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Monday, March 21




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A Link Between Intelligence And Suicide? "In one of the largest studies on suicide ever conducted, researchers found that men with especially low scores on intelligence tests are two to three times more likely than others to kill themselves. Men with low IQ scores and only a primary education were no more likely to kill themselves than men with high IQ scores and a higher level of education. But men with low IQ scores and higher education were at a greater risk of suicide. And men with low IQ scores and highly educated parents were at the highest risk of all."
Boston Globe 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 5:00 pm

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Visual Arts

Michelangelo's Self-Portrait? Historians in Florence believe they have found a sculpted marble relief of Michelangelo that might have been carved by the artist himself. "The work speaks for itself: it is a very high-quality sculpture which depicts Michelangelo. The skilled chiselling on the back makes us think it might be a self portrait." Discovery 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:52 am

Mayne Wins Pritzker Thom Mayne has won this year's Pritzker Prize for architecture. "In its citation the Pritzker jury acknowledged Mr. Mayne's countercultural roots, calling him a product of the turbulent 60's who has carried that rebellious attitude and fervent desire for change into his practice, the fruits of which are only now becoming visible in a group of large-scale projects."
The New York Times 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:21 am

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Music

Experience Music Project: The Promise Fades Five years ago, expectations for Seattle's Experience Music Project were high. But "as the museum's fifth anniversary approaches, things aren't going as planned: All rotating exhibits have been canceled or frozen, and of the roughly 250 people employed by EMP, 14 percent are temps who fear their contracts won't be renewed because attendance is half of what was expected. There's nothing to indicate that Seattle's interest in EMP is growing -- between 2001 and 2003, admission revenues were down 46 percent." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 10:38 am

  • EMP: Secrets Abound Seattle's Experience Music Project is one of the most secretive (some might say paranoid) arts organizations around. Employees aren't allowed to talk to reporters, and even the director has to be accompanied by a handler... Seattle Post-Intelligencer 03/21/05
    Posted: 03/21/2005 10:30 am

SXSW: Music For Music Austin's SXSW Festival attracts 1,300 bands and 10,000 music industry people. "The conference makes clear that the music business is not just the recording business, and the recording business is not just the major labels. As the large music conglomerates bemoan a world of digital downloading, decreased sales and tight radio playlists, independent bands and labels have simply gone about making music. For musicians who don't expect their careers to rise and fall by radio hits and blockbuster albums, major labels have less and less to offer." The New York Times 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:29 am

Recreating Bach... A musicologist has receated the instrumental parts for a lost cantata by JS Bach. "The 1728 composition, called Wedding Cantata BWV 216, was found among the papers of Japanese pianist Chieko Hara, who died in Japan in 2001 aged 86. The work, written for the wedding of a daughter of a German customs official, was missing for 80 years." BBC 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 6:45 am

Parsifal In NY Doesn't Cut It With Berlin Opera Fans Director Bernd Eichinger's new production of Parsifal was booed at Berlin's Staatsoper this weekend. "Eichinger's version, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, is set in a landscape of buildings collapsing from fires and explosions and relies heavily on video. Mr Eichinger is an acclaimed German film-maker. He wrote and produced Downfall, about Hitler's final days, which was nominated for an Oscar this year." BBC 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 6:42 am

Endangered Species: Famous Music Studios Legendary music studios are disappearing at an accelerating rate. "A recent roll call includes Cello and Royaltone Studios, both in Los Angeles, and New York's famed Hit Factory, and that's just in the past two months. Illegal downloading, which means less revenue for record companies and less money for recording budgets, is partly to blame. A much bigger factor, though, has been the rise of cheap digital recording equipment: A high-quality home studio system can be had for well under $50,000 -- about what it would cost to spend three weeks in a high-end studio like the Hit Factory." Washington Post 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:43 pm

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Arts Issues

Rampaging Boards - Seattle's Got 'Em Seattle arts organizations are having trouble with their boards. Twice in the past year, Seattle boards have fired popular artistic directors and incurred the wrath of the community... Seattle Post-Intelligencer 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 10:44 am

Portland In The Passing Lane "But for a long time, Portland [Oregon] has deferred to its larger Northwest cousin Seattle in the size and repute of the city's major performing-arts institutions — its professional theaters, opera and ballet companies and venues. Could this be about to change? With recent infusions of arts talent and leadership, funding support and new construction projects, the City of Roses is indeed making a bid for the bigger time." Seattle Times 03/20/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:14 am

Edinburgh Festivals Get Together Edinburgh's various summer festivals are finally getting together. "The plan is for the festivals to meet every two months and discuss a wide range of issues from creating a unified box office to a strategy to promote the Festivals overseas and improve the city’s infrastructure. Its development comes after years of public squabbling as competition from events in other British cities has grown." Scotland on Sunday 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 5:20 pm

Gioia: Democratizing The NEA Dana Gioia's biggest accomplishment as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts? "I would say that the major reform I've made at the endowment can be summarized pretty easily. Historically, the National Endowment for the Arts thought of itself as a federal agency that served artists. Today, the NEA sees itself as a federal agency which serves the American public by bringing the best of the arts and arts education to all Americans."

San Diego Union-Tribune 03/19/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 4:53 pm

Good 'n Evil Gets Back In The Arts "Good and evil are back on the table again as serious issues requiring serious contemplation by all of us -- not just theologians, philosophers, essayists, politicians and talk-show hosts. Not just "experts" such as President Bush or Bono or Elie Wiesel or Dr. Phil, to whom we outsourced some of our thorniest moral dilemmas. These people were only too happy to do a lot of the heavy moral lifting for us. (And God bless 'em for it.) But it's time to shoulder the load ourselves. This latest surge of terrible events reminds us that, in the end, we're all on the hot seat to decide: What is evil? What is good? What constitutes justice?" Chicago Tribune 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 4:17 pm

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People

Bobby Short, 80 Cabaret singer Bobby Short, the tuxedoed embodiment of New York style and sophistication who was a fixture at his piano in the Carlyle Hotel for more than 35 years, died Monday. He was 80. Yahoo! (AP) 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:37 am

Da Vinci Code Recluse Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown has become the kind of celebrity who has trouble going out in public. "Gone are the days when he could sit undisturbed in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre, sketching out the murder scene that opens his blockbuster novel. He has stopped taking commercial flights because of the commotion that usually accompanies him, with people lining up in the aisle to get his autograph on books, cocktail napkins, even the occasional air-sickness bag." The New York Times 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:25 am

The Racier Side Of Dr. Seuss? "Years before Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904-1991) gained worldwide acclaim for his children's books, he honed his craft making cartoons for other young minds: American soldiers. Racy and suggestive, the animated films are enough to shatter one's innocent appraisal of such Seuss titles as "The Seven Lady Godivas," "Hop on Pop" and -- say it isn't so -- "There's a Wocket in My Pocket!" The short military-training cartoons, along with disturbing propaganda films that Seuss also worked on, were shown to troops during and shortly after World War II." San Francisco Chronicle 03/16/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:52 pm

Davies Reports Dead Swan, Gets Visit From Police Composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies got in trouble with police recently when he reported a dead whooper swan near his property and prepared to eat it. The birds are protected, and even though Davies didn't kill the swan himself, police still paid a visit. "Naturally, I've informed Buckingham Palace. Now I'm just hoping I'll still be a free man - and not locked up in the Tower of London - at the time of my first big concert as Master of the Queen's Music." The Guardian (UK) 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:38 pm

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Theatre

Charitably Speaking - Theatre Drama Of The Year Will "Sweet Charity" be a hit? It's currently in try-outs on the road, and it's probably too early to tell. But one thing is already clear: "A so-so revival of a 1966 musical, doing fairly good business at the box office in its first two tryout cities (Minneapolis and Chicago), has now become the backstage drama of the year." Chicago Tribune 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:27 pm

RSC Chooses Architects For Stratford Renovation "An architectural partnership which has designed only one previous theatre was yesterday appointed to the £100m transformation of the art deco Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Bennetts Associates, whose Hampstead theatre, north London, opened in 2003, will convert the 1,400-seat end-on auditorium into a 1,000-seater with an improved relationship between actors and audience." The Guardian (UK) 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 10:48 am

Casting the Canadian LoTR Dream Team So Toronto will play host to the first theatrical staging of Lord of the Rings. That's all well and good, but who exactly is going to headline such a blockbuster show? If we know Canada, the best bet to sell tickets will be to pack the cast with Canadian superstars, so what about Christopher Plummer as Gandalf, Jim Carrey as Gollum, Martin Short as Bilbo Baggins, or even (wait for it) Celine Dion as Legolas? Hey, it could happen... Toronto Star 03/19/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 8:37 am

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Publishing

Phone Publishing Japanese cell phone users are using their phones to read books. "Several mobile websites offer hundreds of novels -- classics, bestsellers and some works written especially for the medium. It takes some getting used to. Only a few lines pop up at a time because the phone screen is about half the size of a business card. But improvements in the quality of liquid-crystal displays and features such as automatic page-flipping, or scrolling, make the endeavour far more enjoyable than you'd imagine." Canoe 03/18/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:56 am

A Great Weirdness Sex and Character by Otto Weininger, published in 1903 has had an outsized influence. It is a weird and great book. "The appearance next month of a definitive English translation, published by Indiana University Press, is a major cultural event — one that is, arguably, at least several decades overdue." Inside Higher Education 03/15/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 4:45 pm

Has British Poetry Become Irrelevant? Has British poetry become "almost irrelevant, because the establishment has closed ranks against fresh ideas and forms?" So says the director of an experiment called Text Festival. "[It] has run out of steam. There's nowhere for it to go other than becoming a mild entertainment or an anachronism." The Guardian (UK) 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:33 pm

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Media

Our Disappearing Movie History "When you visit a well-stocked video store these days, it seems the full history of commercial cinema awaits your perusal, either on DVD or VHS. But this plenitude is illusory, a kind of cinematic Potemkin village. Indeed, in the United States, which has churned out the most movies of any nation over the past 100 years, it's estimated that 50 per cent of the features produced there before 1950 have disappeared, a result of the effects of technological obsolescence, neglect, financial hardship and inadequate archiving. For films produced before 1920, the figure is 80 per cent." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:48 am

Slaughter At The BBC As much as 20 percent of BBC staff are expected to be laid off in director general Mark Thompson's radical remake of the venerable public broadcaster. That includes "the loss of 1,500 jobs in programme-making divisions such as news and sport. Initial estimates of up to 5,000 job cuts are being hastily revised upwards by broadcasting unions, which are threatening strike action if compulsory redundancies are enforced. Including jobs that will be lost as a result of redundancies, the outsourcing of some roles and the sell-off of commercial divisions such as BBC Broadcast and BBC Resources, up to 6,000 jobs are now expected to go in the biggest ever cull of staff at the corporation." The Guardian (UK) 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 7:07 am

Why NPR Canned D'Arcy Arts journalists have been buzzing about NPR's decision to sever its relationship with arts reporter David D'Arcy. Why is D'Arcy out? "An NPR spokesman who asked not to identified said the reporter was fired not for the substance of his report but for failing to observe two of the network's reportorial guidelines: He allegedly interviewed Lauder on one topic — the general issue of art seized by the Nazis — then used it in a piece about another specific issue, the Schiele case. Moreover, according to the spokesman, D'Arcy made no direct effort to secure MOMA's response to "specific attacks on its integrity that he intended to broadcast in the piece. NPR requires that the most strenuous efforts be made to do just that and he didn't do it." Los Angeles Times 03/19/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:58 pm

  • Previously: Defending D'Arcy Attorney Randol Schoenberg disputes Dvorkin's criticisms: "You wrote "the original report did not, in my opinion, fully and accurately present all of the facts." No doubt this is true of Mr. d'Arcy's story -- as it is true of each and every story aired on NPR. No 5-minute story "could fully and accurately present all the facts" of a historical case concerning events 65+ years ago, the litigation of which has lasted now for over seven years and generated no less than six court opinions concerning complex legal issues beyond the ken of even NPR's above-average listeners. So your comment, while true, is hardly a criticism. Notably, you fail to mention any inaccuracies in the report. If there are any, they are certainly minor." Straight Up (AJBlog) 03/16/05

Movies Race To DVD The time between theatreical release to DVD is getting shorter for movies. "These days the turnaround time from cineplex to DVD is 4 1/2 months, on average, with movies becoming available for rental and sale on the same day. A few recent films made the trip in fewer than 90 days. (Five years ago, the typical Hollywood flick didn't show up on home video for at least six months.) It's no secret that movie studios, which generally earn more money from home video than box office returns, are eager to capitalize on DVD dollars as soon as they can." Washington Post 03/13/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:55 pm

Canada's Oscars - Does Anybody Care? The Genie Awards, Canada's film-industry equivalent of the Oscars, are held this week. "But is, as some would suggest, the "brightest and best in Canadian filmmaking" an oxymoron? Should we just engrave beer steins and hand them out at a Frick & Friar pub? Or should we just not bother? After a quarter of a century in business, the Genies still have a branding problem." Toronto Star 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:47 pm

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Dance

Shock And Movement (Or Not) If choreography isn't choreography, and dance isn't dance (and yet it all is), what to make of Matthew Bourne, asks Tobi Tobias? "I’m left wondering if Play Without Words isn’t simply a sign of our times, in which the creative powers that be assume their audience needs to be lured by shock tactics—the raucous, the garish, the forbidden, extremes of novelty for novelty’s sake. Surely the insistent use of these means, which quashes the virtues of sincerity and subtlety, is self-defeating. Most of today’s audience is already beyond shock and, what’s more, benumbed by the ever-escalating onslaught." Seeing Things (AJBlogs) 03/21/05
Posted: 03/21/2005 6:37 am

Regions Of Dance John Rockwell takes a tour of four American regional dance companies. "To be sure, brief stops at the San Francisco Ballet, the Boston Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago don't provide enough evidence with which to pronounce on the state of dance in this country. Nor to make sweeping judgments about the companies' current quality. My visits were partly serendipitous - accidents of travel, not an attempt to set up some spurious battle of the bands. Still, in this sampling, Philadelphia and Chicago came out handily on top of Boston and San Francisco. And all four programs attested to the paradox that everything old can be new again." The New York Times 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:17 pm

The Non-Dance Choreographer Is Jérôme Bel a choreographer or a threatre artist? Bel, who has "become an international cult figure in the dance world by challenging its conventions" like working in the cracks of movement. "The question became, always, 'How do I produce a show without dance?' In France, we call my work conceptual, where the idea is more important than the realization. I'm not producing dance. I'm working at the borderline of dance."
The New York Times 03/20/05
Posted: 03/20/2005 3:14 pm

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