A Persistence Of Beauty "A lot of art, especially of the past, has set out to be beautiful; a lot of art, especially of the present, has set out to be ugly. Or, if not ugly, then at least workaday in its surface sheen, for fear that too much beauty might distract from whatever hard truths the film or painting or composition wishes to tell us. And yet there has been a kind of semi-guilty underground cult of beauty that has persisted through our ugly times." The New York Times 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 8:11 am
How (Whether) To Reform German Spelling In 1998, Germany undertook to reform its spelling. Six years on, there are big forces at work to change back to old spellings. "Backers of reform say simplification of spelling is badly needed to make life easier for schoolchildren; rolling back now would cause chaos in the classroom and cost millions. Critics say the overhaul has failed and Germany could become a land of dyslexics. Both sides have a point..." The Economist 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 9:43 pm
What Role Language? "It seems that words for exact numbers do not exist in all languages. And if someone has no word for a number, he may have no notion of what that number means. While there is no dispute that language influences what people think about, evidence suggesting it determines thought is inconclusive." The Economist 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 9:37 pm
Of Pugilism And Philosophy Is there really much relationship between boxing and philosophy? Well... "The deeper you get into the fights, the more you may discover about things that would seem at first blush to have nothing to do with boxing. Lessons in spacing and leverage, or in holding part of oneself in reserve even when hotly engaged, are lessons not only in how one boxer reckons with another but also in how one person reckons with another. The fights teach many such lessons -- about virtues and limits of craft, about the need to impart meaning to hard facts by enfolding them in stories and spectacle, about getting hurt and getting old, about distance and intimacy, and especially about education itself: Boxing conducts an endless workshop in the teaching and learning of knowledge with consequences." Chronicle of Higher Education 08/13/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 6:21 pm
Baker: Parthenon Marbles - Send 'Em Back Kenneth Baker weighs in on repatriating the Parthenon Marbles to Greece: Few object when courts ordain the return of art treasures and other property confiscated from European Jews by the Nazis. But people seem to feel the ethical force of arguments for repatriation of valuable plunder less when they involve greater spans of time and differences in culture. After Tony Blair's mortifying alliance with the "coalition of the willing," an agreement to return to their origin the greatest surviving remnants of Greek classicism would go a long way to restore Britain's international prestige." San Francisco Chronicle 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 8:36 am
Graffiti Lives! (And Will Continue) The UK is cracking down on graffiti. But will threats of bigger penalties and stepped up enforcement deter graffiti? Not likely - the danger, the difficulty - it's all part of the allure... BBC 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 7:25 am
Georgia Science Museum To Close "After years of declining attendance and contributions, the Science and Technology Museum of Georgia is suspending operations this weekend. SciTrek has struggled financially for years, although its recent tax forms show a balanced budget of about $2.6 million. About 70 percent of its financial contributions came from local businesses, with the rest from city and state government." ABCNews.com 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 7:17 am
Plans (Many Of Them) To Help Aboriginal Artists Australian Aboriginal art is very popular these days, and the market just keeps on going up. But the artists themselves live in poverty, so now some plans to improve their welfare. "Suddenly such conscience is manifest in several plans - complementary, competing, or controversial, depending on your view - initiated by dealers, auction houses, artists, and government." Sydney Morning Herald 08/20/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 11:16 pm
Uffizi Faces Major Cuts Florence's Uffizi Gallery could see its budget cut by 25 percent next year, leading to severe cutbacks. "Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has approved the cuts, which will be discussed by parliament in the autumn and are aimed at containing Italy's deficit within limits set by the European Union." 940News (AP) 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 8:31 pm
- Italian Culture Minister: Shut Down Uffizi? Italy's culture minister has threatened to shut down the Uffizi museum if the government does not scale back planned spending cuts. The Guardian (UK) 08/20/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 8:06 pm
Russia To Prosecute Artists For Lampooning Church The Russian parliament has ordered prosecutors to bring a group of artists to trial for allegedly "inciting religious strife" by lampooning the Russian Orthodox Church.
Canoe (CP) 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 7:04 pm
New: Top Of The (Download) Charts It won't be long before music charts that only count CD sales will be obsolete. Napster has announced it is starting a top downloads chart to rank music popularity. "The Napster Online Music Chart will count down the top 20 tunes based on sales as well as songs that have been streamed (listened to online but not bought for permanent download) in a show that goes out Sundays at 7pm." BBC 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 6:17 pm
US Arts Funding Still Wobbly It's been three years of cuts in arts funding at the state and local level in America. So are things about to get better? A look around the country doesn't give much reason for optimism. Back Stage 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 8:25 am
Artists Against Bush There is an awful lot of anti-Bush art making the rounds these days. "You don't need a conspiracy theory or an imminent Republican convention to explain why there is so much Bush-bashing entertainment today: Mr. Bush is in power. The opposition is generally more motivated, but perhaps not as galvanized as it seems to be this year." The New York Times 08/20/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 11:00 pm
Baltic Gallery Chief Arrested For Assault "The director of the £46m Baltic arts gallery in Gateshead is on police bail after being arrested after an alleged indecent assault in London, it emerged yesterday. Stephen Snoddy, 44, has been suspended from his job running the new gallery, which has been dubbed the Tate Modern of the north, while the investigation continues." The Guardian (UK) 08/20/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 10:49 pm
Remembering Czeslaw Milosz "Milosz was always worried that he had betrayed his homeland by leaving it and was glad to return to newly free Poland for the final years of his life. He was welcomed as a literary giant. But like many east European intellectuals who flourished in adversity, he had little to say directly about the new era of uncaptive minds. 'Intellectuals have a certain image of things and don't know very well what is going on beneath, in people's heads, after those decades of totalitarian smashing and modelling'.” The Economist 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 9:40 pm
Broadway's Golden Age? Was there really such a thing as a Golden Age of Broadway? A filmmaker goes in search of the answer. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 8:30 am
Zagat On Broadway, 2004 "Perhaps there are no earth-shattering revelations in the recently released summer edition of the 2004 Zagat Survey New York City Theater Guide, covering 62 Broadway and Off-Broadway productions as reviewed by 15,760 theatregoers. Still, the public opinion poll, conceived as a consumer guide to theatre, does offer some interesting insights about the habits of audience members besides their ratings of plays and musicals." Back Stage 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 8:19 am
Barnes & Noble Has A Good Quarter Even W/O Harry Book sales comparisons between this June and last are difficult because last year offered a new Harry Potter book. But even without one this year, Barnes & Noble has a good quarter. "The hit may have been only a single, but a 5% jump in bookstore revenues to $961.3 million and a 1.4% rise in comps still look pretty good in the scorebook." Yahoo! (Motley Fool) 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 6:28 pm
Regis: Mr. TV - The Record Holder TV personality Regis Philben set a record this week: "The boisterous co-host of 'Live with Regis and Kelly' was officially recognized as the 'Guinness Book of World Records' champion for 'Most Hours on Camera,' reaching 15,188 hours at a taping. For those without a calculator, that's like working 90 weeks solid - no breaks. Hugh Downs held the previous record: 10,511 hours, set in 1997." New York Daily News 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 8:01 am
File-Sharers Win Huge Victory A US court has ruled that peer-to-peer file-sharing services Morpheus and Grokster are legal. "The decision is a blow for record labels and movie studios which sued the peer-to-peer operators claiming that the services should be held liable for the copyright infringement of their users." Wired 08/19/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 6:35 pm
Danish Report: Ballet Is Popular A Danish newspaper reports that ballet is undergoing a worldwide surge in interest. "Denmark's three accredited ballet schools are turning down applicants like never before, and the Peter Schaufuss Ballet in Holstebro is regularly performing to packed houses." Copenhagen Post 08/20/04
Posted: 08/20/2004 7:19 am
BalletLab As A Product Phillip Adams' BalletLab has a short history - it was founded by Adams in 1998 - but the company has already made an impressive impact in Australia and abroad, having already toured to Beijing, Mongolia, Britain and Europe."Product is what it is. But I'm not embarrassed about my art, and I'm an artist with a pretty clear vision of what I want to say to the world. I am a damn fine schmoozer and am one of those people that get out there and are not ashamed to say 'this is my gear and I think you will like it'. I think there's a place for it not just in the Australian scene, but in the international arena." The Age (Melbourne) 08/20/04
Posted: 08/19/2004 9:27 pm
