World's Languages Are Becoming Extinct "While estimates suggest that in the next 100 years perhaps five per cent of species will be wiped out, Mark Abley's 'Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages' argues that it is languages that are really under threat. The consensus seems to be that on current trends, between 50 and 90 per cent of the world's 6,000 or so languages will cease to exist over the next century. Should we care?" The Telegraph (UK) 01/10/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 11:44 pm
Is There Linguistic Free Will? Does the language you speak affect the way you think? It's not the conventional thinking - indeed, the accepted idea is that we're born with some set of language templates already in place. But at least one linguist is playing with the idea that the structure of language helps structure how we think. The Economist 01/09/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 10:16 pm
A Canadian City Courts Gehry It's been a mating dance of four years between the Art Gallery of Ontarion (which has a new $300 million collection it wants to display) and architect Frank Gehry. Finally plans for the museum's expansion are about to be revealed. "What took so long? Well, it was a complicated courtship involving negotiating strategies on both sides. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. There were endless brilliant ideas that were eventually discarded. There were plane trips, and there were bonding experiences, including hockey games. There were problems that sometimes seemed insurmountable, and for a while, a division of opinion within the AGO board. And always, there were money issues." Toronto Star 01/10/04
Posted: 01/11/2004 12:42 am
The Man Who Chooses Architects "Reed Kroloff is one of a small coterie of competition advisers who organize and administer the bake-offs so often used to determine which architecture firms will design which coveted projects. These advisers are both catalysts for — and beneficiaries of — an upsurge in interest in how architects are chosen. Competitions that only five years ago would have been local affairs now draw thousands of entries from around the world, partly because the Internet makes the rules available to any architect with a computer and modem." The New York Times 01/11/04
Posted: 01/11/2004 12:24 am
Oldest Figurative Art Ever Discovered The oldest figurative carvings ever found have been discovered in a cave in Southeast Germany. "While precise dates for the objects are unknown, an analysis of related deposits indicates that the artists lived from 30,000 to 35,000 years ago. The three small ivory carvings suggest a high level of artistic skill among craftspeople living at this time, experts claim." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01/09/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 10:09 pm
The Barnes: Doing The Numbers "Could a new Barnes thrive in a $100 million building with a $10 million annual budget, two figures floated in court? Yes, observers believe. There would be new revenue opportunities, and the Barnes would be more attractive to prestige-seeking but cautious donors. In the worst case, though, donations and attendance might drop off after an initial rush, and expenses could spiral." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/04/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 6:22 pm
Orchestras - Harmful To Your Hearing? Symphony orchestras are loud (and they ought to be). But they can also be harmful to the hearing of musicians. The issue "has bubbled to the surface recently with press accounts of a new regulation imposed by the European Union that reduces the allowable sound exposure in the European orchestral workplace from the present 90 decibels to 85. The problem is, a symphony orchestra playing full-out can easily reach 96 to 98 decibels, and certain brass and percussion instruments have registered 130 to 140 at close range." The New York Times 01/11/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 11:59 pm
Careful Of That Cough - The Musicians Might Attack! Cellist Stephen Isserlis is fed up with audience members who snooze, cough, or forget to turn their pagers, watches or cell phones off. "I do believe that the first step has to be taken by the audience - or rather, by that usually tiny minority who believe that, contained within the right to free speech, is the right to ruin concerts. I should advise them that, if they continue to ignore the warning signals, it is only a matter of time before a musician turns truly violent; and a cello spike or a piccolo placed in an inappropriate orifice could prove to be really quite uncomfortable..." The Guardian (UK) 01/10/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 10:32 pm
St. Thomas Choir - Where Did The Boys Go? St. Thomas's Choir in Leipzig was once Bach's choir, and it is an illustrious musical institution. "But the number of boys auditioning for a place in the choir has been declining for years. The choice among those boys with good voices is still large enough, but there is no longer a surplus of boys with very good to outstanding voices. And that trend didn't develop just a few years ago." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01/09/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 10:05 pm
Matthias Pintscher: History Moving Forward "Musical notes and actions have been handed down historically; they bear the signs of their use. A composer, and especially a young composer, does not have to know these signs of use. He must feel them, however, for composing also means developing idiosyncrasies and reacting hyper-sensitively. This is possibly the secret of the astronomical success that has set the tone of Matthias Pintscher's musical career for more than 10 years and has showered him with more contracts and prizes than any other artist of his generation." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01/09/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 10:01 pm
The Recording Police "The Recording Industry Association of America is taking it to the streets. Even as it suffers setbacks in the courtroom, the RIAA has over the last 18 months built up a national staff of ex-cops to crack down on people making and selling illegal CDs in the hood." LAWeekly 01/08/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 8:24 pm
New Start In Minnesota The Minnesota Orchestra declared a $2.4 million deficit last month, but there's no need to panic. The orchestra has a popular new music director and a new executive director who arrives with new ideas and a forthrightness that impresses those who have worked with him. Of course, there's a new musicians' contract to be negotiated... The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 01/10/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 6:35 pm
Classical Enjoyment - A Cost Barrier Why are there not more young people at classical music concerts, wonders John Rockwell. "The incontrovertible fact remains: classical music, by and large, is ludicrously overpriced. MoMA's $12 is barely more than the $10.25 to which some movie theaters in Manhattan have recently ascended. Rock concerts may be pricey, but songs can be downloaded for 99 cents or less, all the way down to zero." The New York Times 01/09/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 12:32 pm
Scientists To Dig Up Medicis Scientists plan to dig up as many as 50 members of the Medici family to study the bodies for clues to how they lived and died. "Starting from June, corpses will be removed from the monumental tombs in the Medici Chapels at Michelangelo's church of San Lorenzo in Florence, allowing scientists to reconstruct the dynasty's genetic make-up and their real family tree." Discovery 01/10/04
Posted: 01/11/2004 12:56 am
The Metropolitan Opera's General Joseph Volpe is "the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera and it is his job to ensure that those 3,800 seats are occupied every time the Met opens its doors. Or at least most of them. Volpe is celebrated for his lack of tolerance for all the characteristics most associated with opera: preciousness, snobbery, temperamental superstars. But what he can't abide most of all is unoccupied seats." Financial Times 01/09/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 9:55 pm
The World's Largest Book The world's largest book has been published. It's a book of photographs of the kingdom of Bhutan. "Opening to 1.5 by 2 metres and weighing more than 60 kilograms, the book is so big it needs its own Sherpa. The price? A cool $10,000 (U.S.), 17 times what the average Bhutanese earns in a year, although the books only cost $1,000 each to produce, with the remaining $9,000 benefiting the Bhutanese ministry of education as a charitable donation." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/10/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 11:38 pm
On The Trail Of An Elusive Translation The Voynich manuscript, once owned by Emperor Rudolph II in 16th-century Bohemia, is filled with drawings of fantastic plants, zodiacal symbols and naked ladies. Far more intriguing than its illustrations, however, is the accompanying text: 234 pages of beautifully formed, yet completely unintelligible script. Modern scholars have pored over the book since 1912, when Wilfrid Voynich, an American antiquarian, bought the manuscript and started circulating copies in the hope of having it translated. Some 90 years later, the book still defies deciphering." Now a computer scientist thinks he might have an answer. The Economist 01/09/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 10:20 pm
Contemporary Passion - Champions Of The String Quartet "Passionate, unflagging champions of new music, the [Kronos and Arditti string quartets] have, between them, commissioned nearly a thousand works; that achievement alone should earn them a lasting place in music history. They have also inspired a wave of young string quartets that specialize in contemporary music, including Ethel and the Meridian and Flux Quartets in America, and the Brodsky, Keller and Balanescu Quartets in Europe. Not to mention the salutary impact they have had on the classical music scene as a whole, which has become a little less staid and a little more open. The New York Times 01/11/04
Posted: 01/11/2004 12:11 am
Movies Of The Future - Living For The Niche "While 2003 was a year marked by the further consolidation of power by a handful of mega-media companies, the audience is not without some power to fight against them. The more we reject embarrassing big-ticket stunts like "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Coupling," the riskier it becomes to produce bloated would-be crowd-pleasers chasing after a theoretically homogeneous crowd. Vanity — and perhaps the possibility of found money — might even drive the media giants to bolster their output of more diversified, less costly and perhaps better products that speak to our various niches." The New York Times 01/11/04
Posted: 01/11/2004 12:07 am
Disney To Close Animation Studio Disney is expected to close its animation studios in Orlando this week, cutting loose 260 workers. "Under pressure to reduce overhead and consolidate production, Disney already has shuttered animation studios in Paris and Tokyo. In all, the studio has cut more than 700 jobs in recent years -- including 50 animators in Orlando last year -- and trimmed animators' salaries as much as 50 percent. The most recent cuts would leave Disney's animation division with a core staff of 600 to 700." Orlando Sentinel 01/10/04
Posted: 01/10/2004 8:20 pm
