Too Many Snips & Snails Put Asia's Future At Risk Most of the reasons for the preference in many Asian cultures for sons over daughters have long since passed into irrelevance, but "a strong preference for sons persists, enhanced by technology that increasingly allows parents to realize their desires. Amniocentesis and ultrasound can easily identify the sex of a fetus, and sex-selective abortion has become an everyday practice... Scholars and feminist organizations in both Asia and the West have produced many volumes of often conflicting advice about how to combat the practice. Now two political scientists have joined the fray with an ominous argument: Offspring sex selection could soon lead to war." The Chronicle of Higher Education 04/30/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 9:02 am
Atlantis Discovered! (Again.) (Maybe.) "A quest for the lost island of Atlantis began off the southern shores of Cyprus yesterday. After a decade of intense study an American, Robert Sarmast, claims to have assembled evidence to prove that the fabled island lies a mile deep in the sea between Cyprus and Syria... By August he hopes to have proved that Atlantis was not simply a figment of the imagination but a real empire with stone temples, bridges, canals and roads." Of course, Sarmast is hardly the first to have claimed that the mythical island exists, and recent claims as to its whereabouts have spanned at least four continents. The Guardian (UK) 04/30/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 8:49 am
Picasso Could Go For $100 Mil "A rare Picasso canvas from the painter's Rose period could set an art-world sales record with a hammer price of as much as $100-million when it goes up for auction on Wednesday evening at a blockbuster single-owner sale at Sotheby's in New York. The event kicks off the spring season of Impressionist and modern-art sales." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 10:43 am
Mies House Reopens In Illinois "Four months after spending $7.5 million to buy the Farnsworth House and keep the icon of 20th Century modernism in Illinois, preservationists will open the house for tours Saturday, hoping the public will warm to the cool, steel-and-glass masterwork by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The 53-year-old house, 58 miles southwest of Chicago, appeared to be in jeopardy until a last-minute surge of donations gave preservation groups the war chest they needed to purchase it on Dec. 12 at a Sotheby's auction in New York. The groups had feared that a wealthy bidder might move the house out of state." Chicago Tribune 04/30/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 10:05 am
Privatizing The Randall? "A stealthy proposal to privatize a popular public museum as a solution to San Francisco's short-term budget shortfalls has raised the hackles of museum users, who are demanding a full public airing of the agreement. The Randall Museum, home to children's art and science programs in the city since 1951, would have its operations turned over to the Randall Museum Friends, a private, nonprofit organization with about 20 members whose stated mission is to 'support the Randall Museum by providing strategic private-sector leadership, raising funds, and advocating for the museum.'" San Francisco Bay Guardian 04/21/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 9:41 am
Colorado's New Direction When the Colorado Symphony hired 47-year-old Jeffrey Kahane to succeed Marin Alsop as music director, it signaled a distinct change in the way the orchestra will present itself to the community. Alsop was a virtual unknown when she came to Denver, and as her star rose in the wider music world, the CSO's name came along for the ride. But Kahane is no up-and-coming youngster: he's an established name in the industry, a much-respected pianist, and an artist in the prime of his career. Those may seem like excellent reasons to hire a music director, but at a time when so many other orchestras are looking for the next big thing in conducting, Colorado seems to have made something of a safe choice. Denver Post 05/02/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 11:47 am
Using Sound To Create Human Puppets Just as certain smells can make you salivate and certain visual images can inspire certain feelings, music and sound have the power to trigger specific reactions in the human brain. A biotech company is hoping to take financial advantage of that fact by "integrating neurosensory algorithms into music to create a certain mood and evoke more intense responses from listeners. The company hopes to market its compositions to the movie industry and video game companies." Wired 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 11:14 am
Will NJSO Have To Pay For Axelrod's Dodge? The New Jersey Symphony thought that philanhropist Herbert Axelrod was nuts when he offered to sell them a $50 million collection of instruments for $18 million, but they certainly never thought that, by agreeing to the sale, they would be running afoul of the United States Congress. But now, with Axelrod hiding out in Cuba from charges of tax evasion, "Senate investigators are questioning whether the instrument sale is representative of a fast-growing tax dodge in which wealthy donors inflate the value of gifts — from rare violins to paintings, period furnishings and even fossils — abetted by docile appraisers, weak tax enforcement and cultural institutions with little interest in making waves." The New York Times 05/02/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 8:38 am
- Previously: Billionaire On The Lam: The Axelrod Myth Unravels In the days since New Jersey philanthropist Herbert Axelrod fled to Cuba to avoid indictment on tax evasion charges, details have begun to emerge about the man who had been called New Jersey's greatest arts benefactor. "It has become clear that myth and reality were always hard to separate in the life of Herbert Axelrod, whether the subject be tropical fish, charity or musical instruments... A review of lawsuits, public documents and interviews with those who were once close to Axelrod suggest he was never quite what people thought. Court papers filed in a pending lawsuit against him depict him as a liar and a womanizer who funneled cash in the form of author's payments to a woman with whom he had a years-long affair." Newark Star-Ledger 04/25/04
Can Artists Create A Balanced Picture Of Islam? With the entire world seemingly caught up in conflicts involving radical Islam, it is becoming ever-more imperative that residents of primarily non-Islamic countries gain some sort of cultural recognition of the broader scope of Islamic culture. In Australia, the city of Melbourne is uniquely positioned to make such an educational push, say Greg Barns and Jane Rankin-Reid, but it will require a concerted effort on the part of the city's artistic and cultural institutions. The Age (Melbourne) 04/26/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 9:36 am
The Bach Barfly Matt Haimovvitz could be making his career in the great concert halls of the world, playing his cello in front of the top orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. Instead, he's touring America, hauling his distinctly classical instrument into profoundly unclassical bars, pizza parlors, and nightclubs, and subjecting the patrons to some solo Bach. Why bother? Call it a musical answer to the question of why everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it: in an era when every classical musician talks about the necessity of breeding new audiences for the old music, Haimovitz is actually making a stab at doing it. The New York Times 05/02/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 11:25 am
Edwards Signs Off Morning Edition The Bob Edwards era at NPR is officially over. On Friday, Edwards, who has been cast as the martyr to the increasing corporatization of public radio since news of his "reassignment" broke weeks ago, thanked his listeners for "24 years and 6 months" of loyalty, conducted a last interview with CBS newsman Charles Osgood, and faded into the obscurity of his new nebulously defined job as "senior correspondent." The New York Times 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 9:26 am
Can Levine Still Conduct? As James Levine winds up another season at the Met and prepares to take the helm of the Boston Symphony in 2004, concerns over his health and ability to do his job are finding a public voice. Persistent shaking and loss of energy have become an everyday part of Levine's podium demeanor, and his musicians, many of whom stress that without Levine, the Met orchestra would not be the revered ensemble it is today, claim that he is nearly impossible to follow on a nightly basis. Levine insists that, despite the shaking, he is in excellent health, but questions persist about his workload and future prospects. The New York Times 05/01/02
Posted: 05/02/2004 9:20 am
The Post-9/11 Musical, Written 10 Years In Advance Stephen Sondheim's gut-punch of a musical, Assassins, has finally made it to Broadway more than a decade after its debut, and the reception has been largely positive. But audiences have been reluctant to reward the actors with the usual standing ovation, and Frank Rich thinks he knows why. "If the old maxim has it that you should never yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater, it's even worse to wave a gun in a crowded theater in New York City at a time when an Associated Press poll shows that two-thirds of Americans expect a terrorist attack before the election, with one-third expecting the political conventions to be a target." The New York Times 05/02/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 11:20 am
Shaw Looks For a Rebound Season Between the SARS virus, the blackout that left a good chunk of Ontario in the dark for an entire weekend, and the American invasion of Iraq, 2003 was not a good year for the Shaw Festival and its first-year director, Jackie Maxwell. "Tourists stayed away in droves and the end result was a deficit of $3 million, of which $2.5 million was attributable to falling attendances." The Shaw will look to rebound this summer, and Maxwell is looking to put her stamp on the festival's artistic image after a tumultuous first year on the job. Toronto Star 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 10:59 am
Noble Fool Meets An Ignoble End Chicago's Noble Fool Theatre Company has shut down, but the company's founder and board will continue to operate, hopefully reemerging as a more wide-ranging arts organization. In the short term, "Noble Fool will continue as the exclusive theater presenter at two new venues at" a local resort, and certain performances will continue as the company attempts to reorganize financially. Chicago Sun-Times 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 10:01 am
State Of The Theater: LA Edition It's the best of times and the worst of times for the musical theater scene in Los Angeles. On the one hand, the quality of local productions is way up in recent years, and there seems to be no shortage of work for the area's actors. But on the other hand, the cost of mounting such productions has gone through the roof, and there are even whispers that the business model may no longer be viable in the longer term. Still, in an era when many sectors of the American cultural scene are struggling to survive, L.A.'s theater crowd is learning to adjust to new realities. Backstage West 04/30/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 8:55 am
The Evolution Of Silly Book Marketing Techniques Book tours suck. With the demise of truly local TV in most major markets, authors making the rounds are forced to spend most of their days in bookstores, signing endless copies of their tomes for marked-up sale to the type of book junkie who likes that kind of thing. "A signed book [has quickly become] a sine qua non for collectors. The best comparison I can think of is to the dust jacket. Until 50 years ago, the book's paper wrapper was there to draw attention in a store, and to protect the book until someone actually sat down and read it. At that time it was commonly discarded—which is why so few books with intact dust jackets survive from those early days." Village Voice 04/26/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 9:13 am
Judge: Canadian Film Censorship Illegal An Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled that the province's practice of requiring all films to be submitted to a censor board for approval is illegal under Canada's Charter of Rights & Freedoms. In his ruling, the judge said that the government had provided "no satisfactory explanation why prior approval of films to be shown to the public at large was required," especially since similar screening processes are not required for film festivals and other "limited audience" screenings. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 10:49 am
The Genies, All Bottled Up The Genie Awards try hard, they really do, but getting Canadians to watch a Canadian awards show focusing solely on Canadian films, when Canadians can already see the Oscars and the Golden Globes, which focus on films that Canadians actually go to in large numbers, is a difficult undertaking. So with the Genie telecast moving to a new channel this year, the organizers thought that a new host might liven things up. But can even former Kid in the Hall Scott Thompson make the Genie's a marketable event? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 10:11 am
Is It Just Possible That Nobody Cares? NC-17 is losing some of its taboo qualities, with major studios agreeing to release films with the once-dreaded rating, and newspapers readily airing ads for them. True, video stores still won't stock them, but they will stock "unrated" versions of R-rated films which include NC-17-worthy footage. So what does it all mean? Are we a more permissive society than we were a decade ago? Are studios less risk-averse? Is Western civilization knuckling under to the dark forces of deviant morality? Or is it just possible that Hollywood has decided that there's very little point in having a rating that you can't use? Boston Globe 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 9:54 am
Royal Winnipeg Loses 9 Dancers, 2 Principals Turnover is not abnormal in the ballet world, and most companies can expect to lose a dancer or two in a given year. But the Royal Winnipeg Ballet is taking a rather large hit this summer, with 9 of its 26 dancers, including two male principals, either being let go or leaving the company on their own. CBC 05/01/04
Posted: 05/02/2004 9:32 am
