“As damaging as office bullies’ unwanted attention appears to be, however, a group of researchers believes they’ve found something even more harmful to workers: no attention at all.”
Archives for May 2014
Dissonance – In The Eye Of The Beholder?
Discordant sounds are just one element of dissonance. One reason the term is elusive is that the concept is both subjective (“What is harmony to one ear, may be dissonance to another,” as the writer Joseph Addison put it in 1711) and contextual.
The Met Opera Budget (Explained?)
Take, for example, the $169,000 poppy field used in this season’s $4.3 million production of “Prince Igor.” How does a flower patch cost $169,000? To explain, the Met pulled back the curtain on the five-year process of developing and budgeting “Prince Igor.”
Sony Moves One Of Hollywood’s Biggest Visual Effects Studios To Vancouver
“Vancouver has developed into a world-class centre for visual effects and animation production,” said Randy Lake, executive vice president and general manager at Sony Pictures Digital Productions, in a statement issued on Friday morning. “It offers an attractive lifestyle for artists in a robust business climate.”
Priest Buys Painting Because He “Liked The Frame,” Finds Out It’s a Van Dyck Worth £500,000
A priest, who snapped up an original Van Dyck portrait for £400 in an antiques shop, says he bought the painting “for the frame.”
British Education Minister Takes US Authors Out Of School Syllabus
“Longtime American favorites including John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” and Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” are off the syllabus for a major high school English qualification under new guidelines that focus almost exclusively on writers from Britain and Ireland.”
What Are The Best Seats From Which To Watch Movies?
“Why would Cineplex want to draw any kind of comparison with airlines, where seats are always either too jammed or too expensive? And will moviegoers happily accept a two-class system for what has long been egalitarian first-come, first-served cinema seating?”
Egypt Cracks Down On Dissenting Artists
Sisi’s clampdown has now widened to include artists, satirists, film-makers and journalists. A tough new law banning “abusive” graffiti, which was drafted by Sisi in December, means street art is also at greater risk of censorship. Artists could face up to four years in jail if found guilty of creating anti-military murals.
How Do You Design A New Bookstore For The 21st Century?
“Design on its own will not save the bookshop. If you leave the model as it is and redecorate, nothing’s going to change. The solution needs to be much more fundamental: informed, strategic and daring.”
Texas Loses A Dance Icon
“On and off for nearly 20 years, Bruce Wood was our most important figure in contemporary dance. He brought cutting-edge clarity, style and humor to North Texas dance. He choreographed ambitious works to Maurice Ravel and Philip Glass but also tongue-in-cheek dances to Lyle Lovett songs. Wood toured his Texas dancers to acclaim in LA and New York.”
Beethoven Was, After All, A Guy
A new biography: “He might have been one of the greatest artists who ever lived, but he was still a man who had to live among fellow mortals, eat and drink, buy clothes, pay his rent.”
Online Registration Ends Today
Today’s the LAST DAY to register online for this June’s Americans for the Arts Annual Convention and receive a discount! Don’t miss out on the best professional development opportunity of 2014.
Marina Abramović Accused Of Plagiarism Over ‘Nothing’
“A prestigious group of curators and art historians have written to the gallery questioning why Abramović’s latest performance piece – about which she has repeatedly emphasised the importance of “nothing” – fails to acknowledge the influence of another contemporary artist who has also made ‘nothing’ central to her work.”
‘This American Life’ Picks Its Next Distributor: Its Home Station
Chicago Public Media (a/k/a WBEZ), which produces the radio hit, will distribute the program itself via the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), followingr Public Radio International’s decision earlier this year to drop the show.
The Iranian Kerouac: Ali Eskandarian And The Great Punk Beat Novel
“Singer Ali Eskandarian was gunned down in New York last year with members of punk band the Yellow Dogs. He had just written Golden Years, an On-the-Road style novel that’s now being hailed as a cult classic.”
Cuban Cabaret Comes To The Ballet
“Most aspiring dancers and choreographers spend their teens perfecting their arabesques in ballet class or their spins in hip-hop. But when … Rosie Herrera was 16, she was learning a very different side of dance – as a showgirl strutting the stage of the Little Havana theatrical cabaret Teatro de Bellas Artes in fishnet stockings, high heels, feathered headdress and not much else.”
Another Appraisal Of Detroit Institute Of Arts Collection
“Officials handling Detroit’s federal bankruptcy proceedings, who have been accused by creditors in recent months of underestimating the value of works held by the city-owned Detroit Institute of Arts, told a judge on Wednesday that a comprehensive appraisal of the value of the collection is now underway.”
Hitting The High Notes At The Colorado Symphony’s First ‘Classically Cannabis’ Concert
“‘I am watching history being made!’ exclaimed a gray-haired woman … as she sat on the patio packing an ample amount of ‘Flo’ into her glass pipe. … In a corner near the front entrance, the dispensaries that, along with a soil company and Leafly, a Yelp-like site for marijuana strains, together shelled out $30,000 in event sponsorships manned schwag tables offering up promotional rolling papers, lighters, and glass storage jars.”
Courtney Lewis Named Music Director Of Jacksonville Symphony
The Irish maestro, just turned 30, recently left his position as associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and is about to begin two years as assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic. He takes the reins in Jacksonville at the start of the 2015-16 season.
Trying To Find Where Creativity Comes From (In The Brain, That Is)
“We can’t study how they got creative,” says cognitive neuroscientist Mark Beeman. “But we can see how their brains work.”
Your Sense Of ‘Now’ Is Really Just A Trick Of Your Brain
Marcelo Gleiser: “We perceive nothing in the actual present. What we call ‘the present’ is built out of the integration of many past histories. The flow of time is the succession of these integrations, disjointed but appearing to be continuous, as if life were a grand movie.”
L.A. MoCA, In Rebuilding Mode, Names New Chief Curator
“The Museum of Contemporary Art took the next step in rebuilding its staff and programming, appointing Helen Molesworth of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston as its new chief curator.”
Clive James, Terminally Ill, Says He’s Starting To Say Goodbye
“The 74-year-old, who has leukaemia and emphysema, has written of having ‘lungs of dust’ in his most recent work, Sentenced To Life.” He told BBC Radio 4, “But the trick is not to overdo it. As my friend PJ O’Rourke told me, ‘you’re going to have to soft pedal this death door stuff, Clive, because people are going to get impatient.'”
‘Avatar’, Live, Courtesy Of Cirque Du Soleil
Director/producer James Cameron is working with Cirque to developing the arena show, which is scheduled to open late next year, before the first of the three planned Avatar sequels hits screens.
Watch Dick Cavett’s Worst Show Ever
September 18, 1970. The guests were John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara. “They were on hand to promote their new movie, but for thirty-five minutes they smoked, flopped around on the floor, and generally tormented Cavett, whose questions they’d planned to ignore.” (They were long since drunk, of course.) (includes full video and new comments by Cavett)