Dare To Be Wrong The author of a new book says scientists have forgotten how to be wrong. "In any branch of science there are only two possibilities. There is either nothing left to discover, in which case, why work on it, or there are big discoveries yet to be made, in which case, what the scientists say now is likely to be false. The problem is, the top scientists seem to have forgotten that. The result is a generation of scientists who have become a little too confident that their understanding of the world is more scientifically accurate than it will be proved to be." The Guardian (UK) 06/03/04
A Photo Of Van Gogh? "A Scottish author believes he has discovered the only photograph in existence of Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch master painter, as an adult.
With a fixed stare and pale skin, the neatly suited man with the bristling beard glares out of the nineteenth century photograph with the intensity of a master painter." Glasgow Herald 06/04/04
Posted: 06/04/2004 6:04 am
Hughes: Art Market Is "Obscene" Critic Robert Hughes blasts the state of the art market in a speech in London: "I don't think there is any doubt that the present commercialisation of the art world, at its top end, is a cultural obscenity. When you have the super-rich paying for an immature Rose Period Picasso $104m (£57m), close to the GNP of some Caribbean or African states, something is very rotten: such gestures do no honour to art: they debase it by making the desire for it pathological." The Guardian (UK) 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 8:59 pm
- Hughes: Royal Academy Is The Cure Robert Hughes says that London's Royal Academy could help save art from commercialism: "An institution like the Royal Academy, precisely because it is not commercial, can be a powerful counterweight to the degrading market hysteria we have seen too much of in recent years. I have never been against new art as such; some of it is good, much is crap, most is somewhere in between, and what else is news?" The Guardian (UK) 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 8:38 pm
Scotland's National Gallery May Have To Drop Free Admission "The National Galleries of Scotland has been warned that it may have to scrap its free admissions policy, close a gallery, or cut its opening hours in an effort to combat a multi-million pound deficit. It has a projected annual deficit of more than £3m and by 2009 could have a cumulative shortfall of more than £8m" Glasgow Herald 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 7:42 pm
Hockney: Drawing Is Fundamental Communication David Hockney says drawing should be regarded as a major artform, says David Hockney. "Despite long being seen as almost irrelevant, drawing is a vital part of every creative process. Drawing has been neglected for the last 30 years in art education. That was based upon the idea that photography would suffice as a view of the world." BBC 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 7:00 pm
Controversial Painting Could Hang In SF City Hall "An oil painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners may find sanctuary at San Francisco City Hall after provoking some irate viewers to threaten and assault the owner of the art gallery where it was originally shown." San Jose Mercury-News (AP) 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 6:38 pm
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Scottish Opera Crisis At The Wire "The future of Scottish Opera was hanging in the balance last night after members of the board failed to agree to an Executive-sponsored rescue package. The board meeting had been expected to reach a decision on cost-cutting moves including possible job losses." The Scotsman 06/04/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 10:51 pm
Boston Pops' American Idol Hundreds of hopeful singers lined up Thursday to audition for a chance to sing with the Boston Pops. "In its own version of "American Idol," the orchestra is holding open auditions Thursday and Friday to find a vocalist who will sing in front of 500,000 people expected at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River. The only requirements are that applicants be over 18 and not have agents or recording contracts." The New York Times 06/04/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 10:43 pm
Recreating Old Recordings How to preserve old vinyl and wax cylinder recordings? "Researchers using optical-scanning equipment have made exquisitely detailed maps of the grooves of such recordings. By simulating how a stylus moves along those contours, the team has reproduced the encoded sounds with high fidelity." ScienceNews Online 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 7:18 pm
Why Does Government Prefer Bland Art? "Public culture long ago became synonymous with public acrimony. The direct negotiation over meaning and value that occurs between patron and artist, or buyer and seller, never happens when art is displayed by a patron state as an act of general cultural "uplift." Instead, the cultural becomes political, and the less meaning a work has -- "art that does not offend anyone" -- the better for the state." Reason 05/04/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 7:46 pm
The Old Book Fraud David George Holt concocted an elaborate fraud in old books. "In e-mails heavily salted with charming, European-seeming malapropisms, he conjured aliases such as elderly Swiss antiquities dealer "Frederik Buwe" and offered precious folios at remarkably low prices, book dealers' records show. "Dave J. Masd," allegedly a Holt alias, advertised a vellum leaf from an illuminated mid-13th Century Bible for only $211 and a copy of the Giant Bible of Mainz (1452-53) in good condition, all pages complete, for $224." Chicago Tribune 06/04/04
Posted: 06/04/2004 7:43 am
Cool: The Shows The Republicans Love To Hate "The New York City Republican Convention Host Committee recently designated eight Broadway shows as fit to ply convention delegates with free tickets. There is barely a Tony nominee in the bunch. All are nice, safe musicals guaranteed not to offend mainstream American tastes or, for that matter, provoke much thought. The title song of "42nd Street" is about as risqué as it gets, with its reference to "sexy ladies from the Eighties who are indiscreet. Isn't there marketing gold to be mined, especially in Democratic New York, by advertising these plays as shows Republicans love to hate?" The New York Times 06/04/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 10:47 pm
Handicapping The Tonys "While it is easy to dismiss the Tonys as a crass Broadway publicity device or a ridiculously exclusive talent contest (only Broadway shows need apply, thank you very much), there are always a couple of genuine reasons to watch the show. It offers some competitive drama, of course, especially for avid Broadway fans, people who actually know what orchestrations are and what a musical's book is. (Hint: it's not a novel.) And sure enough, this year such fans can anticipate several close races, including those for best actress in a play and best actress in a musical." The New York Times 06/04/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 10:41 pm
Kushner Blasts Theatre Critic's Attack Theatre critic Hedy Weiss didn't much like Tony Kushner's "Caroline, or Change." In her review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Weiss wrote: "Unfortunately, Kushner, in the classic style of a self-loathing Jew, has little but revulsion for his own roots." Kushner demanded an apology: "It is appalling that a playwright can be flatly accused of hating his own people without a single word cited from the play in question." Chicago Reader 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 10:33 pm
New Haven's Long Wharf Gets New Home Connecticut's Long Wharf Theatre is getting a new home. It will be in a long-neglected area of New Haven, and the $230 million project will include a home for "Gateway Community College, and a new hotel and conference center and parking." This will be "the largest development project in New Haven in 30 years, will be built through state and city funds and from private donors." Newsday (AP) 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 6:34 pm
Romano Vs. Peck At BookExpo Is literary criticism getting too nasty? That was the topic at BookExpo in Chicago. "It seemed debatable -- at least as many people seem to think that literary critics are more often too kind, or at least too polite, than not -- but that didn't stop one prominent book critic from bashing another's brains in, figuratively speaking, for being too negative." Critic Carlin Romano and Dale Peck sparred, with Roman railing at length against what he called Peck's "savagery" and "shrieking denunciations," dismissing his work as "performance art." Chicago Sun-Times 06/04/04
Posted: 06/04/2004 7:59 am
Chicago's Literary Elite Who are the 50 people who make Chicago a great literary place? NewCityChicago made a list: "On this year's list we have a living legend, the Nobel Prize winner for literature, a literary card shark, last year's publishing Cinderella story, rock 'n' roll poets, Hef's chronicler and more." NewCityChicago 06/02/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 10:34 pm
Irish MPs Legislate Joyce Exhibition "Stephen Joyce, the highly litigious grandson of Ireland's greatest writer, James Joyce, has devoted his life to fiercely protecting his grandfather's copyright, setting his lawyers on those foolhardy enough to take the Joyce name in vain or to reproduce Joyce's words without consent. But now, fearful for this month's mammoth celebrations of Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses, Irish MPs yesterday rushed through emergency legislation which will prevent Mr Joyce from suing the government and the National Library over an exhibition which displays 500 pages of Joyce manuscripts." The Guardian (UK) 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 9:46 pm
Tolkien In The Academy "The decades-old dispute over whether Tolkien's work counts as serious literature is still alive. So are the debates over how to interpret the cultural politics of his imaginary world. But even before the author's death, in 1973, some readers were beginning to wonder about a different set of questions: how to understand the relationship between Tolkien's storytelling and his scholarship." Chronicle of Higher Education 06/03/04
Posted: 06/03/2004 9:15 pm
