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Tuesday, April 26




Ideas

The Antiquities Game "At first glance, the connection between those who loot antiquities and those who collect, trade, and preserve them seems the stuff of academic seminars and journals. Yet such is the allure of ancient treasures that, since the 1970s, this relationship has spawned global treaties, inflamed Third World nationalism, created a secretive Washington bureaucracy, and triggered federal prosecutions. To some, this international cooperation reflects the ability of the world’s nations to unite to protect an endangered world resource. To others, it demonstrates the hazards resulting when “feel-good” multinationalism collides not only with the sovereignty of the United States but with the basic human desire to surround oneself with objects of beauty." Reason 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 6:22 pm

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Visual Arts

Gossip Rules - Art Of The Buzz Jerry Saltz ponders the cult of personalities and gossip currently flashing through the New York art world. "Gallerist Kenny Schachter describes the phase we're in as "economics-ism" and "bottom-line aesthetics," by which I think he means that now art is considered successful if it's shown in a gallery or bought by collectors. Fitting in and conforming have become aesthetic criteria. Tautology rules. Many artists find all this depressing and regularly disparage the carousing and ask if it's possible to get their work out without behaving in bogus ways. Not to sound like a Creed song, but no matter how serious an artist is, it's almost impossible to behave this flippantly and still maintain one's credibility." Village Voice 04/26/05
Posted: 04/26/2005 8:51 am

Italy Returns Ancient Stele To Ethiopia "The funeral stone, or stele, is one of a group of six obelisks erected at Axum when Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the 4th century A.D. It was stolen by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1937 and turned into a symbol of fascist power during his short-lived efforts to revive the grandeur of imperial Rome." Discovery 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 7:39 pm

Morgan Library Works On Makeover The Pierpont Morgan Library is undergoing an image makeover to match its $102 million building makeover. "Although the library has long had a vigorous program of exhibitions, organizing shows like "Master Drawings From the Hermitage and Pushkin Museums" that have attracted tens of thousands of visitors, its very name has long been misleading. Even some New Yorkers assume that it is a run-of-the-mill library, rather than the repository of a world-class collection of old master drawings and prints, medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts, and literary, historical and music manuscripts, in addition to rare books. Many believe that it is a private institution closed to the uninvited." The New York Times 04/26/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 6:36 pm

Libeskind Takes His Tower West It doesn't look like Daniel Libeskind's tower for the World Trade Center site will get built. So he's traveled the plans across the country to California. "The architect’s plans for a 37-story condo tower named “Aura” in Sacramento, California, bear a remarkable resemblance to his original design for the second-tallest building at the ground-zero site. The 430-foot tower, to rise later this year, has the same geometric design at its pinnacle, with a sharply sloping downward angle on one corner. With the exception of its balconies, the tower is strikingly familiar." New York Magazine 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 5:15 pm

Where Are Iraqi Artifacts? It's been two years since the Iraq Museum was looted. "To date, 3,000 have been recovered in Baghdad, some returned by ordinary citizens, others by the police. In addition, more than 1,600 objects have been seized in neighbouring countries, some 300 in Italy and more than 600 in the United States. Most of the stolen items are unaccounted for, but some private collectors in the Middle East and Europe have admitted possessing objects bearing the initials IM (Iraq Museum inventory number)." BBC 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 4:57 pm

National Gallery of Canada Leaks Canada's National Gallery is in severe disrepair. "The imposing glass and steel structure, designed by architect Moshe Safdie, opened its doors in 1989. Sixteen years later, gallery director Pierre Théberge says he can't keep up with the cost of repairs. Currently, the gallery's annual $45-million budget allots $1 million for repair work. 'We would need ... between $4 [million] and $5 million a year ... to keep up with repairs over the next five or 10 years'." CBC 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 4:46 pm

Liverpool Museum Takes On The World The former Liverpool Museum has expanded to nearly twice its size and been renamed World Museum Liverpool. The city is gearing up for its year as the European Capital of Culture in 2008. BBC 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 4:40 pm

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Music

Are Recording Companies Dumping CDs As Part Of Antitrust Settlement? Major US recording companies lost an antitrust case and were told to give millions of CD's to libraries as part of the $143 million settlement. But it appears that the CD's being offered are overstocked recordings the companies couldn't sell anyway. "The impression one gets from the list is that the record companies are just unloading overstock. It appears many libraries will receive too many copies of some titles and others they don't want at all." San Francisco Chronicle 04/26/05
Posted: 04/26/2005 7:09 am

Disease Afflicting Great Pipe Organs Of Europe "A mysterious epidemic of organ "leprosy" is sweeping Europe, corroding pipes and threatening to silence some of the continent's most renowned instruments. The European Union has mounted a major effort to save them, even though it is not yet known whether modern central heating, air pollution or something else is causing the problem. Organs were the personal computers of their era, the most complicated devices made by humans." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 04/26/05
Posted: 04/26/2005 7:01 am

Promoters Sue Universal For Overcharging Artists Two US music promoters are suing recording giant Universal for $100 million, claiming the company forced them to submit falsely inflated invoices. "Universal used these to make top names such as Nelly unwittingly pay for other artists' promotion, the promoters say." BBC 04/26/05
Posted: 04/26/2005 6:19 am

A Rising Frustration With Music Downloading UK legal music downloaders are "being turned off net music stores because of pricing and disappointing sound quality compared to CDs. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said legal music downloads rose by 900% in 2004." BBC 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 4:42 pm

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Arts Issues

Why A Pop Music Conference Rocks - Money Seattle's Experience Music Project pop music conference is compellingly interesting, writes Robert Cristgau. "The short explanation is that EMP isn't exclusively academic—of the 180 presenters this year, only 84 ID'd themselves that way, including many grad students and wearers of multiple hats. Nor were all the nonacademics journalists; we heard from several alt bizzers and quite a few artists, literary and performance as well as musical. Big tent is a fantasy often invoked and seldom achieved in cultural studies circles. But beyond the boldness, imagination, and actually existing openness, EMP's tent is so roomy for one simple reason: money. Village Voice 04/26/05
Posted: 04/26/2005 7:31 am

Movie Sanitation Smells Congress has passed a law that allows companies to "sanitize" (read: take out) parts of movies they don't like. "The implications are dramatic: If sanitizers can alter a creative work without the permission of the author, will they be able to redo the Bible? Shakespeare? What, in short, does intellectual property mean anymore?" Boston Globe 04/26/05
Posted: 04/26/2005 6:45 am

Where Art And Technology Intersect Technology holds a big place in our imagination these days. And artists are looking at the intersections of tech and art. "The Cyberarts Festival's 70 exhibitions combine computer technology with dance, poetry, music and digital images. Many of them, like Imaging Place, use satellite pictures and the global positioning system to examine the effects of location on memory and thinking." Wired 04/26/05
Posted: 04/26/2005 6:30 am

Kani: Arts Demand Respect South African playwright/actor John Kani says the arts need more respect. "What the Government underestimates is the role that the arts can play in building and healing a nation, and in giving young people in particular a holistic sense of what a human being can be. Australia, with a little more experience than us in this thing called 'democracy', hopefully treats the arts with a bit more respect." Sydney Morning Herald 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 7:32 pm

Are Girls Who Read Fairy Tales More Likely To End Up In Abusive Relationships? "A study of both parents of primary school children and women who have been involved in domestic abuse claims than those who grew up reading fairy tales are likely to be more submissive as adults. Susan Darker-Smith, a graduate student who wrote the academic paper, said she found many abuse victims identified with characters in famous children's literature and claimed the stories provide "templates" of dominated women." Yahoo! (AFP) 04/22/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 7:02 pm

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Publishing

Queues For Quixote Venezuelans are lining up in the country's capital to get free copies of Don Quixote. The Venezuelan government is handing out a million copies to mark the 400th anniversary of its publication. BBC 04/24/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 7:05 pm

Against Good Books "Today's corporate weather-makers hate "book-lovers", as they sneeringly refer to them. They despise curious readers committed to the range and quality of what they buy, such as those who bother with books coverage in intelligent magazines or newspapers. Instead, extra resources will now go into snaring the fitful attention of affluent but apathetic semi-readers who, deep down, believe that, in the deathless words of Philip Larkin's "A Study of Reading Habits", "Books are a load of crap." Ah, but those non-readers made an exception for The Da Vinci Code. So let's have much more of the same brain-shrinking junk." The Independent (UK) 04/22/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 6:43 pm

The Literary No-Man's Land Even well-established writers with great reviews are having difficulty getting their books sold these days. "If you speak to publishers about the sales of literary fiction - I mean we're in real trouble in this country. Sales are shocking these days, even compared to 10 years ago. And publishers are seriously cutting back." The New York Times 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 8:37 am

Books Get Wired (As A Plot Device) "A recent spate of old-fashioned low-tech printed books have all abandoned traditional narrative for Internet terminology, using e-mails, chat-room dialogues and instant messaging instead of regular prose, chapters and verses. Authors say the use of e-mails is not simply a gimmick, but a way of reflecting the world they see." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 8:19 am

Challenging Chabon On His Story Did Michael Chabon invent a personal Holocasut history to "fashion his previously banal suburban persona into a more complex Jewish identity?" After stories on a book website and in the The New York Times, the charges get nasty... MobyLives 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 8:15 am

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Media

Hollywood's German Connection How to finance that $100 million Hollywood blockbuster movie? First you go to Germany. "The Hollywood studio starts by arranging on paper to sell the film's copyright to a German company. Then, they immediately lease the movie back—with an option to repurchase it later. At this point, a German company appears to own the movie. The Germans then sign a "production service agreement" and a "distribution service agreement" with the studio that limits their responsibility to token—and temporary—ownership." Slate 04/25/05
Posted: 04/25/2005 6:14 pm

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Dance

A Passion For Legs And Feet What matters above all else in ballet? Legs and feet. There's an ideal to be attained, but that fashion has changed over the years, writes Clement Crisp. Financial Times 04/24/05
Posted: 04/26/2005 6:39 am

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