The Language of Empire Over the last half-century or so, English has risen to become the dominant global language of the era, spoken as the default in everything from international business transactions to air travel. But achieving a global reach doesn't necessarily give a language long-term staying power, as the Assyrians and the Silk Road traders found out centuries ago. Then again, some languages are kept alive past their political and economic prime by a powerful religious influence. Linguist Nicholas Ostler's new book delves into all of these factors, and aims to sort out what gives a language its power, and what can take that power away in a heartbeat. Chicago Tribune 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 6:16 am
Men And Women - Our Brains Are Physically Different "In the prime of life, the cerebral cortex contains 25 billion neurons linked through 164 trillion synapses. Thoughts thread through 7.4 million miles of dendrite fibers and 62,000 miles of axons so compacted that the entire neural network is no larger than a coconut. No two brains are identical, nor are two minds ever the same. Wherever researcher Sandra Witelson looked, she discerned subtle patterns that only gender seemed to explain. Her findings buttress the proposition that basic mental differences between men and women stem in part from physical differences in the brain." Seattle Times (LAT) 07/03/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 8:58 pm
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Is LACMA Losing Its Artistic Soul? The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is certainly not the only American museum to recognize the economic potential of blockbuster exhibitions that come with massive corporate sponsorship, but Holly Myers worries about the museum's soul, and wonders where all its curators have gone. "LACMA's flirtation with corporate production is lamentable in relation to Tut. More distressing, however, is the fact that many of the same problems also plague... a comparatively low-profile exhibition that doesn't involve extraordinarily precious artifacts and isn't likely to draw record-breaking crowds — suggesting that LACMA's problem goes deeper than the necessary indulgence of an occasional blockbuster." Los Angeles Times 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 6:37 am
Lesson: Ask Before You Demolish A sculpture by Canadian artist Haydn Davies was torn down and dumped in a field last week by an Ontario college, infuriating the sculptor and his family, who were not consulted before demolition. "Officials said the sculpture, commissioned by the college in the early 1970s for $10,000, had deteriorated so much that its lack of stability made it a safety hazard, especially to young children who liked to play around and under it." But the family disputes the safety claim, and says that the rough manner in which the removal was conducted (a bulldozer was involved) damaged the sculpture beyond repair. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 6:30 am
Canaletto Masterpiece Up For Sale "A painting by Italian master Canaletto is expected to fetch between £4-6m at auction in London. Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day is part of a £15m auction of items owned by Portuguese businessman Antonio Champalimaud, who died last year. The painting shows the Doge's barge, the Bucintoro, with crowds on what is thought to be Ascension Day, when the Doge blessed the city." BBC 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 5:41 am
The V&A's Sensible Alternative When the Victoria & Albert Museum finally decided to bag Daniel Libeskind's controversial "spiral" addition, the museum started over. "This time round the museum started by asking the question, "What do we really need?" or rather, "What does the visitor need?" It commissioned a masterplan, re-thought the whole way the museum is organised, realised the heart of this new vision was the garden, and then brought in designers to suggest what might be done to make what had become a dank and unloved space, dominated by brooding cypress trees, work." The Telegraph (UK) 07/05/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 10:29 pm
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No Red Ink In Dallas The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has balanced its $23 million budget for the second year in a row, bringing in $8.48 million for its annual fund drive and boosting its endowment to $100 million. Dallas Morning News 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 5:34 am
Top Exec At BBC Scottish Calling It Quits It's an exciting time for the Glasgow-based BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, which has just extended the contract of its popular music director, Ilan Volkov, and will shortly move into its new permanent home in the heart of the city's entertainment district. "By any yardstick, then, there is everything to play for in the orchestra whose technical ability and reputation has utterly transformed in the past decade and a half." So why is the orchestra's longtime general director choosing this moment to walk away? The Herald (Glasgow) 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 5:22 am
Name That Tune (They'll Do It For You) Ever stuck trying to name a song you heard? Now the computer will do it for you. "You call a toll-free number on your cell phone and play the music you're trying to identify for 15 seconds. The program then contacts you via text message, whether it can make the ID or not. Sorry, but humming a tune won't work. But the service can distinguish between different performers' versions of the same tune to match audio "fingerprints" from its database of more than 2.5 million popular recordings. The database doesn't include classical music or jazz." Chicago Sun-Times 07/05/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 9:45 pm
A Little-O Opera Revival In Montana A long-forgotten American opera based on Blackfeet Indian legend has an unlikely revival in a struggling agricultural town in northern Montana. "We have to overcome this stereotype that people have developed over what we're calling this show. It's an opera, but I don't ever say the O-word. I refer to it as the legend of Scarface told through acting and singing and lighting." The New York Times 07/02/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 8:47 am
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Scrapping For Every Dime In The Original Blue State Three year after absorbing a brutal 62% cut in its state funding, the Massachusetts Cultural Council has made slight gains at the legislature, receiving an additional $1.3 million in public funds for fiscal 2006. The increase, signed into law by the state's Republican governor last week, puts the council's overall budget at $9.6 million. Most of the additional money is meant to restore grants that were eliminated in the wake of the budget cuts in 2002. The governor had originally threatened to veto the increase, but changed his mind under pressue from legislative leaders and the public. Boston Globe 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 5:56 am
Edinburgh Summer Fests Going Through The Roof Edinburgh's multiple summer festivals are doing particularly well at the box office this year, with many upcoming events already sold out. "Ticket sales for this year's International Festival are 14 per cent up on last year as theatre and dance fans snap up briefs for the most sought-after productions." The book fest is selling at a record pace as well, and the always-popular Fringe Festival is on a steady track as well. Overall, it's a positive sign for the arts in Scotland, given the recent history of government funding controversies and struggling companies. The Scotsman 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 5:07 am
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Gergiev's Obsession (Hint - It's Not the LSO) "The unexpected news that the Russian super-conductor Valery Gergiev has added Britain's top orchestra, the London Symphony, to his bulging portfolio is still reverberating round the classical-music world... Gergiev is clearly delighted to be chosen by the LSO, but his real passion is reserved for the Kirov Opera and Ballet. With a single-mindedness that borders on obsession, Gergiev has thrown himself into creating a company to rival, and many would say, overtake, the Bolshoi in Moscow." The Independent (UK) 07/05/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 5:37 am
Hizzoner Puts His Money Where His Budget Knife Is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made a $20 million personal donation to the city's arts groups through his preferred vehicle, the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Bloomberg has long been known as one of New York's leading philanthropists, and while his donations to Carnegie have officially been anonymous, his willingness to spend his own considerable wealth on the arts has long been an open secret. "While the grants through Carnegie represent just a portion of the mayor's overall philanthropy - last year he gave a total of about $140 million in donations to more than 800 institutions and groups - they are often vital to local groups that are struggling with fund-raising and, sometimes, have also struggled with budget cuts imposed by the Bloomberg administration." The New York Times 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 5:17 am
Vilar - The Disappearing Man Philanthropist Alberto Vilar was good to Los Angeles Opera, giving it millions. Now that he's defaulted on his gifts and got in trouble with the law, "it's as if the man who once posed with Domingo, celebrity conductors and members of the board, who delighted in publicly handing out checks and watched performances intently from a seat of honor in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, had never set foot in town." Los Angeles Times 07/05/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 10:43 pm
Puccini Grandaughter Opposes Theatre Plan Puccini's granddaughter is protesting a plan to build a theatre at the composer's home. "Simonetta Puccini said the proposed building of a 3,200- seat theatre with shops, parking spaces and a "panoramic elevator", at Torre Del Lago in Tuscany would ruin the countryside that so inspired Puccini." The Guardian (UK) 07/05/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 10:03 pm
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Half of Jujamcyn Theaters Up For Sale "The owner of Broadway's third largest theater chain is looking for a partner. Rocco Landesman, the colorful Broadway producer who bought Jujamcyn Theaters last year for $30 million, is trying to sell a 50 percent stake in the company for about $50 million." But Landesman, who is pursuing some of Broadway's richest financiers for the partnership, could get more than he bargained for, given Broadway's long history of political and financial squabbles. New York Post 07/06/05
Posted: 07/06/2005 6:42 am
Fire Destroys Berkeley Rep Shop A fire has destroyed Berkeley Repertory Theatre's scene shop. "The Rep's two theaters and adjacent School of Theatre in downtown Berkeley were not affected by the three-alarm fire, but the rented warehouse where the company has built all its sets for 15 years, located many blocks away in northwest Berkeley, was destroyed. The Rep's immediate losses, estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, were principally in the form of tools and materials." San Francisco Chronicle 07/05/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 10:55 pm
Lloyd Webber To Sell West End Theatres A Lloyd-Webber is close to selling four of his 12 West End theatres for about £11 million. "The sale would change the face of theatreland, with a big new theatre owner - Broadway producer Max Weitzenhoffer - entering the West End fray." The Guardian (UK) 07/05/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 9:58 pm
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The Website That Called Fraud On American Poetry Contests "To make a career in American poetry nowadays you must enter poetry contests and work your way up the prestige ladder. The contests are run by university and small press publishers. Thousands of hopefuls enter their manuscripts, paying a fee of around $25. The publisher is guaranteed a profit. Most contestants are guaranteed to lose. It's like boxing - just as bloodily competitive and, Foetry alleged, just as crooked." The Guardian (UK) 07/03/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 10:11 pm
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Uh-Oh - DVD Sales Are Slumping Too There are "small but troubling signs are emerging that the DVD market's growth could be trailing off faster than Hollywood expected. On June 30, Pixar Animation Studios (PIXR ) cut its earnings-per-share estimate for the second quarter to 10 cents from 15 cents, due to slower-than-expected DVD sales of its blockbuster The Incredibles. The stock of Dreamworks Animation (DWA ) dropped sharply in mid-May, after the studio reported that returns of its own blockbuster Shrek 2 left sales 5 million short of its forecasts. Major retailers have noticed that DVD sales have been softer than anticipated recently, too." BusinessWeek 07/01/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 11:44 pm
Study: TV For Kids Under Three Is Bad "For each hour of television watched per day before age 3, a child's reading comprehension and short-term memory scores fell at age 6 and 7. But for older children, every hour of television led to slightly better performance sounding out and pronouncing words. Since 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended no television for children 2 and younger, including educational shows. For older children, the academy suggests no more than one to two hours a day of "quality" television." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 07/05/05
Posted: 07/05/2005 8:54 pm
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