The Brain Inside - Are You Sure You Want To Know? So we're learning more and more about how the brain works. And new technology might soon allow us to peer into the workings of the head. But there might be some downsides. "The more that breakthroughs like the recent one in brain-scanning open up the mind to scientific scrutiny, the more we may be pressed to give up comforting metaphysical ideas like interiority, subjectivity and the soul. Let's enjoy them while we can." New York Times Magazine 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 7:07 am
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The Assimilating Of Public Art There was a time when public art in American cities stood out, trying to make a statement. Those days seem long gone. These days public art is so woven into the landscape that you sometimes don't even realize it's there. Seattle Times 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 9:44 am
Diana's Memorial Fountain Reopens (Again) "For the third time in just 10 months, it was being opened to the public. There was no royal presence this time, and no speeches, just a cluster of anxious park officials keeping an eye open for downpours, the wrong kind of leaves, paddling infants, tourists dropping litter and roaming stray dogs. They were desperate that this time it was all going to work and that there would not have to be yet another unscheduled closure." The Observer (UK) 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 8:00 am
Rem's New House Of Music Rem Koolhaas has built a new concert hall in Portugal. It's a building that challenges the concert hall norms. "Koolhaas keeps his concert hall at arm's length. Its pleasures — derived from the architect's wry brand of invention when it comes to form-making, structure and circulation — are no less impressive for their unmistakable detachment. To sit in its auditorium, a hard-edged, hangar-like space, is to consider the question of whether music can sound lovely or fully resolved in a space that works so hard to avoid appearing that way architecturally." Los Angeles Times 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 7:32 am
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Akron Symphony Says Goodbye To Music Director The Akron Symphony Orchestra says goodbye to music director Ya-Hui Wang, who has led the orchestra for five years. "If the conclusion of the concert was subdued, that was appropriate, given Wang's history. She has been earnest in her efforts, but concerts under her direction have often been below the orchestra's standard. It was to the credit of everyone on stage that they did so well by Saturday's challenging program." Akron BeaconJournal 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 10:16 am
Opera America Conference: Diversity Is Critical More than 400 leaders of America's opera companies gather for their annual conference. "Besides usual topics such as education, outreach, programming and how to woo corporate and private donors, the conference's most pressing issue addressed diversity in opera, which, conference organizers said, is critical if opera is to survive in America." Cincinnati Enquirer 05/07/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 10:12 am
More Piling On To Maazel's "1984" "The real irony about the 75-year-old Maazel's return to the Covent Garden pit, as conductor of his own work, is that he hasn't been there since 1978, six years before the title of the piece that has cost a million quid for six performances. Even as a conductor, he is 'past his sell-by date', to quote myself here six months ago, after hearing him re-open La Fenice in Venice with the most vulgar of Traviatas." The Observer (UK) 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 7:57 am
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"National" Obsession - What Does It Mean? "What is the purpose of a national theatre, a national opera or ballet company, a national orchestra, or a national gallery? What is the meaning of the word 'national' in those famous organisations? Is it simply a matter of pride and funding, an indication that those particular institutions have the backing of an entire nation, its hopes and dreams of excellence? Or is it more complicated than that: do we expect these arts organisations, above all others, to embody in their work something essential about the nation?" The Telegraph (UK) 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 10:26 am
Of Critics, Friends, And Conflicts Critic Dominic Pappatola finds himself uncomfortable about descriptions of Mel Gussow in obituaries last week. "If my obituary happens to focus on my career as a critic, I guess I'd much rather be known as a Champion of Audiences than a Champion of Playwrights. As a journalist, if you begin writing for your sources instead of your readers, you enter an echo chamber. Inside of that chamber, your voice might be resonant. Outside, it's irrelevant." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 10:23 am
What Is Art And Why Does It Matter? Ah, the age old question, now so endlessly debated it has become one of the great cliches. A new book is about to take up the question once again, and the Observer asks some artists who ought to have some interesting answers... The Observer (UK) 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 7:44 am
The Art Of Routine Routine is the foundation for many things in life. "The myth is that artists are somehow different. That they leap from one peak of inspiration to another. That they reject limits - that this is precisely what makes them artists. But of course that's not true. Most artists work as the rest of us do, incrementally, day by day, according to their own habits. That most art does not rise above the level of routine has nothing necessarily to do with the value of having a ritual." The New York Times 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 6:29 am
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The High School Musical Gets Big High school musicals have become big business, with schools buying advanced stage equiment and spending tens- and even hundreds- of thousands of dollars on their productions. "Because they are pouring more into their musicals - and thus having to sell more tickets, at higher prices - schools are becoming big business for licensing companies like Music Theater International and R&H Theatricals, which in the past made nearly all of their money from professional productions. Freddie Gershon, chairman of M.T.I., estimates that licensing for the school market is now a $75 million to $100 million annual business." The New York Times 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 6:25 am
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Another Death-Of-Publishing Scenario "Both Amazon and Google are negotiating with American publishers to develop 'search within the book' programmes. Google already has a deal with several top libraries from around the world, including the Bodleian, to digitise out of copyright texts. Inevitably, some publishers and the Society of Authors are getting quite excited about this innovation." But one publisher says " 'it may result in no sales', the publishing equivalent of Armageddon. Collaborate with this 'Napsterisation' process, he told the Publishers Association, and the book industry risked 'undermining the cultural and intellectual tradition of the past 600 years'."
The Observer (UK) 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 9:28 am
Cuban Librarians Convicted Of "Dangerousness" Sensitive to growing international concern over reports of human rights violations, in late April the government of President Fidel Castro conducted a secret trial of two Cuban librarians, Elio Enrique Chávez and Luis Elio de la Paz, and sentenced them to prison on a charge of "dangerousness." Friends of Cuban Librarians 05/06/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 7:35 am
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Pakistan's Massive Indian Film Piracy Business Piracy of Indian films in Pakistan is woven deeply into the country's culture. "To crack down on pirated Indian DVDs now would be a massive undertaking. Pakistani cinema houses lost their clientele years ago. The decade of the 1980s saw the video rental business mushroom into one of the largest retail businesses in the country, employing an estimated half-a-million people. Not just that: Pakistan's fashion and modelling industry has come to be deeply dependent on the Indian film culture." BBC 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 10:05 am
£400 Film Chosen For Cannes The Cannes Festival has chosen a film made by a British civil servant with no formal training and cost only £400 for this year's competition. It is the only British film included in this year's festival. "This is just a fairytale for us. None of us have ever been to film school. We just decided to make it when Ben sold his mandolin to raise money to buy his camera. It's about the doppelganger myth, what happens when a person comes across their own doppelganger." BBC 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 10:00 am
Who Should Decide What We Get To Watch On TV? There's a growing perception that pressure groups advocating censorship are having a disproportionate impact on what TV broadcasters are willing to program. So a new group, TV Watch, is coming out swinging in opposition to the suppressionists... Seattle Post-Intelligencer 05/06/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 9:51 am
How The Movie Theatre Biz Works "On opening weekend - and perhaps the second weekend of a big picture - the split is 70 percent to the distributor and 30 percent to the exhibitor. The studio's share declines by 10 percent each week: first to 60 percent, then to 50 and 40, until it levels out at 30 to 35 percent for as long as the theater keeps the film. The studio wants a film to open huge, even if it doesn't last long. Theaters, which earn much of their revenue from concession sales, prefer movies that will run all summer to full houses, with the theater ultimately taking 65 percent of ticket sales." The New York Times 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 6:39 am
Superheros Take The Movies Comic book superheros are everywhere in the movies today. "The cachet of comics - and I mean the old, cheap, pulpy kind, not "comix" or "graphic novels" - is all the more remarkable given that for most of their history, they could count on provoking the disdain of literary intellectuals, the panic of moralists and the condescension of mainstream show business, which saw them as fodder for cartoons and campy kid shows. The days when a film critic could wish that comic books would just go away - as Robert Warshow did in a brilliantly ambivalent 1954 essay on his young son's fandom - are long gone. The superheroes demand to be taken as seriously as they have always taken themselves." The New York Times 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 6:33 am
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The Flamenco Problem "The so-called "new" flamenco that has been developing over the last decade is mired in a crisis born of its success. As audiences have gotten bigger, a kind of artistic inflation has set in, with shows becoming more ambitious and more pretentious." The New York Times 05/08/05
Posted: 05/08/2005 6:49 am
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