call it what you will. You might even call it TV, despite the fact you may never own one. TV is dead. Long live TV." - The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/15/13

Has The XBox Become Big Brother?
"The Xbox One, you see, can recognize you from the others in the room. And, it can track up to six people in the room at a time! It can track whether you're actively watching the TV, whether you're watching or just have it on while you're doing other things. It can tell your reaction to what you're watching by looking for smiles or grimaces. It can even measure your pulse to see how the show is causing you to react. And, it can do all this in a room completely in the dark. And it can do this for six of you at a time." - JamesGames 06/16/13

Greek Court Reverses Shutdown Of National Broadcaster
"A Greek court has ordered that state broadcaster ERT, which was shut down by the government last week, can resume transmissions. However, the court also upheld a plan by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to replace ERT with a smaller broadcaster." - BBC 06/17/13

Chinese Cinema's Answer To The Social Network
The new hit movie American Dreams in China tells "the story of three friends who launch an online English instruction school for Chinese students." The film, writes David Weigel, "is an oddly fascinating tribute to the three Cs: capitalism, China, and copyright theft." - Slate 06/17/13

Music

How The Van Cliburn Competition Changed With Social Media And Streaming
"They are already accustomed to being insulted by the closed-door decisions of jurors. They may crack under the strain of massive repertoire requirements. Some will quietly withdraw and go into insurance. But probably the most wrenching strain on a competition pianist today is the public battering they are exposed to by critics amateur and professional, now spreading their instant opinions by social media to a global audience." - Facts And Arts 06/15/13

Teetering Nashville Symphony Opens Contract Talks With Musicians
"Officials of the union representing the musicians at the Nashville Symphony Association said negotiations over a new contract are set to begin this week even as the symphony's Schermerhorn Symphony Center is facing a June 28 foreclosure auction." - The Tennessean (Nashville) 06/17/13

Everything's Looking Up At Lyric Opera Of Chicago After Busiest Season Ever
Ticket revenue is up 15%; attendance is up 4.6%; the company exceeded its fundraising goals. "But the gain that's really cheering company officials is the more than 27,000 new customers - people attending Lyric events for the first time." - Chicago Tribune 06/18/13

People

Thomas Pynchon Hides In Plain Sight
"It is not clear why he so intently avoids the public eye. His literary peers - Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, among others - regularly appeared before the masses, either to teach fiction or grant interviews about this or that upcoming book. By contrast, Pynchon appears to interact only with people in his own line of work ... It's equally unclear how principled his avoidance of others is." - The Atlantic 06/17/13

Publishing

Researchers Create New Copyright Protection that Changes Words In Your E-Book
"German researchers have created a new DRM feature that changes the text and punctuation of an e-book ever so slightly. Called SiDiM, which Google translates to "secure documents by individual marking," the changes are unique to each e-book sold. These alterations serve as a digital watermark that can be used to track books that have had any other DRM layers stripped out of them before being shared online." - Wired 06/17/13

Literature Director Ira Silverberg Leaves The NEA
"Briefly, the demands of family are such that I must return to New York. This is a bittersweet time for me as I have truly loved the work I do here -- and have been aided by a stellar staff." - Los Angeles Times 06/17/13

Stephen King's New Book Is E-Pirated (And That's Notable Because...)
"That's notable because King, to support the print book being published by small indie Hard Case Crime, decided not to issue an e-book of this particular novel." - Los Angeles Times 06/17/13

Apple Defends Itself In E-Book Pricing Case
"On Monday, the Justice Department's lawyers homed in on a condition in Apple's contracts with the publishers: the "most favored nation" clause, which required publishers to allow Apple to sell e-books at the same price as the books would be sold in any other store." - The New York Times 06/17/13

Colum McCann On The Power Of Literature
"I'm not sure if it can absolutely change things, but literature can certainly become a stay against the tyranny of pessimism and misery. Misery and pessimism stand in opposition to value. And we all need to feel valuable. This is where stories come in." - Los Angeles Review of Books 06/12/12

Theatre

Canada's National Theatre School Faces An Identity Crisis
"Is the National Theatre School of Canada on its way to becoming the national theatre school of francophone Quebec?" - The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/17/13

Broadway Has A Great Week, Basking In Tony Glow
"Summer tourism and the PR boost of the Tony Awards combined to land 11 Broadway shows in the millionaires' club last week, with the four trophies scored by "Pippin" helping that revival to break the $1 million barrier for the first time." - Variety 06/17/13

Why New York Theatres Should Be Eligible For Regional Tony Awards
"The regional Tony Award, which began from an initiative from the American Theater Critics Association to recognize theater outside New York, is the only chance for these theaters to get significant national attention -- which many then parlay into a fund raising tool for their institution." - Hartford Courant 06/14/13

Visual

Ruins Of Ancient Cambodian City Discovered By Aerial Lasers
"The discoveries matched years of archaeological ground research to reveal Mahendraparvata, a lost mediaeval city where people lived on a mist-shrouded mountain called Phnom Kulen, 350 years before the building of the famous Angkor Wat temple complex in north-western Cambodia." - The Age (Melbourne) 06/15/13 (includes video)