What Motivates Fame Seekers? "For most of its existence, the field of psychology has ignored fame as a primary motivator of human behavior: it was considered too shallow, too culturally variable, too often mingled with other motives to be taken seriously. But in recent years, a small number of social scientists have begun to study and think about fame in a different way, ranking it with other goals, measuring its psychological effects, characterizing its devoted seekers." The New York Times 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 3:37 am
Demystifying The Conductor What makes a good conductor? For that matter, what exactly does a conductor do to influence the course of a musical performance? Justin Davidson explores the dark art of leading an orchestra The New Yorker (video) 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 9:11 pm
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World Trade Center Museum Finding Its Way "The small staff of the World Trade Center Memorial Museum faces a few challenges as it prepares to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The museum has no gallery space and little storage area. It has barely even started collecting. Still, it has a public mission to help Americans remember. 'We have this conundrum — we are not a museum yet, but we have to start acting like one,' the chief curator, Jan Ramirez, said." So, "this week, the museum will open its first exhibition: a series of largescale photographs that will be installed on the chain-link fence on east side of the World Trade Center site." New York Sun 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 6:26 am
When Architecture Is Bridled By Anxiety "To appreciate how America has changed since 9/11, walk slowly through any major city. What you'll see dotting the landscape is the physical embodiment of fear. Security installations put up after the attacks continue to block public access and wrangle pedestrian traffic. ... It's not just the barriers, it's also the buildings. Since 9/11, risk consultants working for police departments, federal agencies and insurance companies have wrested control over many new construction plans. 'There's a sense that security experts are acting as the associate architects on every project built today,' says Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic of the New Yorker." Salon 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 5:45 am
Here's $2,500. Now May We Have The Horse? The Smithsonian Institution is willing to lend smaller museums its objects, and its prestige, for a price. "In exchange for a $2,500 annual fee, museums may become Smithsonian 'affiliates' and borrow artifacts. Some are less important items. Some are icons. Some go out on a short-term basis. Some, long-term. Now 146 museums and cultural organizations are part of the program, called Smithsonian Affiliations. The latest is the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington, Ky., which has its eye on a famous stuffed steed from the Civil War." Washington Post 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 5:25 am
Pushkin Museum, Expanding, Puts Stars Center Stage "The State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the Russian capital’s premier repository of Impressionist and post-Impressionist works, has opened the Gallery of Art of the Countries of Europe and America of the 19th-20th Centuries, devoted to the best of its collections from those periods. The expansion nearly doubles the display space for 19th- and 20th-century art, said Irina Antonova, the museum’s director. Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso all have separate halls.... It is all part of a goal to create a 'museum town' in the heart of Moscow...." The New York Times 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 3:22 am
Tomb Robbing No More, An Artist Imitates What He Once Stole In Italy, a former tomb robber, jailed briefly long ago for selling his own authentic-seeming copies of Etruscan art as originals, "has transformed a mushroom farm that was once an ancient quarry into Etruscopolis, a quirky museum celebrating the art of a civilization that flourished in roughly the eighth to second centuries B.C." The New York Times 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 3:05 am
The Mystery Picasso Buyer Last May a mystery buyer bought Picasso's Dora Maar for $95 million. The buyer is still a mystery. "Why did the Sotheby’s buyer want his Dora Maar so badly? Perhaps connoisseurship. Perhaps to impress his friends. But it could also have been an investment, even at such a high price." New York Magazine 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 8:57 pm
A Runaway Art Market The sizzling art market only gets hotter. "Sotheby’s, which opened an office in Moscow a few weeks ago, has notched up, in the first six months of this year, sales of just under £60 million. This is an enormous amount considering that the company’s sales of Russian art for the whole of 2000 reached just £4 million." The Times (UK) 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 8:44 pm
Why Architecture Counts On Sunny Days "In Britain this summer, the weather could hardly have been more restlessly alive; a parched and blazing July has been followed by a brooding and tempestuous August. Most of us believe our climate is likely to take even more ominous turns in the future. Why, then, the increasing architectural pretence that weather is all but irrelevant, and, by implication, undesirable?" The Guardian (UK) 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 6:43 pm
Controversial Paris Museum A Hit With The Public Paris' new Musee Branly has been much-maligned by critics, but it's a hit with the public. "Even as debate continues over the museum’s novel architecture and exhibition design, word is getting out in immigrant communities throughout France that the space celebrates the patrimonies of their cultures as art. And so far, people who typically might not set foot in a museum are coming in unexpectedly large numbers." The New York Times 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 6:31 pm
Claim: Australian Museum's Painting Might Have Been Nazi Loot "A Chilean man has claimed a 17th century art work on display at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) may have been looted from his grandfather by Nazis." Sydney Morning Herald 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 5:50 pm
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Great Jazz Festival... But Where's The Jazz? Richard Scheinin has a great time at this year's San Jose Jazz Festival. But he entertains a nagging question: "Was the 'Jazz' in the title of the festival starting to take a back seat to funk, pop, soul? And looking ahead, is San Jose's jazz festival about to morph into one more 'jazz and pop' festival, in which jazz is a guest at its own party? Why does it matter? Because there are a million venues for the Nevilles and Dr. John, who closed Saturday's Main Stage events. There are, on the other hand, very few venues, a shrinking few, for jazz, which is continually pushed to the margins..." San Jose Mercury-News 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 5:55 pm
Irish, English Singers Win Wagner Competition Seattle Opera's first International Wagner Competition drew eight singers from five countries and five judges from Europe and North America. "Two $15,000 prizes were awarded -- some three hours after the affair started, by Speight Jenkins, general director of the company -- to Miriam Murphy of Ireland and James Rutherford of England. Rutherford also won the vote of the orchestra -- members of the Seattle Symphony -- and the audience." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 5:19 pm
Impending Music Glut Worries Retailers There's a glut of blockbuster albums about to be released in the last quarter of this year. Music sales have been down, so there should be a bump at the cash register. But "most merchants, however, feel the release schedule is so strong that some titles may get lost in the shuffle; for years now, retail executives have lamented that the majors wait until the fourth quarter to release their big projects." Yahoo! (Reuters) 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 4:55 pm
Musicians Build Concert World Online "Musicians are increasingly using the virtual world to hold live concerts, at specific times and dates, or listening lounges where their music plays when an avatar pays a visit..." Washington Post 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 4:08 pm
Music Publishers Attack Musicians Over Websites "In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like 'Knockin' on Heaven’s Door,' 'Highway to Hell' and thousands of others." The New York Times 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 3:56 pm
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Can A Biennial Transform Liverpool? Liverpool's Biennial is about to begin. But will the event have a culturizing effect on the city? "Culture is not a cure-all medicine for a city that has been in decline for 50 years. Of course there are economic benefits. But if you say it’s only about that then expectations start heading off in the wrong direction. And the actual difference made by culture is hard to gauge. Sometimes Liverpool looks less like a capital of culture than a culture of capital." The Guardian (UK) 08/22/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 8:38 pm
Prodigies Need Help Too Too many child prodigies burn out by the time they reach adulthood. "There are two basic issues here: how to support exceptionally bright kids, and how to manage exceptionally ambitious parents who blur the line between a child's will and their own." Los Angeles Times 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 5:27 pm
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Art Restorer Umberto Baldini, 84 "Umberto Baldini, the director of the conservation studios at the Uffizi Gallery who helped save and restore hundreds of artworks damaged by the famous Arno River flood of 1966, died at his home near Florence on Wednesday." The New York Times 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 3:48 am
Mutter And Previn Call Off Marriage "Anne-Sophie Mutter, at 43 one of the world's most celebrated violinists, and renowned composer and conductor André Previn, 77, have quietly ended their four-year marriage, according to reports from the London Mail on Sunday and United Press International." PlaybillArts.com 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 9:23 pm
India's Ustad Bismillah Khan, 91 "Bismillah Khan is credited with popularising the shehnai, a wind instrument which can be loosely compared to an oboe, and elevating its status in India. He had the rare distinction of performing as the Indian flag was unfurled at the historic Red Fort in Delhi to mark the country's independence from Britain in 1947." BBC 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 4:11 pm
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Too Many Shows Frozen Too Soon "When is a theatre show finished? I don't mean what time does the curtain come down (or rather not come down in the case of Edinburgh where curtains and traditional stages are thankfully in very short supply) but at what point do the cast and director stop working on the show in order to improve it?" The question "is particularly pertinent here in Edinburgh where there is a lot of fragile and fledgling work on view. This is a wonderful chance for companies to really develop a show in front of an audience, but often it simply doesn't happen." The Guardian (UK) 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 4:00 am
Best Of Times For Black Canadian Playwrights? The fourth triennial meeting of the AfriCanadian Playwrights Festival has attracted more than 60 playwrights among the more than 200 theatre folk attending. "It is the best time (for black Canadian playwriting). I think these stories have not been heard enough; I think they're being heard more and more and they can only enrich everyone's lives." Toronto Star 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 5:44 pm
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge Papers Bought The British Library has bought an archive of papers from Samuel Coleridge Taylor's estate. "In the nearly two centuries since Coleridge's death, the papers have been kept by family members in the village of Ottery St. Mary in Devon, southwest England, where the creator of Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was born." The Globe & Mail (AP) 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 5:38 pm
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Online Music Sales' Latest Victim: Tower Records "Tower Records has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, its second such filing in less than three years. ... The company admits 'intense' competition has hurt its business. 'The brick-and-mortar specialty music retail industry has suffered substantial deterioration recently,' Tower said in court papers. Industry observers say the chain could have a tough time finding a buyer willing to keep its stores operating in an industry increasingly dominated by online music purveyors and big-box retailers." Chicago Tribune (Dow Jones) 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 4:58 am
A Split Unsettles Spanish-Language TV Market "The unhappy divorce of the top U.S. Spanish-language network, Univision Communications Inc., and Latin America's biggest producer of hit shows, Grupo Televisa SA, was a plot lifted directly from the telenovelas that made both wildly successful. Now Telemundo, once relegated to a supporting-actor role, is trying to win over viewers and emerge ahead of bigger rival Univision. U.S. Spanish-language programming is a market that has grown to more than 35 million Hispanics who make up at least 14 percent of the U.S. population and are driving the nation's population growth." Chicago Tribune (AP) 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 4:44 am
YouTube Moves To "Ads Within Ads" "After attracting millions of eyeballs with video clips of dancing cats and lip-syncing coeds, YouTube hopes to cash in on its popularity with online infomercials. Starting today, the video-sharing site plans to let advertisers create 'channels' filled with clips they produce themselves — and then in turn sell sponsorships to other advertisers. Among the first: a channel created by Warner Bros. Records devoted to Paris Hilton's new album.... Fox Broadcasting Co. will advertise on the Paris Hilton Channel to promote the fall season of the television show 'Prison Break.'" Los Angeles Times 08/22/06
Posted: 08/22/2006 4:12 am
Warner Straight To DVD Warner says it is launching a new division that will produce movies directly for DVD, skipping theatres. "The new division, called Warner Premiere, annually will produce up to 15 original titles made by well-known filmmakers, starring recognized actors and, in some cases, based on earlier feature films that played in movie houses." Yahoo! (Reuters) 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 4:49 pm
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Dance Out In The Wild What happens when you ask choreographers to make a dance in a non-traditional location? "The idea was to inform five choreographers only five days before the event of the site where they would be performing." The New York Times 08/21/06
Posted: 08/21/2006 6:27 pm
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