Our Brains Work Differently When We Lie New research on the brain suggests that our brains behave differently when we're telling a lie than when we're telling the truth. Lying makes the brain work harder. "There may be unique areas in the brain involved in deception that can be measured with fMRI. There may be unique areas in the brain involved in truth telling." Wired 11/30/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 11:11 pm
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Diana Memorial Closed Again The Diana memorial fountain in London is being closed again for emergency repairs. "Metal bars will be fitted under the bridges which span the £3.6million fountain because of fears that children could become trapped under them. The fountain has been a source of embarrassment since opening in the summer. Four visitors, including a mother and daughter, required an ambulance after slipping on the wet granite during its first two weeks, and another twisted her ankle slipping on damp grass next to the fountain." London Evening Standard 11/30/04
Posted: 11/30/2004 7:39 am
Drawn To New MoMA Peter Schjeldahl has been checking out the new MoMA. "I was amused, at the evening opening that I attended, by a negative consensus that emerged in the crowd, evincing the hysteria of sophisticates who find themselves momentarily at a loss for anything to disdain—apart from the grab-bag miscellany of works in the contemporary galleries, which incurred easy, contradictory complaints. (Some yawned at the predictable names, from Serra to Matthew Barney; others deplored oddities." The New Yorker 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 9:54 pm
A Record Aussie Auction Year Australian auction houses look likely to have a record sales year, surpassing $100 million in sales this year. "The evermore frequent sales and reports of record prices have attracted an increasing number of new collectors. With the property boom slowing and the sharemarket at an all-time high, cashed-up investors have turned to art as a tradeable commodity." The Age (Melbourne) 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 6:02 pm
The Archaeological Site And The Superstore The construction and opening of a Wal-Mart-owned superstore in Mexico near an important archaeological site has upset experts. "The presence of the supermarket near the archaeological site, which lies just north of Mexico City, has outraged environmentalists and conservationists but is proving more popular with residents of the small town of San Juan Teotihuacan, many of whom queued up for early bargains when the store opened on 4 November." The Art Newspaper 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 5:47 pm
What's Going On Inside The Getty? Last month's departure of Deborah Gribbon as director of the Getty Museum has led to swirling rumors about the inner workings of the Getty. Some of the most popular theories about dissention in the Getty don't add up, writes Jason Kaufman. The Art Newspaper 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 5:19 pm
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Woman Conductor Breaks Barrier At SF Opera Earlier this season Sara Jobin made history as the first woman ever to conduct a mainstage opera at the San Francisco Opera. "At this point the only people who have trouble with the idea of a woman conductor are sometimes board members, especially older women who have had to fight the hard battles themselves. They look at me and think, 'Why would an orchestra pay attention to you?' But of course the orchestra doesn't pay attention to me, they pay attention to the music." San Francisco Chronicle 11/30/04
Posted: 11/30/2004 9:45 am
Classical Music Recording In A "Golden" Age The classical music recording industry is dying, right? Not so fast, writes Anthony Tommasini. "Despite the financial struggles in the industry, it feels as if we are in the midst of a golden age of classical recording. So what's going on? Several things, no doubt. Being forced to cut back production drastically has made label executives come up with projects that matter, recordings that truly contribute to the discography. "Smaller is better" may be a cliché, but that approach has paid off for the classical recording industry." The New York Times 11/30/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 10:41 pm
Battling Boredom (The Enemy Of Good Criticism) What's the worst crime against music criticism, asks Jen Graves? Boring writing. "True criticism is activism on behalf of a vision. It is crucial to be well-informed, but beyond that, it is better to be wrong than boring. Like orchestras, classical critics allow themselves to be suffocated by false burdens of 'greatness' and posterity." The News-Tribune (Tacoma) 11/27/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 9:34 pm
Minnesota Orchestra Signs New Contract With Musicians Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra have ratified a new three-year contract that begins with a wage freeze. "Extraordinary circumstances in recent years require extraordinary gestures on our part. This will be an unprecedented second consecutive contract with a wage freeze in the first year and containing an overall salary increase significantly below the cost of living." The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 11/30/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 9:19 pm
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Giving Ground - Arts Philanthropy In Canada A new portrait of philanthropic giving to the arts in Canada points to some big challenges. "Less than 2% of the population make financial donations to the arts sector. The average donor is described as being over 45 (57% of donors), university-educated (38%), and with a household income exceeding $50,000 (71%). Nonetheless, while the value of donations is increasing – 22% from 1997 to 2000 – the number of donors has actually decreased, a worrying trend for the future." La Scena Musicale 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 10:08 pm
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Peter Brook, Directing Legend "Widely recognised as the greatest theatre director to have emerged since the Second World War, Peter Brook will be 80 next March. He's a man who - in mid-life and at the pinnacle of success with his historic white-box-and-trapezes A Midsummer Night's Dream - kicked away the careerist ladder, turned his back on England and moved to France in search of working conditions conducive to profound, long-term theatrical research. The veteran director is currently celebrating his 30th year at the Bouffes du Nord, the wonderful disused music hall with the mysterious proportions of a mosque that he discovered and reopened in all its battered beauty in 1974." The Independent (UK) 11/27/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 7:02 pm
New Evidence About How Dylan Thomas Died Lore has it that Dylan Thomas died of heavy drinking. But a new biography disputes the popular notion. "The book discloses that Thomas was found to be suffering from pneumonia by doctors who examined him when he was admitted in a coma to the New York hospital where he died in November 1953 shortly after his 40th birthday." The Guardian (UK) 11/27/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 6:36 pm
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West End - Where Did The Plays Go? These days in London's West End, musicals outnumber straight plays. Where did the plays go? "It's not that the audience for drama has necessarily declined – just that people now have plenty of other places to see it. In 1954, you went to see a play in the West End or stayed at home. Now, subsidised venues such as the National, the Barbican, the refurbished Royal Court, the Donmar, the Almeida, and Hampstead, as well as the vast number of fringe theatres in pubs and other found locations soak up many of the play-going audience." The Telegraph (UK) 11/30/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 10:27 pm
Mary Poppins Heads For The Stage Forty years after Mary Poppins flew on to the silver screen, the character is being revived and revised in a new version for the stage. New music. New attitudes. But will the beloved Julie Andrews character translate to the modern stage? The Guardian (UK) 11/30/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 6:56 pm
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Issue: Does A Critic Own Review Copies He's Been Sent? When Greg Gatenby was director of Toronto's Harbourfront Centre's literary programming, he collected review copies of books. Thousands of them. Now he's planning to sell about 28,000 volumes worth an estimated $2-million, amassed in part during his time as director of Harbourfront. The issue (and the controversy): "When publishers send out free review copies of a book for promotional purposes, are they sending them to the individual or to the institution the individual works for? Gatenby maintained that the publishing industry sends them to the person and that the books then become that person's property. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/27/04
Posted: 11/30/2004 11:09 am
Independent Bookstore Takes Aim At Manhattan With small independent bookstores being squeezed out of business all over America, a new private venture aims to succeed in lower Manhattan... The New York Times 11/30/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 11:06 pm
Book Aid To Fight AIDS A group of 21 prominent authors have contributed stories to a book project to raise money to fight AIDS in Southern Africa. "Telling Tales, a collection of short stories by Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Susan Sontag, Woody Allen, John Updike and 15 others, will be launched at the United Nations headquarters in New York by Kofi Annan tomorrow, before World Aids Day." The Guardian (UK) 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 6:39 pm
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Germany's Debate Over Public TV "Under a decades old system, Germany levies a fee of $21 a month on every household with a TV. The resulting $7 billion a year funds the largest public broadcasting system in Europe, encompassing film production, 22 TV channels, and more than 50 radio stations. The British Broadcasting Corp., by comparison, got $5.2 billion from taxpayers in the latest fiscal year. But Germans increasingly wonder whether they're getting their money's worth. In terms of substance there is hardly a difference anymore between the public and private stations." BusinessWeek 11/30/04
Posted: 11/30/2004 9:32 am
DVD Wars - Which Format Will Win? Hollywood is dividing up over which new standard for DVD's should be adopted. "Privately, entertainment-industry executives say they can't afford a format war and don't want the confusion that slowed the early adoption of videocassette recorders when consumers were faced with choosing between Betamax and VHS." Seattle Times (AP) 11/30/04
Posted: 11/30/2004 9:29 am
Should NPR Go Private? Should National Public Radio be privatized? Its listenership is big enough to compete with commercial radio. "`Morning Edition' and `All Things Considered,' NPR's two signature news shows, are now the second and third most popular nationally distributed shows on U.S. radio (after Rush Limbaugh). Public radio is no longer in the business, or the anti-business, of serving minority tastes." Bloomberg.com 11/30/04
Posted: 11/30/2004 9:26 am
Smiley Leaving NPR Tavis Smiley is ending his show and leaving National Public Radio. "After all that we've accomplished towards our goal of seeking a broader, more diverse and younger audience for public radio. NPR's own research has confirmed that NPR has simply failed to meaningfully reach out to a broad spectrum of Americans who would benefit from public radio but simply don't know it exists or what it offers." Boston Globe 11/30/04
Posted: 11/30/2004 7:52 am
In Search Of The Digital Actor Increasingly, movie studios are using digital actors in movies. "The creation of a computer-generated digital person has been the Holy Grail of the digital effects industry. Digital Domain generated attention in this area as far back as 1997, when it populated the decks of the Titanic with digital passengers in its Academy Award-winning epic "Titanic." More recently, Digital Domain and other effects houses have increasingly used digital characters for certain applications, including stunts where having an actor perform would be dangerous or simply impossible." Back Stage 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 5:57 pm
The Most-Watched Movie In History Gone with the Wind is the most watched movie in history. The US civil war epic, based on Margaret Mitchell's novel, has been seen by 35 million people. The most recent film in the top 10 was 1997's Titanic, with 18.9m admissions. BBC 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 5:08 pm
Alexander Fails To Conquer Box Office Oliver Stone's blockbuster "Alexander" is a bomb at the box office. "The swords and sandals blockbuster, rumoured to have cost more than $150m to make, earned just $13.5 over three days at the US box office." BBC 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 5:04 pm
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Dancers Strike Puerto Rican Company Dancers at the Puerto Rican ballet troupe Ballet Concierto are on strike against the company. Monday they accused the company on Monday of trying to recruit replacements from American Ballet Theater and Dance Theater of Harlem. The New York Times 11/30/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 10:52 pm
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