Ideas Study: Brain Forms Maps To Make Sense Of Music New studies of the brain show that mental "maps" to make sense of what you hear in music begin to form within minutes of studying an instrument. "In professional musicians at least, recent brain imaging studies have shown that the different ways they respond to sound and finger movements seem paradoxical: when they hear a sound it activates areas of the brain that process movement, but when they silently tap out musical phrases it evokes brain activity in areas involved in hearing." Discovery 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 4:26 pm Visual Arts Saving Raphael For God And Country A prominent curator attacks the British government for not stepping up to keep Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks from being sold to the Getty and moved to the US: "Can anyone seriously suggest that the country would not be much much poorer without the great works of art in this exhibition? The National Gallery is the greatest place in the world for the study of early works by Raphael, and that's where the picture should be. For God's sake! If it's not Raphael then it must be the work of some even greater artist whose name is currently unknown to us. Of course it's a Raphael." The Guardian (UK) 10/21/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 11:54 pm A Sculpture That's 200,000 Years Old Archaeologist Pietro Gaietto has found what he believes to be the earliest evidence of art. "Gaietto believes the sculpture is 200,000 years old, and would have been used in rituals. He says it would have been made by an extinct species of human called Homo erectus, of which there is evidence in the region. Gaietto's claims are controversial because hominids such as Homo erectus are not thought to have been capable of the symbolic thought needed to create art." BBC 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 4:38 pm Greek PM To Tony Blair: Return Marbles, Re-elect Me The Greek Prime Minster Costas Simitis is being attacked after TV cameras recorded him telling British Prime Minister Tony Blair that England's returning the Parthenon Marbles would help his re-election chances. "It is sad for him to use a national issue, such as the return of the Parthenon marbles, for petty party-political ends." BBC 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 4:02 pm Retailer Attacked By Shareholders For Buying Art Some shareholders of the fashion retailer Monsoon have criticized the company for adding to its art collection and not paying out the money to shareholders. "They are prepared to pay money adding to what they have on the walls of their headquarters but are not prepared to give anything to long-suffering shareholders." The Guardian (UK) 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 3:59 pm Museum Looting Report From Baghdad The lead American investigator of the looting of Iraq's National Museum says that more than 10,000 artifacts are still missing. "What we are finding is well known and otherwise respected members of the art community are in fact authenticating stolen pieces for a fee. The second point of this is many of these items are either destined for less scrupulous museums or art dealers or are placed with art dealers in transit, as the middle location. We need the art community first to stop that." Archaeology 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 3:49 pm Music Disney Hall - Hopes Of A City What does Disney Hall mean to LA? "We never had a downtown," Richard J. Riordan, the former mayor who played an important role in reviving the once near-dead Disney Hall, said before the ceremony. "We finally have one now. And Disney Hall is a symbol of that." The New York Times 10/21/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 12:11 am Opera At The Crossroads "The future health and development of opera depends on it embracing the whole of society, and that means being a part of society and being prepared to change as rapidly as society itself. We have to find a way of recovering a fundamental sense of adventure, challenge and interaction - a modern world demands nothing less. However, the desire to keep everybody happy - from paymasters to reviewers, from the conservative and wealthy to the modish and wealthy - has created a strange climate of catch-all, in which it is sometimes difficult to understand whether we are being offered vision, excellence, audience-pleasers, or a competition for who can produce the glossiest international brochure." The Guardian (UK) 10/21/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 11:57 pm Disney Hall - Worth Waiting For After 16 years and $274 million, Disney Hall is opening this week in LA> "Is the long-delayed Disney Hall, then, just a consolation prize for Los Angeles? Does one of the biggest cities in the world find itself in the odd position of playing second fiddle to a Basque regional capital with a population under 400,000? Not exactly. The building is a fantastic piece of architecture—assured and vibrant and worth waiting for. It has its own personality, instead of being anything close to a Bilbao rehash. And surprisingly enough, it turns out that all of those postponements and budget battles have been a boon for the hall's design." Slate 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 4:52 pm Charge: Microsoft Manipulating Online Music Buyers Is Microsoft forcing computer users to buy music only by using its browser? "Lawyers for the Justice Department and 19 state attorneys general have formally complained to a federal judge about a design feature of Windows that compels consumers who buy music online to use only Microsoft's Internet browser and steers them to a website operated by the company." Wired 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 4:41 pm iTunes Windows A Hit Apple's iTunes service for Windows computer users is a hit. "More than a million copies of the Windows version of its iTunes music software have been downloaded in the past three days. The program offers PC users the same services, prices and catalogue of songs, which Apple hopes to increase to 400,000 by the end of October." Since debuting earlier this year, Apple's Mac iTunes stores has sold 14 million songs. BBC 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 4:33 pm People Jennifer Atkinson, 45 "With the premature death of Jennifer Atkinson at age 45, the Boston arts community - and especially its crafts wing - lost a vibrant, vivacious leader. Atkinson had gone from being an assistant in a suburban gallery to director of a chronically troubled museum - and then transformed that institution's very identity." Boston Globe 10/21/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 7:19 am Judge Raps Judgment For Eminem "A judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by a former schoolmate of rapper Eminem - and she included a rap of her own to explain the ruling..." Washington Post (AP) 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 5:04 pm Danielle Steel: Fame Hurts Writer Danielle Steel opened a gallery in San Francisco this fall. "Everyone thinks I have this glamorous life. I have been a recluse for many years. I had nine children, but the death of my son Nick hit me very hard, and it shut down my public world. It is hard being famous. People make incorrect assumptions and are very unkind." New York Times Magazine 10/19/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 4:56 pm Theatre Dallas' Theatre Boom "More ambitious new theaters have popped up here in the last two years than in any comparable period in memory. Nobody seems to have told their founders that the 21st century is supposed to be hostile to all live theater except frothy Broadway musicals, and even those get little respect..." Dallas Morning News 10/17/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 7:27 am Publishing Where That $100 Textbook Is Half The Price Why do American textbooks often cost as little as half the price outside the US as they do at home? Publishers say prices are cheaper abroad because students in other countries can't afford American prices. But some American students are catching on and buying their textbooks outside the US for deeply discounted prices. "To the despair of the textbook publishers who are still trying to block such sales, the reimporting of American texts from overseas has become far easier in recent years, thanks both to Internet sites that offer instant access to foreign book prices." The New York Times 10/21/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 7:01 am Publishing - A Bit Of A Lull? "This is not an age of miracles. There are no contemporary giants at work in our midst. From the international premier league, the Man Booker shortlist, as reliable a guide as any, could only muster Margaret Atwood. Even in America, to which British readers often look for signs of a new dawn, it is hard to think of a single new novel which, in the past year or so, has registered more than a temporary frisson. Nothing wrong about this, of course. Cultural innovation tends to happen cyclically. The boom of the 1980s and 1990s was bound to be followed by a lull. Perhaps we are in a kind of literary Sargasso sea. It certainly feels that way this week. And yet, looking at the bigger picture, these are momentous years for book publishing." The Observer (UK) 10/19/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 12:22 am Governor General Lit Nominations Margaret Atwood is nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award, adding to her Giller and Booker nominations this year. "Otherwise, there was no overlap between the Giller and the Governor General's awards in the fiction category. Elizabeth Hay of Ottawa received a nomination for Garbo Laughs, as did Edeet Ravel of Montreal for Ten Thousand Lovers. Two expatriates are also on the list: Jean McNeil, formerly of Nova Scotia and Toronto, and now living in Britain, for Private View, and Douglas Glover, an Ontarian who resides in Wilton, N.Y., for Elle." Toronto Star 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 5:07 pm Media Tiny Radio Stations Take On FCC "Across the country, low-power FM radio stations are banding together to denounce a mounting crackdown by the FCC. Supporters claim that FCC Chairman Michael Powell, whose recent efforts to further deregulate the radio industry have met with resistance in the courts and in Congress and have been something of a PR disaster, is retaliating by 'having his people go out and pick on the little guys'." San Francisco Chronicle 10/21/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 9:01 am NPR Ombud Chides Terry Gross NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin says that interviewer Terry Gross was unfair to Bill O'Reilly last week. O'Reilly walked out of the interview part way through, objecting to Gross's questions. "I believe listeners were not well served by this interview. It may have illustrated the 'cultural wars,' [but it] only served to confirm the belief, held by some, in NPR's liberal bias." By the time the interview was halfway through, it felt as though Gross was indeed 'carrying Al Franken's water.' ... It was not about O'Reilly's ideas or attitudes or even his book. It was about O'Reilly as media phenomenon. That's a legitimate subject, but in this case it was unfair to O'Reilly." New York Daily News 10/21/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 8:45 am Film Critics Cancel Awards Over DVD Ban The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has voted to cancel its annual movie awards this year in protest of the Motion Picture Association's decision not to send DVDs of nominated movies to critics this year. "The ban has prompted widespread criticism in the United States movie community, including protests by many independent producers who feel that screeners are the most effective way of getting critics to see their films, which are often released commercially in only a few smaller movie theaters." The New York Times 10/21/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 12:19 am Killing For An "R" Rating Even if a movie is ultra-violent, it can't afford to get an NC-17 rating. "An R rating means a child cannot be admitted to a movie without an adult or guardian. An NC-17 rating means no children are admitted. With such a rating, most mainstream newspapers will not run ads. But more important, video stores like Blockbuster will not offer the DVD's on store shelves. And mass-market retail chains like Walmart, where studios can earn as much as 50 percent of a movie's revenue, will not sell them, either." The New York Times 10/21/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 12:12 am Will Gov. Schwarzenegger Help Movie Biz? Will California Governor-elect Schwarzenegger create some incentives for movie producers to film in California? "Tax breaks, labor credits and other sweeteners are considered by many to be crucial if California is to compete more aggressively with lower-cost foreign locations such as Canada, Australia, Britain and Eastern Europe, as well as states offering incentives such as Illinois, Louisiana and New Mexico." Los Angeles Times 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 3:39 pm Dance Godden - The Making Of A Choreographer After an "unconventional" decade experimenting with stage images, choreographer Mark Godden proved he could tell a story with his 'Dracula." After a long association with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, he has "developed into that rarest and most desirable of dancesmiths: one of the fabled few who can create successful, full-length story ballets that put bums in seats." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/21/03 Posted: 10/21/2003 7:56 am A New Dance Company For San Jose sjDANCEco is a new Bay Area modern dance company featuring work by area choreographers. The company - whose focus incorporates other kinds of dance besides modern - was formed in 2002 to organize San Jose's Dancin' Downtown festival, which in May showcased dozens of South Bay companies on an outdoor stage. The group has been evolving ever since and now is preparing applications for non-profit status." San Jose Mercury-News 10/20/03 Posted: 10/20/2003 5:13 pm