Ideas Culture Of Sweets "This year, confectioners expect to generate Halloween sales of $2 billion in America alone. Last year, the country’s total confectionery sales were $24 billion—the highest anywhere. Behind all the fun, the business is fiercely competitive—and consolidating fast. Worldwide sales of confectionery and chewing gum in 2003 are estimated to reach $112 billion, according to Euromonitor. The industry is led by Nestlé, Cadbury Schweppes, M&M/Mars, and Hershey." The Economist 10/30/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 10:22 pm Visual Arts Chapman Attacks Tate Modern: It's Bad Jake Chapman, a Turner Prize finalist, and "half of the pair dubbed 'the Brothers Grim', has unleashed an excoriating attack on the Tate Modern and Saatchi galleries, accusing them of threatening the future of art by bowing to the lowest common denominator. He called the Tate a 'monument to absolute cultural saturation' and said he would rather take a ride at Alton Towers than look at some of its contents. Charles Saatchi's gallery was 'simply an expression of one man's ownership'." The Observer (UK) 11/02/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 8:40 am The World's Most-Desired Art (A Top 10 List) What are the most-wanted pieces of art in private hands? ARTnews has made a list of the ten most-coveted artworks. "Yearning — the more discreet the better — makes the art world go ’round. Dealers and auction specialists at the top of their game know where the most wanted artworks are at any given moment and what price might wrest a coveted object from its owner. Museum curators keep track of the same information to court loans and gifts. Collectors, meanwhile, no matter how desired the works in their own collections, always have an eye on something else." ARTnews 11/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 10:13 pm Studying The Venice Water Gates Venice is under threat of a major flood - not if, but when. So it's time to get on with building gates to help control water. The controversial flood control plan has been in the works for decades. "The barriers are to be completed by 2012 at a cost of 2.5 billion euros. A prototype section of the barriers was successfully tested as long ago as the 1980s, but their execution has been delayed by objections from the Green Party, which believes, among other things, that they would cause the lagoon to become dangerously polluted if closed frequently." The Art Newspaper 10/26/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 8:37 pm Music Digital Singles Outsell CDs "Digital tracks are outselling physical singles by a growing margin, a sign that consumers increasingly are embracing the brave new world of Internet downloading. Digital download sales outpaced physical singles 857,000 to 170,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures for the week ending Oct. 26. That's slightly more than a 5-to-1 ratio." Washington Post (Reuters) 11/02/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 8:51 am Is Einaudi Our Most Popular Classical Composer? Ludovico Einaudi is "Classic FM's most requested contemporary composer. His latest album, Echoes, went straight to the top of the classical charts when it was released in September. It has sold 50,000 copies – enough to put it at number 40 on the pop chart. It isn't the sort of music you would immediately associate with a concert hall. Certainly, it is perfect music if you're doing something else at the same time as listening to it. And yet he has just performed to a packed Barbican, where he received a standing ovation. The Telegraph (UK) 11/02/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 8:48 am Single-Minded - Recording Business Changing Priorities The economics of the recording industry are changing. "The success of iTunes has made clear to the music industry an uncomfortable truth: many people want to buy single tracks, not albums. Apple's data show that its customers bought 12 singles for every one album at iTunes. That compares with 0.02 singles per album in American stores, according to research by Sanford Bernstein. The best artists may tempt people to buy a whole album. But the industry can no longer rely on getting the price of an album as a reward for backing a band." The Economist 10/30/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 10:18 pm Pianist Performs All Beethoven's 32 In One Day British pianist Julian Jacobsen performed all 32 Beethoven sonatas in one day Friady. "As the pianist began the challenge in St James' church, Piccadilly, at 0915 GMT, he said: 'It's pretty crazy isn't it?' He told BBC Radio 4 it was a 'self-test to see if I can get through it all and keep my concentration', and a chance to raise money for his favourite charity." BBC 11/01/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 9:49 pm Charlotte Symphony Strike Ends Musicians in the Charlotte Symphony ended their strike after getting close to a contract settlement. The proposed contract calls for an initial pay cut, but then increases. "The agreement leaves two key issues yet to be resolved: the management's proposals to have players shoulder more health-care costs and to reduce the musicians' paid time off. Those issues will be dealt with by task forces made up of players, management and staff members working with a federal mediator." Charlotte Observer 11/01/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 4:24 pm Arts Issues de Waart: Australians Should Value Culture As Much As Football Departing conductor Sydney Symphony music director Edo de Waart tells Australians their priorities are wrong. "A soccer match, a rugby match or cricket is way more important than the arts. Perhaps it is in your genes. In Europe . . . the British orchestras are paid worst of all. I think that has become normal here, too. You need someone like Paul Keating who will make the statement that the country is not only measured by how fast you can run 100 metres but also whether you have singers and theatre and movies that can be on the international stage." Sydney Morning Herald 11/03/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 8:43 am US Rejoins UNESCO After boycotting UNESCO for two decades, the US has once again joined the UN's cultural body. "The US has been granted a seat on the executive council for its ambassador, a post for which President Bush has nominated Louise Oliver, a conservative Republican fund-raiser who must be confirmed by the Senate." The Art Newspaper 10/31/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 10:10 pm People Stories Of Gabriel García Márquez Published in 1967, Gabriel García Márquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' became "one of those extremely rare books that affected people's ideas about the contemporary novel and also their sense of reality. This became true not only for his readers but also for the many more who eventually received such information, diluted and dispersed into popular culture, without being aware of its source. (A recent newspaper poll in Spain found 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' ranked just after the Bible and 'Don Quixote' in universal historical importance - surely the voters can't all have read it?) Indeed, it is hard to conceive what our sense of the novel, or even of Latin America itself, would be like now had the writings of Gabriel García Márquez never existed." New York Times Magazine 11/02/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 10:05 pm Theatre New Life For Tennessee? Tennessee Williams' plays have not worn well in recent years. But "nobody wrote like him - with the beautiful agony, compassionate brutality and sexually complicated women. On the other hand, no one overwrote like him either. Did the sexual revolution and gay liberation let the air out of his theatrical high-compression chambers? Are we so casual about our internal lives that even gorgeous imagery about sensual menace seems less majestic than ludicrous? If so, can his time come again? People in important places are betting that it can." Newsday 11/02/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 8:29 am The Producers Failing To Produce "The Producers opened as a monster hit on Broadway. It was supposed to stay that way, packing houses for years. But it hasn't turned out that way. "Less than three years after its incomparably auspicious opening, The Producers, in the eyes of many on Broadway, has become an underachiever. Its box office grosses, which set record highs — more than $1.2 million per week — in its first year, have fallen about 20 percent in the last 12 months. It now ranks below newer shows like Hairspray and Mamma Mia! as well as The Lion King." The New York Times 11/02/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 7:52 am Publishing The Giller At 10 Canada's Giller Prize for literature is ten years old. In a short time it has gained stature as a major literary prize that has elevated Canadian writers. "This year's 10th anniversary edition of the Giller Prize will be broadcast live Tuesday in prime time on the CBC national network in addition to its regular home on Book TV, the first time it has had that level of exposure. Authors who have won the Giller have become internationally celebrated, and those on the short lists have gone from marginal to famous figures." Toronto Star 11/02/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 8:58 am Okay, So Lit Prizes Are Useful Philip Marchand has not been a fan of literary prizes. But he has to admit: "Like it or not, our literary culture has discovered that it can't do without prizes. And the success of the Giller Prize, in this country, has been remarkable — at least success measured in terms of public awareness. How has this come to pass? One explanation is television." Toronto Star 11/02/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 8:01 am British Library To Save Web Pages The British Library is going to begin archiving websites. "The archive will comprise selective 'harvesting' from the 2.9 million sites that have 'co.uk' suffixes. This new legislation will now mean that a vital part of the nation's published heritage will be safe." BBC 11/01/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 9:22 pm Media Media Blames - Journalist As Bad Guy Journalists occupy low standing in the public mind these days. Ok, they've acted badly from time to time, and their preoccupation with entertaining rather than informing us is often grating. But the entertainment media has latched on to the journalist-as-bad-guy theme, and it isn't exactly fair (or accurate) writes Frank Rich. The New York Times 11/02/03 Posted: 11/02/2003 8:01 am Dance Tobias: ABT Overcomes Absurdities American Ballet Theatre's fall season looked foolish before it even hit the floor, writes Tobi Tobias. But "despite follies of programming, casting, and coaching and the perennial tug between the concerns of commerce and those of art, the ABT season repeatedly delivered little miracles." Seeing Things (AJBlogs) 11/01/03 Posted: 11/01/2003 10:32 pm