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Wednesday, July 23




Ideas

Art: The New (Old) Alternative Medicine "Art opens people up and delves deep. Anyone who's ever poured out his passion on a dance floor, sung John Mayer in the shower or felt rapture at Swan Lake knows it. But can that delving heal people, in both body and mind, as a veritable army of art therapists, drama therapists, dance therapists, cinema and photo therapists, expressive arts practitioners, patients, their families, hospice workers and holistic musicians believe?" San Francisco Chronicle 07/23/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 6:21 am

Visual Arts

Heritage Lottery Allocates £11.5 Million For Raphael The UK's Heritage Lottery Fund has agreed to contribute £11.5 million towards the possible purchase of a Raphael masterpiece owned by the Duke of Northumberland. The Duke has been planning to sell the painting to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, but agreed to give the UK's National Gallery a chance to buy it first, so as to keep the important work in country. The National Gallery had originally asked the Lottery for £20 million, then revised its request to £11.5 million after concluding that their higher request would never be met. The gallery will now need to raise another £9.5 million privately in order to offer a "matching bid." Even then, there is no guarantee that the Raphael would remain in the UK. BBC 07/23/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 5:07 am

Um, So, Thumbs Down, Then? Britain's National Portrait Gallery has been getting an architectural overhaul lately, and the results do not appear to have pleased Richard Dorment. "Architects hate art. If you let them loose near a museum or gallery, you have to watch their every move, because they will do their best to leave their own galumphing paw prints all over the place, and in the process stamp on the works of art. For several months now I've been hearing angry denunciations of the National Portrait Gallery's renovation of its once glorious Regency Galleries, but only last week, when I saw them for myself, did I register the full horror of what has happened there." The Telegraph (UK) 07/23/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 9:41 pm

Maybe They Were Painted With Wide-Angle Brushes Those beautiful Impressionist realist landscapes that make you wish you lived in a place where, with once glance, you could look down on farms and streams, mountains and villages, may not be quite as realistic as they appear. The vast majority of such canvases, which are almost always painted as if the viewer (and the painter) are looking down from the heavens at the glorious lands below, actually tend to be impossible views, at least, if the artist is meant to be standing in one place as he paints. A new exhibition in Salford examines the varied reasons for such mild deceptions, which range from God complexes to public relations gimmickry to simple humor. The Telegraph (UK) 07/23/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 9:34 pm

Music

Trying Anything To Get The Kids Involved A new educational initiative sponsored by the Chicago Symphony's Ravinia Festival combines the classics with modern pop music overtones, in the hope of making the genre less intimidating. It's a strange effect, but John van Rhein says that if it works, it's worth it. "If such tactics are what's needed to turn on kids to a 173-year-old symphonic masterpiece, so be it... The project is one of many comparable initiatives undertaken by classical music organizations across the nation... In so doing, they are taking up some of the slack from an educational system that has failed miserably to keep classical music in the public school curriculum." Chicago Tribune 07/23/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 5:47 am

And It Never Hurts To Have A Backup Profession At a lakeside resort in Central Maine, the wait staff are no ordinary foodservice types. Quisisana, a resort catering to New England's well-to-do, decided to kill two birds with one stone by recruiting its service staff almost entirely from the nation's top music conservatories. Students from such prestigious institutions as Juilliard and New England Conservatory bus tables and wash dishes by day, then throw on tux and tails in the evening to provide entertainment for the resort's guests. It may sound a bit exhausting, but for music students who would otherwise have to sacrifice their summer practice time in order to make money, it's the perfect summer job. Boston Globe 07/23/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 5:38 am

Refusing To Roll Over For The Record Industry One of the recording industry's recent efforts to stem the flow of illegal music downloads on the internet was to issue subpoenas to dozens of American colleges and universities, demanding that the schools turn over the names and addresses of students known to be trading copyrighted material on school servers. But this week, two Boston schools have filed motions to quash the subpoenas, claiming that the industry failed to give the schools a reasonable amount of time to inform their student bodies. One Boston College administrator insists that the motions to quash are not designed to protect students engaged in illegal file trading, but to make sure that the law is followed to the letter. Wired 07/23/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 5:19 am

  • Spain Gets Tough With File-Swappers. Really Tough. "In what is being touted as the largest legal action of its kind, a Spanish law firm has announced plans to file a copyright-violation complaint against 4,000 individuals who allegedly have swapped illegal files over peer-to-peer networks in that country." The law firm says it will demand the maximum sentence for every software pirate it convicts. That sentence is four years in prison. Wired 07/22/03
    Posted: 07/23/2003 5:18 am

The Little Label That Could When Robert von Bahr started recording classical music 30 years ago for his own label, BIS, he hauled his own equipment, begged record stores to carry his products, and generally did all the things that plucky little doomed labels do to try to stave off their inevitable demise. But the doom part never happened, and today, BIS is one of the most respected labels in the world of classical music. It has an astonishing array of high-quality artists and repertoire in its catalog, a commitment to new music and little-known composers, and a reputation as the leading purveyor of the music of Jean Sibelius, thanks in large part to an ongoing partnership with Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, considered to be the leading living interpreter of that composer's work. The Herald (Glasgow) 07/23/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 9:13 pm

Is The Mercury Prize Passé? "The Mercury Music Prize is on the way to becoming the wounded beast of music awards ceremonies. Its raison d'etre is to reflect the best in British music, not just that which sells, but perhaps it has not yet recovered from Alan McGee's lambasting of the 2000 shortlist as a bunch of 'bedwetters'... But a bigger problem for the Mercury is the public's dwindling trust in it as a recommendation of what to buy. It seems ages since a Mercury victory could propel a relatively unknown artist to national success, but the panel has only itself to blame for rewarding a series of worthy but unlistenable albums." The Guardian (UK) 07/22/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 9:07 pm

People

The Dave Eggers Show Chances are, you're either sick to death of hearing about Dave Eggers, or you can't get enough of him. Either way, there's little doubt that the ultra-independent Eggers is raising the bar for authors, publishers, and the book industry in general. His readings are more like stand-up comedy acts; his commitment to small, independent booksellers is legendary; and his burning desire to use his unexpected wealth and fame to craft a literary world based less around marketing and more around, well, literature, appears to be quite genuine. Of course, he's also ridiculously good at self-promotion, but then, that's part of the game, isn't it? Ottawa Citizen 07/23/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 6:14 am

BBC Phil Extends Conductor's Contract Gianandrea Noseda won't be leaving the podium of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra anytime soon. The orchestra signed the young Italian to a 3-year extension (through 2008) after only a year on the job, and the announcement met with cheers from the musicians of the Manchester-based ensemble. Noseda succeeded the French conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, who many initially feared would be virtually irreplacable. The Guardian (UK) 07/23/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 10:22 pm

A Billionaire's Vegas Dream "Billionaire Steve Wynn seems like one of those characters who could only exist in Las Vegas. Now 60, he has played as great a part in the creation of modern Las Vegas as anyone - and is now poised, with his latest, most spectacular venture, to leave his name permanently on the city's skyline... A couple of months ago, he spent more than $25m in the space of 24 hours, buying works by Cézanne and Renoir at Christie's and Sotheby's in New York - but in Las Vegas he is casino magnate, philanthropist, city father and enigma all rolled into one." Wynn's latest venture is a multi-billion dollar resort hotel, in which he will place his legendary art collection, and open two theaters featuring performances by the likes of Cirque Du Soleil. The Guardian (UK) 07/21/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 9:02 pm

Theatre

Tough Year For Roundabout It's been an up-and-down year for New York's Roundabout Theater Company. Tonys were won and critics heaped praise on nearly everything Roundabout put on a stage this season, but the company ran a $2 million deficit that is likely to result in layoffs and wage freezes. Performances were packed for the revival of Nine currently running on Broadway, but such things seemed unimportant after artistic director Todd Haimes, who has been at the helm of the company for two decades, learned he had a rare form of cancer midway through the year. The New York Times 07/23/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 9:50 pm

Publishing

The Me(moir) Generation Is there anyone left who hasn't written their memoirs? Autobiography is a time-honored literary tradition, but lately, it seems as if anyone and everyone believes that their own life is so fascinating that the world cannot survive another minute without having it committed to paper. Linton Weeks is not a big fan of the trend: "I feel that the memoir is the genre of our generations. The Me Decades are stretching out into the Memoir Millennium. The I's have it." Washington Post 07/23/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 6:33 am

Putting Business Before Books? "Peter Olson, the C.E.O. of Random House, has no use for the sentimental yearnings of the book-publishing elite. They whipped him when he crudely fired Ann Godoff, but he's in a different publishing business than they are, the only one he thinks can survive... In January, when Olson fired Godoff, editor in chief and publisher of the Random House Adult Trade Group division, many in the insular publishing world felt that Olson's love of books was trumped by his crude business tactics... By firing Godoff, by stating plainly that he was in the book business, Olson was not so much revolutionizing the industry as giving vent to what it has long and carefully repressed. Book publishing has always been a mix of high and low, but the business side of the industry has been de-emphasized." New York Times Magazine 07/20/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 10:19 pm

Media

International, Sure, But Always Canadian The Toronto Film Festival is back and as big as ever, and while the festival has gained an international reputation by embracing films from around the world, it, like nearly every other cultural enterprise in the country, reserves a significant portion of time and exposure for home-grown work. This year's top Canadian film at the TFF will be Gary Burns's A Problem With Fear, which impressed festival organizers enough for them to give it a prime opening-night showing, outside of the normal "Perspective Canada" portion of the event. Toronto Star 07/23/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 6:26 am

Trying The Soft Sell Hollywood has been watching the heavy-handed tactics of the recording industry as it attempts to put an end to illegal online file-swapping, and it can't have failed to notice that that none of the hardball tactics have yet made a dent in the problem. So the Motion Picture Association of America is trying more of a good cop routine in its own battle against movie piracy. A new series of anti-piracy ads will begin running this week, with the message coming from set designers, craft people, and other lower-level movie types, rather than from studio execs, for whom consumers are unlikely to have a lot of sympathy. Wired 07/22/03
Posted: 07/23/2003 5:29 am

Deferring To American Nationalism After hemming and hawing and delaying and looking nervously over their shoulders for the better part of two years, the folks at Miramax are finally releasing a supposedly controversial Australian film into the U.S. market. The delay, which began after the 9/11 attacks, and continued through the invasion of Iraq, was a result of studio fears that Americans would be furious at the plotline of Buffalo Soldiers, which revolves around American soldiers involved in "illegal activities." Sydney Morning Herald 07/23/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 10:03 pm

BBC (Finally) Reinvigorates Its Architecture Policy "For years BBC buildings have been like BBC coffee. Both carry the same beigegrey miasma of depression which makes it a miracle that any programme of quality ever emits from the corporation's portals. The defining monument is the broadcast centre in west London known as White City One, a building with all the charisma of a plastic cup out of a drinks dispenser." But a turnaround appears to be in the works, with plans to erect several dazzling new buildings in the near future, with the main jewel being "a music centre, also in White City, currently budgeted at £54 million and the subject of an architectural competition." London Evening Standard 07/22/03
Posted: 07/22/2003 9:27 pm


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