Sacre Bleu! Google Non! French president Jacques Chirac is unhappy that Google dominates his country's internet searches. Google's French version is used for 74% of internet searches in France. So Chirac has asked his culture minister to create a home-grown French search engine. What's wrong with le Google? "The answer is the vulgar criteria it uses to rank results. 'I do not believe', wrote [the culture minister] in Le Monde, "that the only key to access our culture should be the automatic ranking by popularity, which has been behind Google's success." The Economist 03/31/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 6:49 pm
Proving Truth In The Modern Age What constitutes a proof in the modern age? "Two recent examples of how computers have been used to prove important mathematical results illustrate how the field is changing..." The Economist 03/31/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 6:47 pm
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Why Philly Feels Conflicted Over Venturi Architect Robert Venturi has had a major career. So the question is: "why does an architect who helped break the harsh grip of authoritarian modernism provoke such extreme reactions in Philadelphians?" The city is his home town, and yet it's been ten years since Venturi's had a major commission there. Philadelphia Inquirer 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 7:19 am
Iraqi Art To Tour World For Five Years An important exhition of some of Iraq's most precious art will tour Europe beginning in October. "The Nimrud Gold, a cache of ancient jewellery which was rescued from a Baghdad bank vault, is to open on 23 October, at a venue in Europe to be announced next month. The show will then tour to 11 other cities in Europe, North America and the Far East, raising over $10 million for Iraq’s National Museum. The five-year tour is being organised by United Exhibits Group, a Copenhagen-based company." The Art Newspaper 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 6:37 am
Chinese Request For Art Import Ban Provokes Debate "Chinese officials have asked the State Department to impose the restrictions, on a wide range of artifacts from the prehistoric period through the early 20th century, because they believe that demand in the United States for Chinese antiquities has helped fuel a sharp increase in looting of archaeological sites and even thefts from museums over the last several years. The request has sparked an impassioned debate in the Asian-art world, in which many prominent archaeologists, preservationists and scholars have lined up to support the Chinese government, while many antiquities dealers and museum officials argue that the changes would be unfair, ineffective in stopping looting and devastating for the art market and for museums." The New York Times 04/01/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 7:49 pm
Banksy - Using Art Against Curators Banksy's recent caper hanging paintings in four New York museums has those museums worried about security. But "what makes Banksy's exploits effective as attention-getters, however, is the degree to which he uses the tools of the curators against them. His paintings had ornate frames and the plaques that accompanied them mimicked those found in galleries. 'He's using their language, their style of presentation'." Christian Science Monitor 04/01/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 7:19 pm
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A Post-Classical Vision Classical music might be over. But now we've got post-classical. And it ain't a bad time to be a composer. Joseph Horowitz: "Suddenly we're at a moment when composers are personally prominent in our music life. A) We have important composers who reach a very large audience, and again I'll just talk for the moment about the most obvious three guys, Reich, Glass, and Adams. B) They're performers. That's enormously important. They're not Ivory Tower figures." NewMusicBox 04/01
Posted: 04/01/2005 7:41 am
Smithsonian Jumps In To Music Download Business The Smithsonian is opening a new music download store to offer music from its collection as MP3's. "Folkways will offer music that ranges from the earliest American folk songs to contemporary groups doing traditional music from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. The music includes the songs of Woody Guthrie; the music of Mwenda Jean Bosco, the late guitar pioneer from Congo; the sound of the Turkish saz, a stringed instrument similar to a lute; playground songs by Suni Paz of Argentina; and the rich North Indian music of Kamalesh Maitra. Global Sound will charge 99 cents a song, which are available in MP3 format. The Smithsonian will pay royalties to the artists, as its recording label has done with records and CDs." Washington Post 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 6:58 am
Did Loan Kill Jersey Opera House? Why did the Jersey Opera House close this year after only six years in operation? Some wonder if a loan negotiated when the house opened proved to be a crippling move. “There are questions over the terms on which the loan deal was granted - whether we launched the project with a total financial liability around its neck with the circumstances of the loan deal, whether it was a mistake to launch the scheme in the first place.”
The Stage 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 6:18 am
Will Muti Quit Music Over La Scala? Conductor Riccardo Muti is said to be so depressed by the debacle he's involved in at La Scala theatre that "he may give up music altogether, his wife was quoted as saying yesterday. Cristina Mazzavillani told an interviewer: 'I really don't know if he still has the will to work'." The Guardian (UK) 04/01/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 7:30 pm
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Gioia: The NEA's New Phase NEA chairman Dana Gioia testifies to Congress in support of an increased NEA budget. "Having spent the past two years rebuilding and renewing the agency -- internally and externally -- the NEA has entered a new phase of its history." Back Stage 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 6:26 am
UK's New Arts And Humanities Research Council The UK has set up a research council to study the "cultural and creative industries." "With an annual budget of £75m the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is still a minnow among the other six research councils that dispense funding to scientists and social scientists - the Medical Research Council, for example, gives out more than £400m a year." The Guardian (UK) 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 6:12 am
Ivey: American Arts Need A Rethink Former NEA chairman Bill Ivey says it's time to rethink about how we think abou the business of arts in America. "Look at record companies -- they're almost all for-profit. Museums are almost all nonprofit. Theatre is unusual because some institutions are in one world and some are in another, and that makes you wonder about the value of nonprofit status. Some parts of the arts system -- like design, architecture, and, for the most part, book publishing and fashion -- lack much of a nonprofit presence yet are vigorous parts of the cultural landscape, which they retain without getting grants. So it would be interesting to back up and look at the system without the old assumptions." Back Stage 03/31/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 5:42 pm
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Poet Robert Creeley, 78 Creeley wrote, edited or was a major contributor to more than 60 books, including fiction, essays and drama. He belonged to a group of poets - beginning with Modernists like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and continuing through the Beats and the Black Mountain poets like Charles Olson - who tried to escape from what they considered the academic style of American poetry, with its European influences and strict rhyme and metric schemes.
The New York Times 04/01/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 7:45 pm
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Two Unions Try To Take On Rockettes Representation Two unions - Equity and AGMA - are joing forces and vying to take over representation of the Radio City Rockettes. A Equity representative say that "over the years, the Rockettes have expressed their dissatisfaction with the American Guild of Variety Artists, citing lack of service and regular meetings and the inability to get copies of appropriate documents, including the contract and the constitution, from the union."
Back Stage 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 6:41 am
Alfaro: LA Theatre Is On The Verge Of Greatness From the outside, theatre in Los Angeles might look like it's struggling. But Luis Alfaro believes a theatrical Golden Age is about to bloom. "What L.A. is on the brink of now, artistically, I think there’s more muscle. I think there’s an age of experimentation, like when Highways was getting going." LAWeekly 03/30/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 7:57 pm
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Graphic Noveldom Hath Arrived Graphic novels - comic books - are a big and growing market. "Big sales and increasing interest from movie studios in recent years - to wit, Sin City, a movie opening today, based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller - has helped transform these book-length comics from the butt of the joke to the belle of the ball." Rocky Mountain News 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 7:10 am
The New Chick Lit: He’s Just Not That Into You A new generation of non-fiction advice books does a disservice to women. "Pink is the colour of chick lit, that universe of trade paperbacks covered in cartoon martini glasses and lipstick tubes. Faced with these new self-help books, each a litany of romantic woes and female humiliations not unlike those that befall Shopaholic and co., it seems apt to borrow phrasing from Sex and the City heroine Carrie Bradshaw: Could it be that non-fiction is the new chick lit?" CBC 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 6:46 am
A Golden Age Of Kid Lit? We're in a Golden Age of children's literature. "What does it mean to call a specific period of literary endeavour 'golden', without it being mere hype? What it doesn't necessarily mean is a golden age as accountants might understand the term. Publishers mutter gloomily that while there are a huge number of children's books out there, there hasn't actually been a rise in the number of authors selling books. The market share for children's literature is stuck at 15%. What is happening is that a few (a very few) children's authors are selling loads; the names you know already - JK Rowling, Jacqueline Wilson, Philip Pullman." The Guardian (UK) 03/31/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 7:38 pm
Canadians - A Book-Buying People A new report on book-buying habits in Canada "shows that 48 per cent of all Canadian households bought books, spending a total of $1.1 billion on them. Though a greater percentage of Canadian households spent money on newspapers (63 per cent) and movies (61 per cent), the total amount spent on each category was similar to that spent on books: overall spending on newspapers and movies amounted to $1.2 billion each. By comparison, Canadians spent $451 million on live sporting events. CBC 03/31/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 5:48 pm
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Yo - You Must Remember This (Casablanca Updated) "Ashton Kutcher as Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine, the cynical yet courageous Yank? Paris Hilton as Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa Lund, a woman torn between her heart and her duty? Owen Wilson as Paul Henreid's Victor Laszlo, a man more admired than adored? Topher Grace as Claude Rains' Capt. Renault, twirling his moustache in mock surprise?" Wow - an all-star cast. And it's great! Outstanding! Shouldn't miss it! (catch it quick, though - it's only playing 4/1) Toronto Star 04/01/05
Posted: 04/01/2005 7:04 am
Can You "Legislate" An End To File-sharing? So the Day of Reckoning has come for file-sharing services. "The Supreme Court is expected to take about three months to rule on MGM v Grokster. But even if the entertainment business wins the case, while managing to coax more users into downloading legally, its problems are unlikely to go away. The rush into legal downloading is bound to cannibalise sales of CDs and DVDs, hitting profits. And perhaps the decline in global sales is indicative of a far greater problem for the music industry—that consumers simply think many of its products are not worth paying for." The Economist 03/31/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 6:12 pm
Oscar Sues Scalpers Oscar organizers have sued several companies and 50 unknown parties for selling tickets for Hollywood's biggest award show, fetching up to $30,000 a pair from fans longing to rub shoulders with Leonardo DiCaprio or Hilary Swank. Yahoo! (Reuters) 03/31/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 5:58 pm
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A Dance Grows In Brooklyn "The real estate market has been devastating to many Manhattan dance organizations. From January 1999 to January 2001, at least nine dance studios in Manhattan closed or moved. Others have vanished since. Dance in Brooklyn, meanwhile, has experienced steady growth. New performance spaces, both formal and informal, are flourishing. The borough teems with dancers, and rehearsal space can be found for the shockingly low price of $5 an hour." The New York Times 04/01/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 7:48 pm
Bill T. Jones Takes Stock "Gray and bespectacled, hobbling from knee surgery, Jones is still one of the most dashingly charismatic figures in the dance world. But he admits that 20 years of developing new works while trying to maintain a repertory in a competitive marketplace have been exhausting. As he settles into the next decade of artistic life, he is taking stock and looking for new avenues of expression. He is toying with the idea of augmenting the company with actors, singers, and laypeople from the community." Christian Science Monitor 04/01/05
Posted: 03/31/2005 7:24 pm
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