A Language From The Beginning How are languages created, and how do they evolve? A group of deaf kids in Nicaragua have developed their own sign language and are teaching linguists much about the evolution of language. The Economist 02/19/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 5:45 pm
The Art Of Ethical Industry "Over the past couple of decades, the ethics industry has kicked into high gear. We now have a growing number of professional ethicists who are prepared to act as superegos for hire to the various professions. Indeed, take any given profession and there is another profession called the ethics of that profession. (Think bioethics, medical ethics, legal ethics, computer ethics, and so forth.)" Chronicle of Higher Education 02/20/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 5:09 pm
Surveying the WTC Memorial Proposals Maybe you didn't like the proposal chosen for the World Trade Center monument. Well, take a look at the proposals that didn't make it: "All 5,201 of the entries that the jury sifted through went on display at www.wtcsitememorial.org yesterday. Visitors to the site who signed on to second-guess the jury — "How could they have overlooked that?" — probably left with a new respect for the jurors' devotion and patience in going through the entire lot without pay. Visitors may also have left with a sense that the world cared, no matter how clumsy or inartful the expression." The New York Times 02/20/04
Posted: 02/20/2004 8:26 am
Flavor Of The Year - Concert Halls Civic buildings get built in waves, writes James Russell. "Cities often want to build the architectural bauble du jour in their unending search for the grail of world classness. There was a wave of convention centers, followed by sports stadiums, (add a zoo or aquarium here or there) then museums. Now, especially after the tumultuous reception that Disney Hall in Los Angeles received, everyone wants a concert hall." Sticks & Stones (AJBlogs) 02/18/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 11:50 pm
UN To Expand Its HQ The United Nations headquarters in New York was an architectural trendsetter when it opened in the 1950s. Now it's time for expansion and "plans for extensive renovations and the addition of a new administrative building, to be designed by Fumihiko Maki, have once again put the UN at the forefront of design - this time the struggle to reconcile security features with aesthetics and openness." Financial Times 02/20/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 6:26 pm
Meeting The Modern In Stockholm The Moderna Museet in Stockholm is "the largest and most important museum of contemporary art north of Dusseldorf." But two years ago it closed, a "sick" building that need to be closed and extensively repaired. "So, 27 months after its closure, the building has re-opened. The museum has come home. But home has changed quite a lot. The place looks different. The place feels different. The art is organised in quite different ways too." Financial Times 02/20/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 6:14 pm
Keep Focused - Tracking Down Looted Iraq Art Last year Col. Matthew Bogdanos led the US team trying to recover art looted from the Iraq National Museum. "Now, after recovering more than 4,000 stolen artifacts, Bogdanos's team is in shambles, its members recalled to other projects or done with their tours of duty. The Marine colonel himself will be returning to civilian life at the end of March. So this winter he's touring the world, pleading with government officials, military experts, and antiquities specialists to continue his effort to recover more than 9,000 missing treasures dating back to the birth of city life, the invention of written language, the world's first laws." Christian Science Monitor 02/20/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 5:59 pm
In RoadTrip: Osmo Loosens Up Sam Bergman on tour in Europe with the Minnesota Orchestra: "It rarely occurs to musicians that conductors must feel the same pressures that we do, and in considerably greater measure. But if the expectations were high for this orchestra on this tour, they were stratospheric for Osmo, who is being asked to prove his reputation on a global stage with an American orchestra, in the very first year of his tenure with us. Now, Osmo is not the type of conductor who buckles in the face of pressure, and he's been more or less rock solid on the podium throughout the trip. But where his demeanor in the early rehearsals was fairly stern and even a bit domineering, we now see him cracking jokes and trading quips with the musicians during the evening touch-ups." RoadTrip (AJBlogs) 02/20/04
Posted: 02/20/2004 9:47 am
Death of The Pop Album For decades, the pop music album has been considered a work of art in its own right, at its best mixing songs into a coherent and interesting whole. But more and more critics are suggesting that the album as an artform is dead. "To say the least, the idea of what constitutes a proper album is unravelling, and the artists, as always, are causing a lot of that change themselves." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/20/04
Posted: 02/20/2004 8:42 am
Barenboim To Quit Chicago Symphony Conductor Daniel Barenboim has told Chicago Symphony officials he'll leave the orchestra after 17 years as music director. "Barenboim, 61, cited the toll of travel between Chicago and his home base in Berlin and the increasing "non-artistic'' demands being made on music directors of U.S. orchestras to expand audiences as key factors in his decision." Chicago Sun-Times 02/20/04
Posted: 02/20/2004 8:29 am
- Why Barenboim Is Leaving Why is Barenboim leaving the Chicago Symphony? One official suggested that "there have been ongoing conflicts with the administration and trustees regarding the 'non-artistic' side of his directorship, including questions about his taking a firmer hand in fundraising, community outreach and maintaining a more regular community presence." Chicago Tribune 02/20/04
Posted: 02/20/2004 8:06 am
Detroit - Where Chamber Music Thrives Chamber music series all over America have been struggling. But the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, celebrating its 60th birthday, has never been doing better. Its budget has doubled in the past decade, it has a record number of subscriber, and it consistently sells out its concerts. Detroit Free Press 02/19/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 11:21 pm
Who Will Lead Them? Who will take over the top jobs in New York's top music administrative jobs? There aren's a lot of good candidates. "The dearth of leadership material is not a consequence of poor remuneration. It is, rather, the fault of a system which diffuses authority in too many directions. The boss of most opera houses and concerthalls (Carnegie excepted) has an artistic director who makes the fun decisions and a board of big givers who double-guess everything else. The boss’s hands are manacled. Initiative is stifled and financial setbacks swiftly punished. The manager of a tyre plant in Denver has more power to transform the product than the president of any US arts centre or opera house." La Scena Musicale 02/18/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 11:02 pm
Scottish Opera Ring Won't Hit Disk Last year's acclaimed Scottish Opera production of Wagner's Ring cycle is blamed for helping precipitate the company's financial crisis. There was a recording made, but it appears the company isn't likely to release it. "Making and releasing a recording of the Ring Cycle, with its four separate parts, would be a major undertaking in a shrinking market for new classical recordings. But it is clear that a recording would have been widely welcomed by opera fans in Scotland and worldwide." The Scotsman 02/20/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 10:33 pm
Australian National Academy Heads In New Direction "The winds of change are blowing through the Australian National Academy of Music in South Melbourne as a new team takes charge following the abrupt departure of the former director, Englishman Frank Wibaut, five months ago." The Age (Melbourne) 02/20/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 4:44 pm
A Code Of Ethics For Non-Profits As government officials consider drafting new oversight rules for non-profits, a Washington group proposes a code of ethics that non-profits could sign on to. "As a matter of fundamental principle, the nonprofit and philanthropic community should adhere to the highest ethical standards because it is the right thing to do. As a matter of pragmatic self-interest, the community should do so because public trust in our performance is the bedrock of our legitimacy." Backstage 02/19/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 4:56 pm
Job Search As Conceptual Art In search of a job, actor/model/artist Richard K. Rogers put together a conceptual gallery show in New York featuring "photos of Rogers marketing various generic products - from telephone services to breath freshener. He - or, more precisely, the cartoony characters he portrays in these deliberately cheesy shots - is either in desperate need of some product or service, or joyfully satisfied because he has used it - whatever it might be." Backstage 02/19/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 5:02 pm
Comedy Nation - It's The UK The comedy industry in Britain has grown enormously in the past decade with more than 150 new clubs opening. Now "with its top stars eyeing America and other overseas markets and its audiences more numerous and knowledgeable than ever before, live comedy can truly claim to be one of Britain's fastest-growing forms of entertainment." Christian Science Monitor 02/20/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 5:54 pm
Magazines Suffer Big Sales Drop Magazine newstand sales are down substantially in the past year. In the last six months, "according to official figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, out of the 472 magazines it tracks, 319 reported newsstand declines and their combined newsstand sales fell 5.9 percent (3.3 million copies), not counting new titles reporting sales for the first time." Women's Wear Daily 02/20/04
Posted: 02/20/2004 9:35 am
When Roddy Dissed James... Last month Irish writer Roddy Doyle dismissed James Joyce's Ulysses as overlong and over-rated. "Not everyone leaped on Mr. Doyle, however, or leaped to Joyce's defense. A number of writers in more serious papers defended Mr. Doyle's right to bash an icon, and some Irish newspaper writers even conceded that they had always found Joyce rather a hard slog." As an admirer of both James and Doyle, John Rockwell is conflected... The New York Times 02/20/04
Posted: 02/20/2004 8:55 am
Infinity Boss: Zero Tolerance On Obscenity Viacom president Mel Karmazin has laid down the law to the top execs of 180 Infinity radio stations around America that Viacom owns. Karmazin is said to have told the execs on a conference call that there is a new "zero-tolerance" policy on obscenity over the air: "If you don't comply, you'll be fired for cause. This company won't be a poster child for indecency." New York Post 02/19/04
Posted: 02/20/2004 10:30 am
Nudity, Bad. Violence? Why Not? Hey, this is America, where it's pretty much required that you be outraged by a little flash of near-nudity on TV. And religion - that's a charged subject too - another something to get uptight about. But gunning down somebody, killing people, maiming them, torture... violence.. well, that's entertainment! The Guardian (UK) 02/20/04
Posted: 02/19/2004 9:51 pm
