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Thursday, March 24




 

Ideas

The Quietest Place On Earth "The quietest place on Earth makes its claim less than a block from a bustling liquor store, adjacent to a city bus stop, under the flight path of jumbo jets, and not far from a playground that hosts a daily scream fest worthy of earplugs. And yet, there it is: the anechoic chamber at [Minneapolis-based] Orfield Labs, an office-size studio used for testing sound equipment. Engineers tested the chamber not too long ago and found, or rather didn't find, sound. What they didn't find measured below the threshold for human ears, 0 decibels, and was as quiet as negative 9.4 decibels, an absence so profound that a person standing in the room for more than a few minutes would begin to hear his or her own ear making noise as their brain struggled to understand what was happening." Minneapolis Star Tribune 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 6:37 am

A List: 13 Things We Don't Understand There are plenty of things we understand about how the universe works. Indeed, it seems like every month there's something wonderfully impossible that we've managed to figure out. And yet, the number of things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever is long. Here's a list of 13 things about the world that defy explanation (so far) New Scientist 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 7:41 pm

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Visual Arts

Philly Dali A Certified Hit "The Salvador Dalí exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is off to a flying start. During the show's first 34 days ending Sunday, the museum sold 195,624 tickets." The exhibit is scheduled to run through mid-May, with Philadelphia being the only North American stop. Philadelphia Inquirer 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 6:42 am

Ugly But Important? Choosing one's battles is always a difficult proposition for a preservationist, and by and large, most advocates for old buildings have not bothered to be too terribly vocal in their support for the Modernist structures of the mid-20th century. For one thing, Modernist architecture doesn't tend to be terribly eye-catching, which means that any attempt to preserve it inevitably embroils one in a debate of aesthetics vs. historical significance, an argument which can be seen as a lose-lose proposition for preservationists. But two ongoing battles in New York suggest that a movement may be afoot to start protecting important examples of Modernist architecture before they are all replaced by newer, more attractive buildings. The New York Times 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 5:44 am

16-Year-Old Canadian Arrested At Parthenon The 16-year-old Canadian girl was arrested on Sunday in Athens "while posing for a snapshot at the 2,500-year-old temple at the Acropolis. Guards reacted as fast as Hermes, the messenger of the Greek gods," when they saw her handle a shard of the Acropolis. She was charged with theft of an antiquity, her lawyer in Athens said. Canoe 03/24/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 9:45 pm

Banksy Strikes The Met... And MoMA, And The Brooklyn Museum... "Over the last two weeks, a shadowy British graffiti artist who calls himself Banksy has carried his own humorous artworks into four New York institutions - the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History - and attached them with some sort of adhesive to the walls, alongside other paintings and exhibits. Similar stunts at the Louvre and the Tate museum have earned the artist - who will not reveal his real name - a following in Europe, where he has had successful gallery shows and sold thousands of books of his artwork. But his graffiti has also landed him in legal trouble." The New York Times 03/24/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 7:55 pm

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Music

Girl, Interrupted: A Lolita That Never Was This week, the Boston Symphony will perform John Harbison's overture to his opera based on Vladimir Nabokov's groundbreaking and controversial novel, Lolita. What's that you say? You didn't know that Harbison had written an operatic version of the disturbing tale of teenage sexuality and seduction? Well, actually, he hasn't. He wanted to, you understand, and actually got as far as sketching out the form and writing the overture, but then, the Catholic church in Boston, where Mr. Harbison lives, exploded into chaos with the sexual abuse scandal involving priests, and the composer couldn't bring himself to finish the project as the dark comedy it is intended to be. Moreover, he concluded that Lolita simply cannot work in operatic form at all.
Posted: 03/24/2005 5:52 am

Hope The Concert Was Good How far would you walk to see a concert? Probably not as far as Hilde Binford, a music history professor at a Pennsylvania college, who just completed a 33-mile trek with several of her students, ending at New York's Lincoln Center, just in time for a performance of the Philharmonic. Why they did such a thing is a complicated question: suffice to say that it has to do with J.S. Bach's own 250-mile pilgrimage to hear an organ recital, but also a lot to do with simple intellectual curiosity and the love of a challenge. The New York Times 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 5:24 am

A Performance So Bad That People Noticed Composer James Dillon was very much looking forward to hearing one of his works performed in his hometown of Glasgow, by the renowned Royal Scottish National Orchestra. But at the performance, he was taken aback by what he says was the incredibly poor quality of the playing, as well as a palpable and aggressive disinterest on the part of the musicians and their conductor. The disengaged sound was also noted by both of Glasgow's daily newspapers, and the BBC, which had planned to broadcast the concert recording, has changed its mind. The Herald (UK) 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 5:14 am

Protesters Rally Against Bolshoi Opening "More than 200 protesters from the pro-Kremlin youth movement Moving Together gathered outside the theatre, shouting: 'Sorokin - out of the Bolshoi.' Vladimir Sorokin, the postmodernist author who wrote the libretto, has been accused of dragging the famous theatre's reputation into the mud. The opera features a scientist called Rosenthal, who creates clones of the famous composers Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Mussorgsky and Verdi. After his death, the composers are forced to busk outside a train station and Mozart falls in love with a prostitute." The Guardian (UK) 03/24/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 9:23 pm

Aussie Orchestras Meet To Plan Protest Representatives of Australia's national orchestras are meeting in Sydney to fight proposals to cut government orchestra funding. "The orchestras are fighting the recommendations of former Qantas chief James Strong to save money by cutting musician numbers in some ensembles by 25 per cent." ABCNews.com 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 7:46 pm

Kicking Muti Out At La Scala One thing is clear about the La Scala mess, writes Norman Lebrecht: Riccasrdo Muti is out as music director. "Gradually, a realisation dawned that Muti's tyranny was at an end. The relief was spontaneous and universal. Milan, more with a whimper than a bang, had brought down a musical dictator who modelled himself on Arturo Toscanini, demanding fanatical fidelity to the score and throwing screaming fits when thwarted. Muti, now 64, is a self-made anachronism. A Neapolitan of modest origins, in ever-black designer hair and suits so sharp you can cut a finger on the crease, he tempers feral energy and vicious tantrums with a magnetic warmth that he switches on and off at will." La Scena Musicale 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 7:38 pm

Jarvi Appointed Director Of Hague Orchestra Neeme Jarvi, 67, who steps down from 15 years leading the Detroit Symphony, has been appointed music director of The Hague Residentie Orchestra in the Netherlandsis. He's already scheduled to become music director of the New Jersey Symphony next fall. "Though not of the same size and stature of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam or the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Residentie Orchestra is an important symphony in Dutch musical life." Detroit Free Press 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 7:33 pm

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Arts Issues

Ingenuity = Big Bucks In Cleveland A new arts-and-technology festival in Cleveland is attracting serious donors, despite an overall malaise in the local cultural scene. Ingenuity, as the fest will be called, has in recent weeks picked up $100,000 from the George Gund Foundation, as well as $60,000 from governmental sources (with another $150,000 in county funds still on the table) and a $20,000 challenge grant from Case Western Reserve University. The festival, which kicks off in September 2005, is expected to cost $1.4 million. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 6:55 am

Study: The Arts' Impact Across The US "Nearly 3 million people -- representing 2.2% of all jobs in the United States -- work in the arts, according to a new survey by Americans for the Arts, released to coincide with Arts Advocacy Day on March 15 in Washington, D.C. The report states that arts companies, organizations, and related businesses now exist in all 435 Congressional districts, lending credence to the position maintained by many arts advocates that the economic power of America's "creative industries" should not be underestimated." Back Stage 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 9:03 pm

MP's Attack Arts Funding Freeze A group of influential British members of Parliament has condemned the government's freeze in arts funding. "The government needs to re-evaluate its allocation of resources to the arts taking a long-term view, to ensure that real terms cuts are avoided where no compelling arguments or evidence are presented for their necessity. In our view no such arguments have been made. The government should reconsider and find the £34m needed to keep the Arts Council funding in line with inflation." BBC 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 7:30 pm

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People

Yo-Yo Ma Of The Bass? "The double bass is one of the few remaining instruments that have never produced a bankable star in classical music. There has been no Itzhak Perlman, no Yo-Yo Ma, no James Galway of the double bass," largely because the damn things are so wildly awkward and difficult to play. "Playing a simple melody may demand that a player negotiate leaps of two or three feet, from over the head to down near the belly and back again. Moreover, even under the best of circumstances, it is hard to make the unadorned tone of the instrument sound anything but gray and burly." Enter DaXun Zhang, winner of competitions previously untouched by bass players, and possessor of a tone so beautiful and varied that the listener might forget what instrument is being played. Washington Post 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 7:05 am

Pavarotti Recovering From Surgery "Opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti had neck surgery to repair two vertebrae earlier this month. The 69-year-old tenor spent two days in hospital in New York for the operation, which was described as 'routine and regular' by his spokesperson. Pavarotti is to return to Italy this weekend before continuing his farewell tour in South Africa next month." BBC 03/23/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 6:12 am

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Publishing

Ha Jin Wins PEN/Faulkner American author and poet Ha Jin has won the 25th annual PEN/Faulkner fiction prize for his latest novel War Trash. CBC 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 10:07 pm

Ruling: Looted Book Must Be Reurned To Italy A 12th-century book stolen from Italy after the second World War and residing in a British library since 1947 must be returned to Italy says a court. The Guardian (UK) 03/24/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 9:19 pm

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Media

You Can't Be Sirius! Hyundai has announced that it will become the first automaker to equip all its U.S.-distributed cars with satellite radios, beginning with 2006 models. The Korean auto company will install XM-ready receivers in 500,000 cars in the first year alone, a significant potential audience for the XM folks, who currently boast 3.2 million subscribers. Hyundai owners would still be responsible for XM's $12.95 monthly subscription fee. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 6:47 am

Nielsen To Respond To Minority Concerns Nielsen Media Research, the company responsible for measuring the all-important ratings by which television networks set their advertising rates, is making some subtle but significant changes to its viewer-monitoring system. The changes are designed to combat the problem of minority underrepresentation. Baltimore Sun (AP) 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 6:20 am

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Dance

The Pain-Free Ballet Company The New York-based American Contemporary Ballet company could be seen as just one more start-up troupe in an already-crowded dance scene. But ACB is about more than just traditional dance; it's about reinventing the way in which dancers dance, and protecting them from injury. The idea that dancers should be able to do their job without hurting themselves may sound basic to outsiders, but inside the ballet world, choreographer Lincoln Jones's quest for pain-free dance is almost revolutionary. Denver Post 03/24/05
Posted: 03/24/2005 6:29 am

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