Save Venice By Flooding Her? Presented last week to city leaders, the $117-million project would involve injecting seawater under Venice to raise it 30 centimeters (12 inches) in 10 years. "Our hypothesis entails drilling 12 holes, each 30 centimeters wide and 700 meters long, within a 10-kilometer radius around the city. Each hole will pump seawater into the ground beneath Venice. At 700 meters below ground there are sand formations saturated 100 percent with water, which will expand if we put more in. This would generate an increase in volume and the raising of the floor." Discovery 12/02/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:10 am
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The New New Basel Miami Art Basel Miami opens with a flourish. "While many top galleries returned, 55 percent of the galleries chosen were new this year -- a deliberate attempt to keep the fair fresh, said Art Basel director Sam Keller. The strategy worked, said many fairgoers." Miami Herald 12/02/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:38 am
America's Newspaper Architecture Critics America's newspapers don't have many architecture critics on staff. Here's a profile of four of the most prominent: the Boston Globe's Robert Campbell, Chicago Tribune's Blair Kamin, LA Times' Christopher Hawthorne, and New York Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff. The Architect's News `12/01/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:25 am
Tracing The Priceless Euphronios Cup "The priceless Euphronios cup -- painted with the image of the fallen Trojan war hero Sarpedon -- is the earliest known work painted by the Athenian master, last seen intact publicly in New York in 1990 on the Sotheby's block as lot #6 selling for $742,000 and going to a "European buyer". I considered it a relevant question, since the "European buyer" for the cup last week identified himself to the press in Italy as Giacomo Medici, a man convicted of antiquities smuggling and now appealing a 10-year sentence." Scoop 12/01/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:23 am
Explaining Calatrava "The flashy contours, flamboyant engineering effects, and mechanical gimmickry of the Santiago Calatrava style are futuristic in a way that went out of fashion circa 1965, when the last New York World's Fair closed. The seemingly advanced (though in fact retrograde) aspects of his architecture disguise its underlying sentimentality, and make it palatable to patrons of a certain sophistication who would reject more pronounced expressions of kitsch. That he has found a constituency in the art world is perplexing, but his appeal to a popular audience makes perfect sense." New York Review of Books 12/15/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 10:17 pm
FBI's Top Ten Art Crimes "After much analysis, the FBI has come up with its list of the top 10 art crimes, and it's asking the public for help in solving them. FBI investigators are on the hunt for Rembrandts, Renoirs, stolen treasures from Iraq, two Van Goghs, and Munch's The Scream." CTV (Canada) 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 5:44 pm
Met To Italy: Where's The Proof? Italian officials have little concrete evidence that objects in the Metropolitan Museum are stolen. "For six of the seven pots, Italian evidence doesn't tie them to any clandestine digs or tomb robbers, according to a judge's conviction of Roman art dealer Giacomo Medici, who was charged with smuggling the pots. Italian negotiators are using evidence from his trial in their negotiations with the Met. For the seventh vase, a 2,500-year-old pot painted by the artist Euphronios, an allegedly incriminating journal found in an American art dealer's Paris apartment makes no mention of the object ever being in Italy." Bloomberg.com 12/01/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 4:32 pm
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Solving Classical Music With Technology? "A growing number of classical music purveyors are looking to the new digital technology for solutions to some of their most vexing problems. Just as it makes sense for recording companies with declining CD sales to jump aboard the download bandwagon, so too does it make sense for classical groups seeking new audiences to break ground in cyberspace." Chicago Tribune 12/02/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:34 am
At The Met: Tragedy In The Making Tobias Picker's "An American Tragedy" opens this week at the Metropolitan Opera. The story "struck Mr. Picker as the natural choice for his Met debut: an opera by an American composer, based on a great American novel. More to the point, it was a compelling operatic story of love and murder, with a social undercurrent about the dark side of the pursuit of happiness and wealth - the American dream - that continues to resonate." The New York Times 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 7:38 pm
The ENO's Continuing Mess Sean Doran's quick departure from English National Opera this week is only one indication of the company's deep problems. "So now what we are left with is more of the same mediocrity, with everyone keeping their backs to the wall and nobody in the mood for tackling the radical underlying problems that ENO faces. What, for example, was the point of spending over £40 million on restoring the Coliseum if the theatre is no more productive or efficient than it was? How can ENO reach out to new audiences and restore the buzz it had in the 1980s?" The Telegraph (UK) 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 6:21 pm
The Orchestra That Has To Limit Its Sound (It's The Law) "Under a new interpretation of WorkCover rules, players in the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra can't be exposed to sound levels higher than 85 decibels averaged over a day. This will have implications for orchestral music generally, but its immediate impact is being felt on, of all things, the Australian Ballet's Sleeping Beauty. To avoid any one musician being exposed to excessive sound, the orchestra is working with relay teams of extra musicians: four separate horn sections, four of clarinets, four of flutes, and so on. The orchestra that begins a particular performance isn't necessarily the same one that finishes it." The Australian 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 5:39 pm
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New York's Arts Ed Battle Arts education in New York City schools is still a spotty thing. The system suffers from "a lack of such facilities as art or dance studios, an inadequate supply of basic material and equipment such as musical instruments, and a shortage of arts teachers. Some 150 public schools –- more than one in ten -- still have no full-time arts teachers of any kind." Gotham Gazette 11/30/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 7:27 am
Nothing About Artists Is Sexy (Don't Believe The Study) A study says artists have more sex? "Don't expect honesty from artists at any time. Massive delicate egos and a myopic view of reality don't make for any kind of study. The truth is that artists aren't that special. People just like to think so - especially artists. They don't deny it because the industry thrives on this very premise (and it makes them feel loved and important). It is the same argument all the time. They expect you to lead a rock'n'roll lifestyle, but the truth in my case could not be more different: a boring day in the studio, then home to wife and kids and the occasional clean-up-after-puppy-poo-athon." The Guardian (UK) 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 7:14 pm
A Pakistani Festival Of Change In Pakistan, dancing was banned for many years, and some clerics would like to do the same to music. A new festival is changing things. "For Lahore, the 10-day festival was a huge, at times startling cultural event. The music ranged from pop to classical but the finest show was the pure Sufi night. Festival president Faizaan Peerzada runs an event that aims to transform Pakistani life. By promoting Sufi music he hopes to 'counter the extremism of the mullahs who use the mosques to spread ill-will against the west'." The Guardian (UK) 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 6:54 pm
Art Of The Town A string of provincial pearls - including Paducah, Ky.; Rising Sun, Ind.; Fergus Falls, Minn.; and Cumberland, Md. - are banking on the arts for economic revival. "The eruption of these rural culture capitals also means more Americans can find original art to view or buy on a weekend or day trip. In recent years, surveys by the Travel Industry of America have called arts- and culture-based travel a strong and growing segment." Christian Science Monitor 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 5:16 pm
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Wendy Wasserstein Hospitalized With Leukemia "Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein is battling leukemia at a New York hospital, a source close to her said yesterday. The Brooklyn-born writer's condition was especially grave because an unspecified infection has prevented doctors from administering chemotherapy, the source said." New York Daily News 12/02/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:55 am
Dario Fo For Mayor "Dario Fo - at 79 still the most subversive man in Italy - wants to be mayor of Milan. The idea of an elderly anarcho-Marxist trying to take over the running of the country's business capital might provide him with a splendid plot for a play. But this is for real." The Guardian (UK) 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 7:25 pm
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Color Purple - Hurry Up And Wait "Watching this beat-the-clock production summons the frustrations of riding through a picturesque stretch of country in a supertrain like the TGV. The landscape looks seductively lush and varied; the local populace seems lively and inviting, like people you might want to know; you can even hear tantalizing snatches of folks singing in an intriguing idiom as they go about their work. But it all passes by in a watercolor blur. This show isn't stiff and anemic like its chief musical competition this season. But it never slows down long enough for you to embrace it." The New York Times 12/02/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:43 am
- Color Purple An Honorable Attempt "Vastly improved from its pre-Broadway incarnation in Atlanta, Griffin's ambitious production opened here Thursday night with its dignity intact and no cause whatsoever for embarrassment by any of the impassioned parties involved. This is an earnest, honest, intermittently engaging and competently directed attempt to wrestle the chronological sweep of Walker's epic and intensely personal novel about the 40-year journey to self-worth of an abused rural Georgian named Celie into an accessible, middle-brow Broadway musical. It is an almost impossible task." Chicago Tribune 12/02/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:32 am
- Purple Pose: Cautious And Pricey "Earnest and eager to please, the $10 million Color Purple is the latest in a long series of cautious, pricey Broadway adaptations that paint by pallid numbers rather than in arresting new tones. It's a thankless task, though, making the argument against this musical, which opened last night at the Broadway Theatre." Washington Post 12/02/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:00 am
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Aberdeen Starts First Scottish Literary Center Scotland's Aberdeen University is establishing the country's first center dedicated to study of the novel. "It will be Britain's first dedicated centre for the study of novels and novelists from the English-speaking world, including Scottish, Irish and American fiction, and will use as its main resource the university's own collection of fiction, said to rival that of any university in the world." The Scotsman 12/02/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 6:04 pm
Ahhh...Ahhh...Ahhh... Giles Coren's book Winkler has won this year's Bad Sex Award. "The food critic's book describes a sexual act between a man and a woman, in which she 'she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands'. The rest of the winning passage is unprintable for a family audience. The annual award pitted Coren against writers including John Updike, Salman Rushdie, Ben Elton and Paul Theroux." BBC 12/01/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 4:25 pm
Enough With The Literary Navel-Gazing Already! Jon Carroll has had it with the trend of writers writing about writers and writing and expecting the rest of the world to give a damn. "Writing is not an inherently interesting profession. It's very boring to watch. Writers do not dress well, and they frequently mumble. Periodically, a writer goes into rehab or opens an antique store; it's not exactly cinematic. It's not like freeing the virtuous farmers from the yoke of oppression by wearing a mask and engaging in swordplay. It's the life of the mind. It's paint drying." But then, people in nearly every profession seem to be obsessed with their own importance these days... San Francisco Chronicle 12/01/05
Posted: 12/01/2005 6:52 am
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Shorten Home Release Video Window? Nah, Says Fox Movie companies are considering shortening the window between theatrical release and home video release of movies. But that's a mistake, says the chairman of Fox. Sending movies to home video markets much quicker than the average four-month exclusive that studios grant theaters could crimp growth. "When people say 'Re-invent your business model because of the ubiquitous availability of pirated product.' There's a huge flaw with that. You can never compete with free." Yahoo! (Reuters) 12/02/05
Posted: 12/02/2005 8:06 am
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