Ideas Math's Great Challenge It's the greatest unsolved problem in mathematics. Will it ever be solved? "With a pedigree linking many of the greatest names in the field, the Riemann Hypothesis runs like a river through vast swaths of seemingly distinct mathematical territory. Andrew Wiles himself has compared a proof of this proposition to what it meant for the 18th century when a solution to the longitude problem was found. With longitude licked, explorers could navigate freely around the physical world; so too, if Riemann is resolved, mathematicians will be able to navigate more fluidly across their domain. Its import extends into areas as diverse as number theory, geometry, logic, probability theory and even quantum physics." LAWeekly 08/21/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 8:03 pm Visual Arts Ft. Lauderdale's New Museum Chief "The new chief of the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, is Irvin Lippman, 55, a man credited with doubling the annual budget and raising attendance at the Columbus, Ohio, art museum over the past eight years." Miami Herald 08/22/03 Posted: 08/22/2003 7:18 am Munch Treasure Disintegrating "One of Norwegian art history's most important treasures, Edvard Munch's Puberty, is being slowly destroyed. The paint has become so loose on the canvas that it cannot be hung and must be laid flat and covered with a protective cloth." Aftenposten (Norway) 08/21/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 10:37 pm German Observatory Predates Stonehenge The oldest observatory in Europe has been discovered in Germany. It predates Stonehenge. "The site, which is estimated to be around 7,000 years old and measures 75 meters in diameter, provides the first insights into the spiritual and religious worlds of Europe's earliest farmers." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 08/22/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 8:42 pm When The Beirut Museum Was Looted The Baghdad National Museum is not the first to be looted during war. "During Lebanon's tumultuous 15-year civil war, the Beirut National Museum lay in ruins. The museum was hit by artillery shells. Snipers fired from its upper floors, even boring a rifle hole into one of the ancient pieces of art. The fate of its priceless collections was unknown..." Christian Science Monitor 08/21/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 7:41 pm Ancient Roman Vase Might Be Renaissance Product One of the British Museum's most important ancient Roman treasures may have been made in the Renaissance. "The vase is described by the museum as 'the most famous cameo-glass vessel from antiquity' and was a widely accepted to have been made circa 30-20 BC. " BBC 08/21/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 7:31 pm Music San Antonio Symphony - Take The Year Off A San Antonio mayor's task force is recommending that the San Antonio Symphony take a year off to get its finances straight. "Mayor Ed Garza said he would urge the council to heed the task force's recommendation that next year's $339,500 city grant for the symphony be given instead to the oversight committee, which would hire an expert in transforming arts organizations." San Antonio Express-News 08/20/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 10:52 pm Play On, Says Orchestra The San Antonio Symphony still hopes to perform this season. "We were a little surprised by that. I'm not sure we'd support taking it totally down. I'd like to work at keeping a few concerts. It is important to keep some music out there, keep some musicians at least partly compensated." San Antonio Express-News 08/21/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 10:50 pm Sydney Symphony - Going For The Personal Connection The Sydney Symphony Orchestra's new music director is rethinking how the orchestra operates. "Gianluigi Gelmetti is determined to strengthen the orchestra's links with its community by taking a personal interest in relationships with sponsors, governments and funding bodies, actively helping the careers of young conductors and instrumentalists, and electing to lead SSO touring in his first year to Lismore, Armidale and Newcastle." Sydney Morning Herald 08/22/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 8:55 pm Arts Issues Can You Be Prosecuted For Violent Thought? "Students across the United States have been getting suspended and arrested for written work that authorities have deemed threatening. After two students in Colorado opened fire at Columbine High in 1999, killing 12 other students and a teacher, states and schools have been scrambling to find ways to protect students before violence occurs. But critics say they've been overreacting and violating constitutional rights." Wired 08/22/03 Posted: 08/22/2003 8:29 am An Arts Town Success Story Not so long ago, the city of Somerville, Mass. was "dilapidated, a place where artists got harassed; they certainly didn’t hold court at major intersections or thrash about in the street like dying fish. Over the past 20 years or so, the stigma of living in Somerville has been reduced, if not completely removed. Whatever the general explanation, most folks credit local artists — and, on a larger scale, the visible integration of art into the community by the Somerville Arts Council (SAC) — for helping to revitalize the city and improve its residents’ quality of life. The SAC is much more than a funnel for state grants. It’s a relatively high-profile, community-based collective that not only produces independent cultural programming all year long, but works to draw out the artistic strengths of its community. Which makes Somerville a kind of local-arts-scene success story, a city in which the influence of art isn’t merely discernable, but recognized for helping improve the town’s very tenor." Boston Phoenix 08/21/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 10:22 pm World's Languages Are Disappearing Ninety percent of the world's languages are expected to die out within a generation. "The social status of a language is the most accurate way of predicting whether it will survive, argue researchers in a paper appearing in the journal Nature. They also suggest that active intervention to boost the status of rare and endangered languages can save them." Discovery 08/21/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 10:07 pm People John Coplans, 83 John Coplans, a founder and former editor of Artforum magazine, who was also a painter, critic, curator, museum director and "finally a photographer of discomfiting images of his own aging body," has died at the age of 83. The New York Times 08/22/03 Posted: 08/22/2003 7:27 am Do We Really Miss Katharine, Bob and Gregory That Much? "America seems to be rather ghoulishly prolonging, and even luxuriating in, the grief attendant upon the recent spate of top-table Hollywood demises. This is a measure of the affection that these old warhorses inspired in many people. But I wonder if this enduring nostalgia doesn't also arise from a widespread wish not to have to gaze upon the present, on the haemorrhaging economy and rising unemployment, on what's been so disastrously wrought in the Middle East through lies and manipulation, or the ghastly triumphs of NeoCon-corporate feudalism." The Guardian (UK) 08/22/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 8:28 pm Rowling Nobel Campaign Fizzles A fan campaign to nominate Harry Potter author JK Rowling for a Nobel has fizzled. "Not a single person sent a letter to the Nobel Committee suggesting her for the 2004 literature award despite an internet crusade asking them to do so." BBC 08/21/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 6:04 pm Theatre Time To Politicize Politicl theatre has made a big comeback at the Edinburgh Fringe. "A lot of this much-vaunted new political theatre has, admittedly, suffered from the problems that administered a lethal injection to the genre 20 years ago. Way, way too much of it has been designed solely to massage the lazy prejudices of its audiences. One more routine about how Americans are all obese imbeciles, and I think my head might have burst; one more person howling at some smugly inactive audience that "children are dying, children are dying", and I might have lapsed into a coma. But from this sea of predictable, knee-jerk tedium, two stunning (and very different) new voices have risen." The Independent (UK) 08/22/03 Posted: 08/22/2003 7:15 am BBC To Broadcast Play Live The BBC will broadcast a performance of Richard II live from London's Globe Theatre. "It is thought to be the first live screening of a theatre play: while operas and concerts are often broadcast live, the theatrical community is far less willing to let in the cameras." The Guardian (UK) 08/22/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 8:22 pm Publishing The Chick Lit Put-Down Why do critics disparage "chick lit"? "A whole generation of writing about young women's lives is being trashed by commentators who took one look at a 'fluffy pink cover' and got out their knives. Chick-lit is a deliberately condescending term they use to rubbish us all. If they called it slut-lit it couldn't be any more insulting." The Guardian (UK) 08/20/03 Posted: 08/21/2003 8:33 pm Media 50 Ways To Improve The Movies Movies seem worse than ever this summer. "It's been a year when flicks about talking fish, a freak horse and an ancient Disney ride have rocked the box office, and unbearable lovers Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have been only slightly less lethal than unstoppable killers Freddy and Jason." So here are 50 ways to improve things... Toronto Star 08/22/03 Posted: 08/22/2003 8:20 am