Study: Meditating Makes You Smarter "What effect meditating has on the structure of the brain has been a matter of some debate. Now Sara Lazar at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US, and colleagues have used MRI to compare 15 meditators, with experience ranging from 1 to 30 years, and 15 non-meditators. They found that meditating actually increases the thickness of the cortex in areas involved in attention and sensory processing, such as the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula. You are exercising it while you meditate, and it gets bigger." New Scientist 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 7:01 pm
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Ambitious Conservation Project Aims To Restore Enormous Painting A 365-foot-long painting depicting the battle at Gettysburg is being restored in a mammoth conservation effort. "One part art and one part commercial venture when it opened in Boston in 1884, this colossal canvas, now in Gettysburg, has become as ragged as an old Army tent - worn, torn, sagging and covered in grime. Art conservators here are embarking on a $9 million federally financed project to restore vigor to a painting that has lost its visceral power. On Sunday the cyclorama and the sound-and-light show that brings it to life will close to visitors at the Gettysburg National Military Park for two years of renewal." The New York Times 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 8:54 am
Italy's Big Art Show Trial Begins The trial of former Getty curator Marion True opens in Italy Wednesday. American museums are anxiously watching the proceedings. "Making an example of the Getty trial will signal that 'the age of trafficking in art pieces is over,' the Italian culture minister, Rocco Buttiglione, said in an interview. 'This isn't about seeking revenge for the past. It's about reclaiming property rights for Italy'." The New York Times 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 8:50 am
Swiss Seize Pushkin Paintings Swiss police have seized paintings belonging to the Pushkin Museum. "The 25 paintings - part of a collection on loan to an exhibit in Martigny - were seized on behalf of a local firm which claims Russia owes it money. The Pierre Gianadda Foundation display, which included works by Manet, Renoir, Picasso and Matisse, was said to have been insured for $1bn (£597m). The company, Noga, said it was owed money for food deliveries in the 1990s." BBC 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 8:31 am
The FBI's Top Ten Stolen Art The FBI has released a list of its most wanted stolen art. "Heading the list were 7,000 to 10,000 Iraqi antiquities stolen from the Iraq National Museum and archaeological sites after the US invasion in 2003. A handful of cylindrical seals believed to be more than 4,500 years old have been recovered, but 5,000 remained missing. It also included the biggest art heist in history - the 1990 theft of an estimated $US300 million ($A409.72 million) in paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston." The Age (Melbourne) 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 9:18 pm
Has The Aboriginal Art Market Peaked? The Australian aboriginal art market has been rocketing up in recent years. But lately some of the higher-profile offerings haven't been making their pre-auction estimates... The Art Newspaper 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 9:16 pm
Study: UK's Old Rural Buildings Falling Down A new survey of rural buildings in England says that "at least a tenth of all old buildings urgently need repairs, and thousands of listed buildings and structures are classified as in severe disrepair, many on the point of collapse. One survey suggests that within 20 years all the timber-framed farm buildings in Hertfordshire will either have collapsed, or been converted - a pattern which the authors suspect is mirrored across the country." The Guardian (UK) 11/16/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 5:06 pm
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Chicago Symphony In Multi-media 3D The Chicago Symphony launches a new multimedia program. "Designed by Gerard McBurney, a British music historian and BBC program host, the introduction deftly mixed vintage photos projected onto a huge overhead screen, excerpts from Strauss' letters, commentary from his contemporaries and short excerpts from the tone poem itself. The pacing was seamless, the information on Strauss and his era coming in easily digestible but never watered-down nuggets. When the CSO played the entire work straight through after intermission, the large audience couldn't help but feel like newly minted connoisseurs." Chicago Sun-Times 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 4:56 pm
Youngest To Oldest - Detroit Symphony At 87, Felix Resnick is the oldest musician in the Detroit Symphony. At 23, Gina DiBello is the youngest. "Resnick began his tenure in 1943 during Franklin Roosevelt's third term, and allowing for the two years the DSO was dormant from 1949 to 1951, his 61 seasons represent the longest active streak in any major American orchestra. DiBello, meanwhile, joined in September. She is one of just a handful of players each year to land a job in a top orchestra while still in their early 20s." Detroit Free Press 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 4:12 pm
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The Best Of Southern Cal Theatre The Ovation Awards honor Southern California theatre, and this year's honors were bestowed Monday. With 24 nominations, Center Theatre Group, encompassing the Ahmanson Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and Kirk Douglas Theatre, led the pack when the nominees were announced in September. In the end, CTG took only five awards, including best world premiere play for Jon Robin Baitz's "The Paris Letter" and best play in a larger theater for Edward Albee's "The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?" Los Angeles Times 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 8:44 am
BBC Shakespeare Audience Plummets "The updating of the classic play, which saw Macbeth become a top chef, was seen by 3.4m viewers, down 1.2m on the previous week's Much Ado about Nothing. Coronation Street and drama Walk Away and I Stumble, which were shown on ITV1 against the drama, got 11.4m and 7.9m viewers respectively. The BBC has made four dramas for the series celebrating Shakespeare's life." BBC 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 4:23 pm
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Gilmour Wins Canada's Governor General David Gilmour wins this year's Governor General's award for english-language fiction for his book "A Perfect Night to go to China". "The awards were announced Wednesday morning in Montreal and will be given to the winners in Ottawa next week by Governor General Michaelle Jean. The announcement was made in Montreal in honour of the designation of Montreal as UNESCO World Book Capital for 2005-06." CBC 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 8:40 am
Whitbread Shortlist Announced Salman Rushdie and Nick Hornby have been shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. "The awards recognise the 'most enjoyable' books of last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland and were established by Whitbread in 1971." BBC 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 8:36 am
Moby Sounds Off One of the best (and first) publishing blogs on the net was Moby Lives, written by Dennis Loy Johnson. But Moby took a vacation this summer, and a promised return in September was delayed. Now Moby's back - only in audio form, with interviews with such notables as David Kippen, the new director of the literature program at the National Endowment for the Arts, and Sara Nelson, an editor at Publishers Weekly. InsideHigherEd 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 9:31 pm
Google: How About Digital Books For Rent "Apparently, the company pitched a plan to an unnamed publisher to offer short-term access (about a week) to book content for roughly 10% of the purchase price. Users could only read the book online -- they wouldn't be able to print or download the content. However, the publisher reportedly refused, saying the price was too low." Motley Fool (MSNBC) 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 4:19 pm
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Reality TV Writers Want Parity With Comedy, Drama Writers "More than 1,000 TV writers want their benefits improved to parity with scribes of comedies and dramas, and about a dozen of their representatives interrupted a discussion Tuesday involving the entertainment presidents of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN and the WB at the Waldorf Astoria. They dumped leaflets on the hotel's banquet hall tables." Toronto Star 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 9:07 am
CPB Inspector General Blasts Tomlinson The Corporation for Public Broadcasting inspector General says that he found no criminal violations by Kenneth Tomlinson. "His report, however, documented a series of Tomlinson-led initiatives that were undertaken without the knowledge of CPB's board or that directly violated the agency's statutes and procedures. Tomlinson, the former chairman threatened to withhold federal funds if PBS refused to 'balance' its programming with more conservatives and he hired lobbyists, consultants and two ombudsmen without the board's knowledge or approval, according to a five-month investigation and report by the CPB's inspector general, Kenneth A. Konz." Washington Post 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 9:01 am
Movie Poster Sells For Record $690,000 A poster for the classic 1926 German film "Metropolis" has been sold for a record $690,000 to a private collector from California, the London gallery that arranged the sale said Tuesday. The sale beat the previous record for a movie poster of $453,500, set in 1997 by a poster for the 1932 film "The Mummy," Los Angeles Times 11/16/05
Posted: 11/16/2005 8:47 am
Reruns On Demand AOL and Warner say they'll launch a new video-on-demand service and make 100 old TV series available online. "Company officials said the shows will be available on demand, meaning computer users who search six new Web-based television channels on AOL.com will be able to choose when they watch the shows and which episodes to view. The companies, both part of media giant Time Warner Inc., will profit by sharing revenue from advertising, including banner ads and four 15-second streaming video ads per 30-minute episode." Washington Post 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 7:32 pm
Sony Might Have Infected Many Computers Sony's anti-piracy measure in DVDs which leaves home computers open to hackers might have struck hundreds of thousands of computers. "Each installation of Sony's rootkit not only hides itself and rewrites systems drivers, it also communicates back to Sony and the creators of the software, British company First 4 Internet and Phoenix-based SunnComm Technologies, who handled the Mac side for Sony." Wired 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 5:45 pm
Sony Pictures In The Red "Sony has a long — and, until recently, successful — history of making big bets on and indulging the creative visions of top filmmakers and actors like Jim Carrey. That strategy has yielded blockbusters. But over much of the past year, Sony's strategy has stopped working. Outside of 'Hitch,' the studio hasn't seen one of its films gross more than $100 million in domestic theaters since October 2004's The Grudge." Los Angeles Times 11/14/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 5:22 pm
Ten Years Of This American Life This American Life is ten years old, and it has changed public radio. "The program has become a full-fledged brand, complete with a pair of movie projects, a record deal with Shout! Factory and a television version of the show awaiting a green light from cable's Showtime channel. Few thought Glass' quirky, narrative-driven radio hour would have either the impact or the longevity it has enjoyed. The show's episodic style tied together by the host's soft-spoken narration was initially a tough sell." Chicago Tribune 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 4:46 pm
Report: Former CPB Chairman Repeatedly Broke Law Investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have concluded that former CPB chairman Ken Tomlinson repeatedly broke the law in the name of routing out "liberal bias". "A scathing report by the corporation's inspector general described a dysfunctional organization that violated the Public Broadcasting Act, which created the corporation and was written to insulate programming decisions from politics." The New York Times 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 4:32 pm
Sorting Out The Managers And Agents In Hollywood "Not so long ago, managers existed solely to offer career advice and support to their clients. But when agents began representing more and more talent — most agents' rosters have swelled to include 30-40 names — the interests of higher-profile stars started to supersede those of clients whose careers needed the most nurturing, and up-and-coming writers, directors and actors turned to managers for assistance." Backstage 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 4:27 pm
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Baldwin's Big Plans For Rambert Mark Baldwin has transformed the Rambert Dance company since taking over. "Under Baldwin, the company has won half a dozen national awards, bigger audiences and critical acclaim for its overhauled repertory. On top of this, he is spearheading a fundraising campaign to get the company relocated to a shiny new base on London's South Bank. It has been a terrific directorial debut." The Guardian (UK) 11/15/05
Posted: 11/15/2005 5:02 pm
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