Oxford To Ban Prodigies? Oxford University is considering banning child prodigies from the school and declaring a minimum age of 17 for admittance. "Despite an almost perennial flurry of headlines on children barely in their teens being offered places, the university is considering an unprecedented blanket rule on minimum ages for undergraduates." The Observer (UK) 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 5:53 am
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Barnes De-attributes Some Of Its Art The Barnes Collection has just completed its first-ever professional assessment of its collection. "An in-depth study of the foundation's collection has determined that perhaps as many as two dozen of its Old Masters, while still old, aren't quite as masterly as Dr. Albert C. Barnes was led to believe when he bought them." Philadelphia Inquirer 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 11:24 am
Lists, Lists, And More Damn Lists! Rachel Cooke hates the pointless exercise of a poll to pick the "best" art in Britain. "I am thoroughly sick of lists, but this one takes the biscuit, being neither a true reflection of public taste nor the result of hours of debate by a committee of learned experts. What happened was this: the public voted, then their choices were whittled down by a 'panel' consisting of art critic Martin Gayford, society portraitist Jonathan Yeo, and dancer Deborah Bull." The Observer (UK) 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 5:45 am
A List Of Worsts Forget about Best Art. What's the worst art in Britain? The Guardian asks ten experts to pick 'em, and the accompanying images are evidenc... The Guardian (UK) 08/20/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 5:40 am
A Surge In French Art Thefts Art thefts are on the rise in France, as the country threatens to become the most-looted in Europe, surpassing Italy. "There has been a huge spike in these kinds of cases recently, largely due to the wrong people realising that there are easy pickings to be had. Few law enforcement agencies prioritise art theft, despite it being linked to drugs, arms and people-trafficking and prostitution. It is only going to get worse." The Observer (UK) 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 5:34 am
Batman And Robin Kissing? Take It Down! A New York gallery has been told by DC Comics to take down pictures depicting Batman and Robin kissing. "The colour pictures, which depict the superheroes in a number of homoerotic poses, were put on display in the gallery in February. Seven images from the collection were subsequently displayed on the Artnet site." BBC 08/20/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 4:59 am
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Holy Minimalism Batman! "The radical fringe of serious music isn't on Manhattan's Lower East Side or at George Crumb's house in suburban Philadelphia. It's among the mystical and the devout of Eastern Europe and Russia, collectively called "holy minimalists" - and they're championed by some of the world's best-known performers. Spare in the extreme, might the music be too much an afterthought of the composers' inner experience? Or do we just need a few decades to figure it out?" Philadelphia Inquirer 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 11:28 am
Get With The Program (By Email, And In Advance) Who has time to read program notes at the concert? "Now the Los Angeles Philharmonic has come up with something it considers a solution to the problem: FastNotes, a brief set of program notes to be e-mailed free to interested parties a week or so before a concert. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, the notes will include links to iTunes and similar websites that will allow FastNotes subscribers to hear a brief passage of the music to be played." Los Angeles Times 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 11:19 am
Those Twisted Pianists (Aren't They Fun?) Which musicians are the best fodder for movie portrayal? Pianists, definitely. "For better or worse, it's pianists, in particular, who seem the most narratively and pathologically appropriate musicians to be depicted on celluloid as twisted personalities." Los Angeles Times 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 11:08 am
Interlochen's Successful Summer The Interlochen Center has made some big changes in the school in the past year. Interlochen president Jeffrey Kimpton has been reorganizing the venerable institution and the changes seem to be paying off. "The goal is to retain Interlochen's historical mission while adjusting to a changing society and becoming more financially secure. The quality and competence of the staff is paramount. This summer, we've not had one complaint about a teacher. Last year we had complaints all the time." Detroit Free Press 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 10:15 am
Garth Brooks - Only At Wal-Mart Brooks has cut a deal with the mega-retailer to sell his music exclusively there. "Brooks' arrangement is the first time an artist has made an entire catalog available only through one outlet. Exclusive albums as special one-time promotions are becoming increasingly common, such as when Alanis Morissette and Bob Dylan limited sales to Starbucks Corp. Music retailers complain, however, that such deals are bad for the industry. Some pulled Morissette's albums from their shelves after she cut her Starbucks deal."
Los Angeles Times 08/20/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 5:19 am
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In Minnesota: How About Restoring Arts Funding? Minnesota's state legislators "gutted arts funding" in 2003. Dominic Papatola writes that with the State meeting to consider funding for stadiums, they shouldn't forget about restoring some of that arts money. "Yes, a bundle of money got tossed at the Guthrie and Children's theaters. But cuts to the Minnesota State Arts Board — which serves individual artists, arts organizations and school kids from Moorhead to Ely to Rochester — cost the agency a third of its budget and two-fifths of its staff. Don't forget that states and municipalities across the country are returning to the arts-funding table." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 9:31 am
Maker Of Reputations (Who Decides?) Why does some art stick around, touted as great, while other art - maybe just as good or better, even - sinks into oblivion? "Who makes the rules? Who manages the reputations of artists? Who decides what gets taken from the past, and what just stays there?" The Observer (UK) 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 5:42 am
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Hunter S. Blasts Off The remains of Hunter S. Thompson set off on their space ride. "The counterculture author killed himself six months ago at his home near Aspen. His ashes, intermingled with fireworks, were fired out of the tower Saturday evening in front of a star-studded crowd at his Owl Farm compound." Yahoo! (AP) 08/20/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 6:01 am
The Understated Conductor Of Greatness "Charles Mackerras's career has belatedly been recognised as great, but not because, like some jet-setting conductors, he set out to accumulate all music's most glittering prizes - his CV is surprisingly short of those defining music directorships at Covent Garden or La Scala, or chief conductor posts in Berlin, Chicago or London. Rather, his 60-year career has been characterised by a combination of musicological awareness, meticulous preparation and highly charged performance." The Guardian (UK) 08/20/04
Posted: 08/21/2005 5:38 am
Getting To Know Michael Brand The new Getty Museum director spent his summers as a youth traveling to see art. "Hearing the music in Italy, going to temples in India, eating the food in France — those formative lessons helped shape Brand's philosophy, his view of art. People who approach art purely through art history and European paintings, he said, might tend to look at paintings as two-dimensional things, of another time, to be purchased and put on a wall. But 'my first experiences were more in places where there are rituals going on and there are people and sculptures and temples and sound'."
Los Angeles Times 08/20/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 5:15 am
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Sundance - Not Just For Movies Anymore It's become the hot place where creative teams go to put their plays together. "Every July, seven or eight playwrights, similar numbers of directors and dramaturges, and a few dozen actors, converge on Robert Redford's rustic, wood-built compound on the lower slopes of 11,750-foot Mt. Timpanogos." Los Angeles Times 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 11:03 am
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For Those Midnight Couscous Emergencies Need a book fix in the middle of the night? If you're in Paris, now you can go to one of five book vending machines. "Stocked with 25 of Maxi-Livres best-selling titles, the machines cover the gamut of literary genres and tastes. Classics like 'The Odyssey' by Homer and Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland' share the limited shelf space with such practical must-haves as '100 Delicious Couscous' and 'Verb Conjugations'." Yahoo! (AP) 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 11:36 am
Plain Beauty - From Book To Screen Why do filmmakers cast pretty women for movies of great novels? "Books link readers directly to the interior lives of their heroines, but the camera needs the beauty out on the surface, where the audience can fall in love with it faster. In novels, other characters are wooed by wonderful minds, and infer beauty from what's within. On film, a plain face has to work so much harder to persuade people. It's so much easier to start with the lovely, but it loses so much. The great women novelists of the 19th century had no great interest in the great looking; among the first to trade on their brains rather than their appearance, they created characters who also had greater interior than exterior worth." The Age (Melbourne) 08/20/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 6:27 am
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How Do You Say "You're Fired" In Chinese? Donald Trump is taking "The Apprentice" to Chinese television. "Trump will be the executive producer of the Chinese show, which will be hosted by Beijing property mogul Pan Shiyi." Yahoo! (AP) 08/21/05
Posted: 08/21/2005 11:33 am
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