US: Losing Ground On Innovation? America has long led the world in innovation and patent applications. But is the U.S. losing its competitive edge? "The scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength. Although many people assume that the United States will always be a world leader in science and technology, this may not continue to be the case inasmuch as great minds and ideas exist throughout the world. We fear the abruptness with which a lead in science and technology can be lost - and the difficulty of recovering a lead once lost, if indeed it can be regained at all." The New York Times 11/12/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 9:32 am
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Most of Stolen Iraqi Art Still Not Recovered Of the some 14,000 artifacts stolen in Iraq, only about 5,500 have been recovered. "US military sources say forces in Iraq have no systematic way of investigating the missing objects, and in the ongoing insurgency neither US or Iraqi forces can justify using scarce manpower to guard sites in the countryside, where widespread looting has continued since the March 2003 US invasion. Law enforcement organizations worldwide are chasing the lost items, but their representatives said there is no systematic coordination, and they are relying on a shifting set of ad hoc partnerships to bring the thieves to account." Boston Globe 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 10:45 am
Richly Promoted - Today's Galleries One sign of how wealthy New York's contemporary art galleries have become? The luxurious ways in which they're promoting themselves. "Each day's mail seems to deliver a series of challenges and counter-challenges from the galleries that consider themselves in the upper echelon of the upper echelon. Instead of chest-puffing, ruffed fur or antlers, it's paper worthy of an invitation from the White House. Conveyance by liveried coachmen would not surprise." The New York Times 11/12/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 9:26 am
Piano's Extension Boosts High Museum Collection Renzo Piano's expansion of Atlanta's High Museum doubles the previous museum space. What effect has the extension had on the museum? "More than one-third of the High's collection, including works by Gerhard Richter and the team of Coosje van Bruggen and Claes Oldenburg, was acquired after the museum announced its plans for expansion in 1999. Michael Shapiro, director of the High, attributes the stepped-up interest on the part of donors and patrons to Mr. Piano's reputation for showcasing art. This is not the first time the High has used architecture to draw attention: in 1983, it unveiled a building designed by Richard Meier that is still considered one of his most important works." The New York Times 11/12/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 9:03 am
Italians Meet With Met Museum Over Stolen Objects Italian investigators were in New York last week to meet with officials at the Metropolitan Museum to talk about 22 items in the Met collection the Italians say were stolen. "In Rome, the Italian culture minister said yesterday that the Italian government had made overtures to the Met's director, Philippe de Montebello, about a joint meeting to discuss ancient artworks that Italy claims were illegally excavated and exported before entering the museum's collection of Greek and Roman art." The New York Times 11/12/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 8:55 am
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A Recorded History Of Washington's National Symphony Washington's National Symphony provides a portrait of itself with a release of historical recordings showcasing its 75-year history. The discs take the group from its formative years under Hans Kindler and Howard Mitchell through the tenures of Antal Dorati, Mstislav Rostropovich and its current music director, Leonard Slatkin.
Washington Post 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 10:40 am
Where Are The New Great American Voices? "American vocal training has long been bruited as the best in the world and is supposed to be better than ever. Yet there has been no commensurate rise in great new talents. One clear measure of the problem is the system's inability to deal effectively with large voices and talents like Ms. Wilson's. It seems to favor lighter, flexible voices that can perform a wide range of material accurately, rather than the powerful, thrilling, concert-hall-filling voices on which live opera ultimately relies for its survival." The New York Times 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 10:11 am
New Zealand Symphony's Mixed Year The New Zealand Symphony has had a mixed year. It recorded the sound track for Peter Jackson's "King Kong", but then Jackson decided to junk the music and start over elsewhere. The orchestra became an autonomous Crown corporation and has greater freedom, but also a $915,000 deficit. New Zealand Herald 11/11/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 9:22 am
Sony To Halt Making Antipiracy Software Sony says it will temporarily stop making antipiracy CDs that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers. "The antipiracy technology, which works only on Windows computers, prevents customers from making more than a few copies of the CD and prevents them from loading the CD's songs onto Apple Computer's popular iPod portable music players. Some other music players, which recognize Microsoft's proprietary music format, would work. Sony's announcement came one day after leading security companies disclosed that hackers were distributing malicious programs over the Internet that exploited the antipiracy technology's ability to avoid detection." Washington Post 11/11/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 8:52 am
Toronto Symphony In A Deep Hole The Toronto Symphony closed its financial year with a $2.1 million defifcit. That "boosted the orchestra's accumulated deficit to $9.47 million. The deficit stood at just over $7 million when the TSO teetered close to bankruptcy in 2001. Loan guarantees from the city of Toronto and the TSO Foundation helped stave off another near-death episode. The foundation also handed over $1.5 million in emergency financing, $1 million of which is repayable within five years." Toronto Star 11/11/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 8:48 am
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The Getty's Very Bad Year "The festering problems at the Getty Trust burst into view in October 2004, following the abrupt resignation of Getty Museum director Deborah Gribbon from one of the most coveted posts in the field. Without elaborating, Gribbon cited sharp philosophical differences with Munitz. Since then the scene has grown increasingly bleak. How did things get so bad?" Los Angeles Times 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 9:43 am
Italian Arts Funding Cuts Imperil La Scala, Others Only a year after it reopened, La Scala is facing a huge cut in its funding from the Italian government. "The cash-strapped Italian government has threatened to slash by a third from next year the heavy subsidy which keeps the theatre in business. Across the board cuts in next year's budget for the arts are also likely to affect the Venice Film Festival and the newly opened Music Auditorium in Rome. Other Italian cultural icons which may be touched are 12 other major opera houses, including the Fenice in Venice, plus theatres in Florence, Rome, Naples and Palermo." BBC 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 9:36 am
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David Robertson - The Hope Of Classical Music? "With an arrestingly open and curious mind, a rascally sense of humor and an energizing and controversial conducting technique, he has risen from relative obscurity to prominence in a few short years. Not only is he viewed by many as the savior of this once-major orchestra (St. Louis) crippled by deficits and a recent strike — it will give two concerts this week at Carnegie Hall — but the New York Philharmonic clearly has its eye and ear on him as a potential successor to Lorin Maazel, who is scheduled to step down in 2009." Los Angeles Times 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 9:39 am
Dancer Fernando Bujones, 50 "Although he reached the pinnacle of fame inside the ballet world, greater renown was denied him by mischance. In the summer of 1974, for instance, the great Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected at nearly the same time as Bujones won his ballet olympics medal, overshadowing the young American's triumph. 'Baryshnikov has the publicity, I have the talent,' Bujones said at the time. And he was half-right: Both had the talent, but in Cold War America, a defection from the Soviet Union created instant stardom like nothing else." The New York Times 11/12/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 8:58 am
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Three Small DC Theatres That Rock Three small Washington DC theatres are making names for themselves. "What distinguishes Catalyst, Rorschach and Theater Alliance from the dozens of other upstart troupes is not only a certain consistency but also the sense that these three companies have broken through. In the choice of projects -- whether an experimental twist on a classic, a resurrection of an obscure, centuries-old play or the first American presentation of a modern work by a foreign writer -- there's a level of daring in their offerings. The nerviness of some selections reflects an effort to challenge as well as to entertain." Washington Post 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 10:36 am
The Virtual Theatre Stage "The Woman in White" is the first Broadway show in which "computer-animated images completely dominate the stage. Projections appear on six, 16½-foot-tall curved gray screens that move around the edge of the stage in a circle. Think of the computer animation in a Pixar movie like "Toy Story," with a more realistic, less cartoonish look. The setting can change instantly: as two characters tour an estate, the actors stay put as the background dissolves from one room to another. Or, the animation can take the audience through a three-dimensional environment, over fields, houses, churches and graveyards." The New York Times 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 10:20 am
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Salinas Voters Save Their Library Last week voters in Salinas, Ca., approved adding half a cent to the sales tax to keep the town's library open. Last year the public library almost closed after losing funding. "It really struck a chord on the national level, and we became a poster child for the decline and fall of Western civilization. There was the irony of it being Steinbeck's hometown and all that stuff, and it did begin to represent something larger than just Salinas losing its libraries." San Francisco Chronicle 11/12/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 8:40 am
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Churches - The New Movie Theatre Chain? "The first two "Left Behind" DVD's have sold a combined six million copies, which represents nearly $100 million in consumer spending, according to DVD Exclusive, a trade journal." But besides, DVD sales, churches across America, thousands of them, have signe don to show movies... New York Times Magazine 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 11:11 am
Of Icons And Movie Stars "At least for the moment, movie stars still serve as the gold standard of modern fame. Indeed, the rise of cheap, interchangeable, mass-produced celebrity may have endowed those whose primary medium is the big screen with a bit of added gravity, renewing their license to be taken (or to take themselves) seriously. Their fame remains a unique form of cultural capital, a resource that can sometimes be converted into influence or power." The New York Times Magazine 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 10:56 am
Why DVD's Make Or Break A Movie Studio "A typical studio movie costs nearly $100 million: an average of $63.6 million to make and $34.4 million to market. Theater exhibitors - Regal, AMC, Loews, and the like - generally keep 50 percent of their box-office sales, which means that a movie must sell nearly $200 million worth of tickets worldwide to return $100 million to the studio and thus break even in its theatrical release. Since few movies earn that much at the box office, the studios have increasingly relied on the home-video market, where the equation is much more in their favor, to help recover losses and make a profit." The New York Times 11/13/05
Posted: 11/13/2005 10:15 am
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