The Science Of What We Believe "Once the preserve of philosophers alone, belief is quickly becoming the subject of choice for many psychologists and neuroscientists. Their goal is to create a neurological model of how beliefs are formed, how they affect people and what can manipulate them. And the latest steps in the research might just help to understand a little more about why the world is so fraught with political and social tension." The Guardian (UK) 06/29/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 8:46 pm
Here's A Downer - The Worst Decision Humans Ever Made... "Archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence." World Food Issues 06/28/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 5:18 pm
Of Brainstorms and (We Kid You Not) "Thought-Showers" Want to generate lots of ideas with other people? Great! Just don't call it "brainstorming," at least in Belfast. "Instead staff at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in Belfast will use the term 'thought-showers' when they get together to think creatively. A spokeswoman said: 'The DETI does not use the term brainstorming on its training courses on the grounds that it may be deemed pejorative'." To whom? People with brain disorders, of course... The Observer (UK) 06/25/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 4:28 pm
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ICA Development Chief Jumps To National Gallery "Paul Bessire, a key figure in the [Boston-based] Institute of Contemporary Art's new waterfront building project, will leave the museum in early August to take a senior position at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Bessire, 43, has been the ICA's director of external relations since 2000, overseeing the $62 million fund-raising campaign now underway to pay for a new museum under construction on Fan Pier... Bessire becomes the National Gallery's chief development officer in September." Boston Globe 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:37 am
Guggenheim Picks An Architect For Mexican Outpost The Guggenheim has chosen a conceptual design by Mexican architect Enrique Norten as its choice for a new outpost the museum hopes to build in Guadalajara, Mexico. Norten, a rising star in New York's architectural scene, conceived of a "largely transparent rectilinear tower consisting of a series of steel boxes of various shapes for flexible exhibition spaces." Of course, this is the Guggenheim, which means that there's no guarantee that the Guadalajara museum will ever be built at all, and the next step is a feasability study which should at least answer the question of whether the $180 million project is realistic. The New York Times 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:23 am
A Building Only A Politician Could Love The Freedom Tower has become a parody of its own name, says Nicolai Ouroussoff, and we should have seen it coming. "Somber, oppressive and clumsily conceived, the project suggests a monument to a society that has turned its back on any notion of cultural openness. It is exactly the kind of nightmare that government officials repeatedly asserted would never happen here: an impregnable tower braced against the outside world... If this is a potentially fascinating work of architecture, it is, sadly, fascinating in the way that Albert Speer's architectural nightmares were fascinating: as expressions of the values of a particular time and era. The Freedom Tower embodies, in its way, a world shaped by fear." The New York Times 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:16 am
- The Design Project That Wouldn't End Don't like the latest Freedom Tower redesign? Don't fret, says Michael Goodwin: another redo is likely just around the corner. "The big reason why more changes are coming has little to do with the Freedom Tower. The issue is the growing recognition that almost every element planned for the site is a problem waiting to be discovered." New York Daily News 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:15 am
Making A Mess At The WTC The newly redesigned "Freedom Tower" is a mess, writes James Russell. "It's a monument to bureaucratic bungling and political gutlessness. [Daniel] Libeskind stood up today to endorse the design, even though the scheme ashcans everything he did that touched people. His willingness to defend the continued gutting of his plan is beginning to look pathetic." Bloomberg.com 06/29/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 10:48 pm
- Settling For The Freedom Tower The new version of the "Freedom Tower" at the World Trade Center site is not nearly good enough after all the compromises. Instead of proclaiming "Here is what we are capable of," the new tower mutters "It's the best we could do, under the circumstances." Newsday 06/29/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 10:05 pm
A Crisis In UK Historic Buildings The man in charge of watching over England's historic buildings says the country's significant buildings are in danger. It is, he says, "one of the biggest historic buildings crises since the Reformation". The Guardian (UK) 06/29/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 8:55 pm
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Old Music, New Issues As the battle over intellectual property shapes up as one of the most important of the 21st century, classical music aficionados are increasingly finding it difficult to access classic recordings. "Now that the boom years of the compact disc are over, classical music discs often don't make back their costs. No matter that the discs contain work by some of the century's great artists - often in live performances never recorded in the studio. Their appeal is often so specialized that purchasers are more likely to find them on specialized international Web sites than in Tower Records." But those recordings still belong to someone, and that someone has to be paid if someone else wants to listen, and that puts everyone in a difficult position. Philadelphia Inquirer 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:59 am
Glimmerglass Taps New Haven Exec Upstate New York's famed Glimmerglass Opera has a new general director: Michael MacLeod, who has been the executive director of the New Haven (CT) Symphony since late 2001, will take over the Cooperstown-based company this fall. MacLeod is credited with bringing New Haven's finances into balance in the tough years following the 9/11 attacks. PlaybillArts 06/29/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 4:58 am
Ozawa Reups In Vienna Seiji Ozawa's contract as music director of the Vienna State Opera has been extended through 2010, when the conductor will be 74... Opera News 06/29/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 4:52 am
Baby Steps Working Fine In San Jose The fledgling Symphony Silicon Valley declared its just-completed third season a success this week, with a balanced budget and a newly created endowment to show for its efforts. "Symphony Silicon Valley formed after the collapse of the 123-year-old San Jose Symphony in 2001. The new symphony has started slowly -- 17 performances last year compared with 50 a year for the old symphony -- and has survived mostly without city or corporate funding, depending on private donors and ticket sales." The new endowment will pump $50,000 a year into the budget, and adinistrators hope it will encourage private support for the ensemble. San Jose Mercury News 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 4:43 am
But No Hurling Barrels At The Viola Section, Okay? Several orchestras have had success this year programming music from the popular video game, Final Fantasy, and now, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is taking the concept a step further. The Phil is putting on a full concert of music featuring the music from such classic games as Donkey Kong and Frogger as well as from contemporary hits like Halo, and "for a portion of the two-hour video game music concert, the actions of two gamers playing live on stage will actually direct the 105-piece orchestra... It's a carefully choreographed tribute highlighting the best games and their best features, whether it's the full choir accompanying Halo or the light show complementing Tron or the montage of archival and future video clips for Zelda." Los Angeles Times 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 4:38 am
Frick Charges For Concerts The Frick Museum starts charging $20 for its concerts which have been freefor decades. "The Frick, which has an endowment in excess of $200 million, said it can no longer afford to subsidize the concerts completely. In the past, the series of about a dozen concerts a year has featured major names like Wanda Landowska and Kiri Te Kanawa. In recent years, new stars like Ian Bostridge and Matthias Goerne have made their New York recital debuts there." The New York Times 06/30/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 10:34 pm
David Dubal Goes Comparison Shopping David Dubal is back on radio, spinning his musical comparisons. "While much of classical radio these days seems to consist of little more than DJs dispensing tuneful wallpaper, on any given Wednesday evening, "Reflections From the Keyboard" invites the listener to deepen his or her musical experience. "Where else, within a six-minute span, can you hear a movement of Schumann's 'Carnival' played by Rachmaninoff, Cortot, Hess, Arrau, Godowsky and Michelangeli?" OpinionJournal 06/28/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 5:06 pm
Why You Should Listen To Music You Hate "How can you possibly have your mind open to a brand new piece of music if the only music you'll allow into your life is music that you already like?" That's why Frank Oteri goes out of his way to collect music he despises... NewMusicBox 06/29/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 4:15 pm
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Trying To Stay A Step Ahead of the Feds A new report from Independent Sector, "a Washington, D.C.-based coalition of non-profits," takes a hard line on executive compensation and other methods of pushing the financial envelope, calling for government intervention in cases where non-profit and charitable organizations are found to be abusing the rules that govern their tax-free existence. Why would a group representing non-profits be so tough on its own members? Maybe because the U.S. Senate is gearing up to pass new rules which would be even tougher than those being proposed by Independent Sector. Chicago Tribune 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:42 am
Can Downloading Save Classical Music? Norman Lebrecht has an interesting take on the Supreme Court ruling holding software companies liable for the illegal file-swapping of users: "The music industry have acclaimed the judgement as the most important in decades. It can now stop penalising innocent teens in their bedrooms and go for the geeks who make the stealing systems." Lebrecht is also confident about the future of legally downloadable classical music, citing the BBC's recent project of making the entire symphonic catalog of Beethoven available for download. "There is clearly a demand for more – so much so that such commercial download sites as I-tunes and Napster have linked up to the BBC’s output and some have launched Beethoven promotions of their own. There is a web buzz about Beethoven that could never have been achieved by plastic and terrestrial means of communication." La Scena Musicale 06/29/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:04 am
Narrowing Free Speech On US Campuses A US federal court ruling this week threatens free speech on college campuses. "Seventh Circuit ruled by a 7-4 majority that administrators at public colleges have total control over subsidized student newspapers. But the scope of the decision is breathtaking, since the reasoning of the case applies to any student organization receiving student fees. Student newspapers, speakers and even campus protests could now be subject to the whim of administrative approval." Inside Higher Ed 06/28/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 4:24 pm
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NAC Theatre Taps Maverick Hinton "Maverick playwright and auteur director Peter Hinton has been named the new artistic director of the [Ottawa-based] National Arts Centre's English Theatre... One of this country's most innovative theatre artists, Hinton has directed more than 70 new plays, classical texts and operas, and championed the works of a range of Canadian playwrights in Toronto, Vancouver and, more recently, Montreal, where he was dramaturge-in-residence at Playwright's Workshop Montreal." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:49 am
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Protecting The Paris Library The apparent theft of 30,000 volumes from the Paris Libary is making waves in France, and has sparked discussion of the proper way to balance security and accessibility in the nation's most important archival institution. "'To turn the library into a locked safe would be easy, but it is not our vocation,' [the French daily Le Figaro] quoted Agnès Saal, the library's director-general, as saying. 'Unlike museums, our documents are there to be consulted.'" The New York Times 06/30/05
Posted: 06/30/2005 5:31 am
- Previously: Big Thefts At France's National Library; Curator Questioned About 30,000 books (including about 2000 classified as rare) are missing from France's Biblioteque national, and the library's chief curator is being questioned. "The curator, who has denied the allegations, is the subject of one of half a dozen police inquiries into suspected thefts at the institution, which was founded in the 16th century and, as France's principal copyright and legal deposit library, holds some 35m books, documents, manuscripts, maps, plans and photos." The Guardian (UK) 06/28/05
A Crisis In Jung Bio? A biographer of Carl Jung says that a new German edition of her work has been marred. "This is a chilling moment in the annals of Jungian scholarship. The heirs of C.G. Jung, led by their spokesperson Ulrich Hoerni, have raised objections concerning the alleged invasion of their privacy that, due to German law, has forced Knaus Verlag [the publishers of the German edition of Jung: A Biography] to include their opinions of Jung's life and work within the pages of my book. These will appear as annotations to my extensive notes that follow the text. This unprecedented invasion of my book by the Jung heirs is an appalling act and is happening against my will." About Last Night (AJBlogs) 06/29/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 10:52 pm
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9/11 Themes Find Their Ways Into This Summer's Movies Can "War of the Worlds" send people back into the movie theatres? "In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Hollywood was squeamish about making any movies that touched on the themes of 9/11, even tangentially. Any number of movies about terrorists were either scrapped or rewritten. As time went by, though, a group of filmmakers realized that 9/11 played such a dramatic role in the nation's psyche that ignoring it would be foolish." Los Angeles Times 06/29/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 5:01 pm
One Movie Chain Turns To Money-Back Guarantee The movie theatre business is so spooked by declines in box office in recent months that AMC, one of the biggest chains, is offering a money-back guarantee. If you don't like "Cinderella Man" you get your money back. "The no-hassle money-back guarantee is a rarity in the business, where fans who sit through awful flicks usually leave with little more than bad memories. But AMC's results are encouraging enough that CinemarkInc., another big exhibitor, is planning a similar promotion for the three-day weekend." Wall Street Journal 06/29/05
Posted: 06/29/2005 4:18 pm
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