Is Knowing The Cultural Reference Better Than The Culture Itself?
"The traditional benefits of entertainment were the pleasures of the experience. For that, you had to see the movie, read the book or hear the CD. These were ? and are ? powerful pleasures, powerful enough to make entertainment a multibillion-dollar industry. But as society has grown more complex and the information we can know has grown exponentially, knowingness ? the idea of being in the know and of having the expertise to navigate through the haystacks of available information to find the needles ? has come to provide an arguably more satisfying form of gratification. That's why the knowingness industry, including the Internet, seems more vital than the entertainment industry. Google is the new metaphor for fulfillment."
Los Angeles Times
07/31/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 5:50 pm
Click here for more Ideas stories...
Australia National Gallery To Close One Day A Week
To save money, Australia's National Gallery of Victoria will begin closing one day a week. "The decision by the gallery's board of trustees comes months after the Victorian Government granted it an extra $1.2 million a year for three years. But the costs of running the two new complexes meant the gallery recorded losses of $1.9 million last financial year and $6.8 million in 2003-04."
Sydney Morning Herald
08/02/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 10:23 pm
Pompidou Expands With Satellite Museum
The Pompidou is planning a new satellite museum in the shape of a Chinese peasant hat. "The Pompidou Centre Metz in eastern France, due to open in 2008, will show rotating exhibitions from the museum's 56,000-strong collection. Only about 1,300 works can be shown at one time in the Paris museum."
The Guardian (UK)
08/01/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 9:28 pm
A Paint Roller That Paints Images
A new high-tech paint roller allows images to be transfered in the paint. "The Pixel Roller picks up paint from a tray, like any other paint roller, but is controlled electronically by a computer to transfer pixilated images onto any surface ? floors, walls, ceilings, brick, concrete and glass ? and at just about any scale."
Discovery
08/01/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 8:40 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Who's Buying Music?
Music consumers are getting older. "In 1999 music buyers over 30 accounted for less than half of all music sales. Now 55% of music is bought by over 30s."
BBC
08/02/05
Posted: 08/02/2005 6:58 am
Suspiciously (Neo)Romantic
"Neoromanticism has almost always been regarded with suspicion by critics, even though it has been embraced by at least as many composers as has neoclassicism. (The second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians devotes twice as much space to neoclassicism as to neoromanticism.) Is this because neoromantic music is inferior in quality? Or is it merely the last gasp of the same prejudice in favor of innovation for its own sake that once led avant-garde composers and their critical sympathizers to dismiss all tonal music as ?useless??"
Commentary
08/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 11:18 pm
Will New UK Law Kill Live Music?
A new law governing live music venues in the UK threatens to decimate the country's live music scene. "New research shows that almost seven in 10 owners or managers of small music venues are unaware of the implications of the 2003 Licensing Act, which requires them to reapply for their live music licence by August 6. The research warned that at least 56,700 venues face possible closure if they do not reapply by the deadline. Almost half of those those currently stage live music, and it is predicted that the number of gigs taking place every day in the UK could fall from 4,500 to fewer than 2,250."
The Guardian (UK)
08/01/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 9:00 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
California Investigates Getty
The State of California has opened an investigation into the running of the Getty Trust. "The attorney general has requested eight years of records relating to trust Chief Executive Barry Munitz's compensation and expenses, as well as expenditures made for his wife, grants, gifts to trustees and a 2002 real estate transaction. State regulators also have asked for documents connected to criminal charges pending in Italy against Marion True, the Getty's curator for antiquities, for allegedly conspiring to purchase looted artifacts."
Los Angeles Times
08/02/05
Posted: 08/02/2005 7:21 am
Kennedy Center Puts Off Plaza Plan
After the US Congress failed to fund it, the Kennedy Center is postponing indefinitely plans for a huge $400 million plaza in front of the center. "The plaza would have laid a broad covering over the Potomac Freeway and included paths for pedestrians and bikers leading back to the Mall. A signature element was a cascading fountain stretching four blocks toward 23rd Street NW. The project was expected to take 10 years to complete." The project isn't dead, say Kennedy Center officials, but "under normal highway funding procedures, the money could not be appropriated before 2009."
Washington Post
08/02/05
Posted: 08/02/2005 7:15 am
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
National Black Theatre Festival Opens
The National Black Theatre Festival opens this week in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "The festival consists of more than 100 performances on 12 Winston-Salem stages between tonight and Saturday. Organizers expect the festival to draw more than 60,000 visitors to the area and pump nearly $15 million into the local economy."
WFMY (Greensboro, NC)
08/02/05
Posted: 08/02/2005 8:27 am
Click here for more Theatre stories...
Orwell Home To Be Saved
The home in the little town in India where George Orwell was born in 1903 is to be restored. "More than a century after Orwell's birth, his first home - a crumbling, one-storey building near the abandoned indigo warehouse where his father worked - is home to a local English teacher. Now plans are afoot to build a museum and a stadium and put up a statue of the writer in the 10-acre area in Telliapatti."
BBC
08/02/05
Posted: 08/02/2005 7:02 am
More Authors Going Green
"A small and growing number of authors are asking publishers to print their books on environmentally friendly paper..."
USAToday
08/01/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 10:01 pm
Click here for more Publishing stories...
What's Wrong With Public Broadcasting
"The result of public broadcasting?s failure to reinvent itself has been a steady drop in ratings that PBS President Pat Mitchell said in an address to the annual PBS meeting in 2002 threatened to reduce public broadcasting to ?irrelevance? in the television universe. Loss of ratings has led in turn to increased time allotted to corporate sponsorship segments and laxer standards concerning their content, making PBS stations less distinguishable from commercial television. It has also forced local stations to rely more heavily on endless ?pledge? drives with their pablum programming of mediocre motivational speakers and Lawrence Welk re-runs." New Criterion
08/05
Posted: 08/02/2005 8:52 am
Think Small - Little Theatres Draw The Crowds
Movie mega-plexes long ago squeezed out the neighborhood movie theatres in most places. But as the movies see a drop in ticket sales, small movie theatres with character are finding a place for themselves... Miami Herald
08/02/05
Posted: 08/02/2005 8:02 am
Writing Off The Movies
?' Product,' the old Hollywood moguls used to call the movies they made. Most of them were main-chance Jewish operator types who ran their studios on the factory model. They were aware that the right actors and actresses were crucial and were what people paid their money to see. Directors who knew how to get the best out of these actors were also important, as were producers with a talent for organization and for keeping all these temperamental characters in line. But without writers there was nothing; the game could not even begin until writers had put the ball in play. And yet writers, as everyone knows, have always been thought the most dispensable element in the Hollywood equation." Commentary
08/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 11:09 pm
Doing The DVD Death Spiral
The wait between when a movie is released to theatres and when it comes out on DVD has gotten shorter. That in turn has increased pressure on movie theatres and is changing a time-tested business model. Is there a way to pull out of this death spiral? Slate
08/01/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 10:48 pm
Aussie Movie Chain Slashes Ticket Prices
Australia's movie box office is suffering like it is in the rest of the world. So one of the country's biggest movie theatre chains is slashing prices. "Hoyts announced yesterday that tickets for 'any movie, any session, all day long' would be discounted savagely from Thursday to Sunday after yet another flat weekend for takings." Sydney Morning Herald
08/01/05
Posted: 08/01/2005 10:17 pm
Click here for more Media stories...
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Dumps Live Music For Recordings
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, struggling to cut costs, has decided to ditch live music and use recordings, to save $500,000 this fall. "This isn't something we like to do. You want to have a ballet company in Pittsburgh? This is what needs to be done. Just because you're an arts organization doesn't mean you can't make a business decision. You have to live within your means."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
08/02/05
Posted: 08/02/2005 7:40 am
Click here for more Dance stories...
