Tuesday, December 13
Rushdie: The Culture Inside All Of Us Salman Rushdie writes that "when we, as individuals, pick and mix cultural elements for ourselves, we do not do so indiscriminately, but according to our natures. Societies, too, must retain the ability to discriminate, to reject as well as to accept, to value some things above others, and to insist on the acceptance of those values by all their members. This is the question of our time: how does a fractured community of multiple cultures decide what values it must share in order to cohere, and how can it insist on those values even when they clash with some citizens’ traditions and beliefs?" The Times (UK) 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 3:38 pm
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Montreal Modern In A Grain Silo? The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal wants to build a home in a grain silo. "The museum's project, titled Silo No. 5: Musée d'art moderne, imagines the revamping of three historic grain silos on the western edge of Old Montreal, a project that would include a luxury-condo complex and a museum devoted to modern and contemporary art with a special emphasis on the emergence of abstraction in Quebec. The proposed museum would be housed on the 10th and 11th floors of a concrete grain elevator built in 1957 by C. D. Howe and Co. and would showcase the permanent collection of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:31 am
Serpentine Gallery Fails To Summit An plan to build a mountain above London's Serpentine Gallery has failed. "The proposal, put forward by the Dutch architect MVRDV, was hailed as the most ambitious project to date in the Serpentine's annual programme of temporary summer pavilions. It called for a 23m-high steel frame, enclosing the gallery and covered in artificial grass, which visitors could climb to admire the views of London. However, practical and financial problems led to the design being shelved indefinitely." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:39 pm
Nero Palace Closes For Emergency Repair The palace of Nero is closing abruptly for emergency repairs and will be closed for at least two years. "Leaking water is threatening the palace’s frescoed walls. The estimated the cost of repairs is five million euros ($6.8 million). Ministry archaeologists said a full-blown restoration of the palace and the surrounding area would cost 130 million euros ($179 million) over 10 years. CBC 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 3:22 pm
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A Scottish Music Renaissance? The British Composer Awards have a healthy representation of Scottish composers this year. "In classical music, new works have never had mainstream appeal, but are audiences missing out on a Scottish renaissance?" The Scotsman 12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 7:00 am
Study: Music Sharing Could Be Major Sales Force A new study suggests that online music sharing could become a major force in marketing music. "Nearly one quarter of frequent online music users say that the ability to share music with others is a key factor when selecting an online music service. And a third were interested in technology that helps them discover and recommend music, such as tools that allow Internet users to publish and rank lists of their favorite songs. Perhaps most important for the recording industry, a tenth of those surveyed said they frequently make music purchases based on others' recommendations." Boston Globe 12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:18 am
A Symphony Based On Three Gorges' Dam "Personally, I was impressed by the passion of those who are working at the construction site. I used to think that passion or enthusiasm only has something to do with the artists and never connected it with the scientists or engineers until I stood at the site.' The song-symphony 'Echo from the Three Gorges' composed by Liu Yuan and performed by Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra, will make its premiere at the Beijing Concert Hall." People's Daily 12/13/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 9:03 pm
UK Leads Europe In Digital Download Habit "A survey conducted by Motorola into musical habits around the continent showed that the UK is more in tune with music downloading than any other European country. Britons spend an average of 75p a month on digital downloads, three times more than Germans, French or Italians. This reflects the widespread adoption of digital music in the UK, as well as a thriving legal internet music scene." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:32 pm
Gardiner's Home-Grown Bach (It's a Commercial Success) John Eliot Gardiner was halfway through recording all of Bach's 198 cantatas when Deutsche Grammophon pulled the plug. He decided to continue and release them himself. And how's it going? "We have practically no overheads because it's run from home. And the musicians have agreed to accept royalties rather than fees. The break-even for each disc is around 5,000 to 6,000 and the first album sold 16,000. So far it's gone better than any of us could have hoped. We've got hundreds of subscribers for the whole series of 52 CDs. Any profit we make goes straight back into the financing of the next batch of records." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:28 pm
The New Home Of Jazz: New Jersey? "The New Jersey Performing Arts Center has announced a residency program with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. The collaboration with NJPAC will bring music, food, educational workshops and a Thanksgiving 2006 performance by the orchestra." Newsday (AP) 12/10/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:15 pm
Going For Wows "After modernism, minimalism, postmodernism and postminimalism, a school of music is emerging that might be called wowism," writes Justin Davidson. And who is a leading exponent? Jennifer Higdon. Newsday 12/10/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:13 pm
Music Critic Porter Takes To The Stage Andrew Porter "is about to direct his own first production of Mozart's opera, doubtless to the surprise of many of his admirers. Porter has not built his international reputation as a director but as a music critic, arguably the most widely respected of his generation. To those from whom he has drawn blood, it might seem the Canadian Opera Company has invited the fox into the chicken coop." Toronto Star 12/11/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:02 pm
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In Charlotte - Library And Children's Theatre Combine The city of Charlotte's Public Libray and its Children's Theatre decided to collaborate on a new home. "Occupying a city block in 'Uptown Charlotte'—the growing cultural hub of the city—this freestanding, 102,000-square-foot, two-month-old building is radical for a number of reasons. For one thing, when library and theater leaders agreed to create a joint-use facility, instead of just building a structure that would house both institutions side by side, they took a far riskier step—creating a daringly original space with its own identity and, eventually, its own life." School Library Journal 12/01/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 8:46 am
John Tusa's Case For Why Arts Matter "The arts matter because they are local and relevant to the needs and wishes of local people. They help citizens to express their needs and to clothe them in memorable forms. They offer a way of expressing ideas and wishes that ordinary politics do not allow. The arts regenerate the rundown and rehabilitate the neglected. Arts buildings lift the spirits, create symbols that people identify with, and give identity to places that may not have one. Where the arts start, jobs follow. Anywhere that neglects the arts shortchanges its people." The Guardian (UK) 12/13/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:41 pm
More On Those Sex-Obsessed Artists "Promiscuous Picasso, Lord Byron the philanderer, Dylan Thomas the boozy womaniser: these were not simply bonking Bohemians, it seems, but artists doing what their genes told them to do. According to the researchers the greater the artistic endeavour, the larger the sexual appetites. (There are some obvious exceptions to this rule: Julio Iglesias once boasted that he had had sex with 3,000 women, but has never yet sung a decent song.) Artists have more sex, of course, because that is what they are expected to do. As rule breakers, they are assumed to act on impulse, unconstrained by the mores that apply to the rest of society." The Times (UK) 12/02/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 3:34 pm
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Kitty Carlisle Hart At 95 "George Gershwin asked me to marry him, but I knew he didn't love me, so I said no. He was sweet and vulnerable, successful and good-looking with an instant appeal. So terribly boyish. But he needed constant approval. So he had constant ladies. Whenever he met one, he pretended that he had written a waltz, just for her, that moment. He'd always use the same lyric and just put her name in the blank space. It was his mating call." The Telegraph (UK) 12/13/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 10:13 pm
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Mamet: Why "Night Of The Iguana" Is Not A Good Play "Playwriting is a young man's - and, of late, a young woman's - game. It requires the courage of youth still inspired by rejection and as yet unperverted by success. Most playwrights' best work is probably their earliest. Those prejudices of anger, outrage and heartbreak the writer brings to his early work will be fuelled by a passionate sense of injustice. In the later work, this will in the main have been transformed by the desire for retribution." That said, writes David Mamet, "The Night of the Iguana is not a very good play." The Guardian (UK) 12/10/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:44 pm
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A Magazine Outsiders Can't Get Even as owner David Bradley is moving the Atlantic magazine out of Boston, he's starting another magazine in Boston. This one is a publication for Harvard alums only. "It's certainly an original gambit, to market a subscription-based magazine to a group that outsiders can't join. Alumni magazines typically lose plenty of money, and it's hard to see who would want to read this one, apart from the not-inconsiderable universe of narcissistic Harvard graduates.
Boston Globe 12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:14 am
Harper Collins To Digitize Harper Collins say it will digitize 20,000 books in its catalogue in a bid to rein in potential copyright violations on the internet. "The move comes as the US publishing industry is bringing lawsuits against web search leader Google over its effort to scan copyrighted books in libraries - a move the industry fears would set a dangerous copyright precedent." Austrailian IT 12/13/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 9:34 pm
Japan's Culture Of Comics Comic books may be an American invention, but Japanese comic book culture has taken things to a whole new level... Mercatornet 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 9:26 pm
How Project Gutenberg Is Different From Google Both are digitizing books. But "Google is working from the top down. It's very centralized. Project Gutenberg is the opposite: It's decentralized, it's grassroots. From the consumer's point of view, if you're trying to get a quotation from a book, you could get the book from Project Gutenberg and cut and paste, say, the whole "Hamlet" soliloquy. On Google, you can't. Also, ours is totally non-commercial. You won't find advertising on any of our pages." Wall Street Journal 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 9:19 pm
Whitbread Pulls Out Of Book Awards Retailer Whitbread is pulling out of sponsoring its annual book awards. "The hotel and restaurant firm, which set up the awards in 1971, says it is pulling out because it no longer sells products using the Whitbread name. It is looking to find a new sponsor for the book awards, which include the £25,000 book of the year prize." BBC 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 3:13 pm
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Can Apple Conquer Video? "While the iPod has given Apple a foothold in cars and offices, it has yet to make the move into living rooms. The cable companies have a clear advantage here, as does Microsoft with its Media Center PCs and the enormously popular Xbox. Apple will become a force here on the day when the iPod is expressly designed to plug into your television—not to mention your car stereo and broadband network. If Steve Jobs can make the iPod an entertainment hub, Apple will be the company to beat, a feat it could never accomplish with personal computers." Slate 12/12/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 7:28 am
Brokeback Leads Golden Globe Nominations Cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain gets seven Golden Globe nominations, including best dramatic picture and honors for actor Heath Ledger. Other Best Picture nominees include: "The Constant Gardener," the Edward R. Murrow tale "Good Night, and Good Luck," the mobster story "A History of Violence" and "Match Point," a drama about infidelity.
Yahoo! (AP) 12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 7:15 am
Rome Series Too Raunchy For Italian TV "Italian TV is cutting several scenes from the controversial BBC series Rome because they are too sexy and violent." The Scotsman (AP) 12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 7:11 am
American Cable Companies To Offer "Family" Packages "Under pressure from the government, the nation's two largest cable companies and several others announced Monday a plan to offer packages of family-friendly channels to give parents another option to shield children from sex, rough language and violence." The Plain Dealer (AP) 12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:48 am
Is Scotland Falling Behind In The Digital Revolution? The country's digital literacy is at stake. "The Executive has always said that broadcasting services are a reserved matter , but they have so many points of influence that impact on broadcasting: media literacy, economic development, how Scotland is placed in the digital revolution. It is related." Glasgow Herald 12/11/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 7:10 pm
Are Hollywood's Special Effects Ruining The Movies? "Hollywood studios would like to believe that digital effects are worth the cost, if only because they hold the prospect of a licensing cornucopia for toys and video games. But, alas, the studios also confront the less happy reality that even state-of-the-art CGI, if it gets out of synch with the story, does not create an audience either at the movie houses or on DVD." Slate 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 6:44 pm
Independent Thinking - Dreamworks Sale Proves How Difficult "Sunday, DreamWorks ended its 11-year run as an independent company by agreeing to be sold to Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc., in a deal valued at $1.6 billion. The sale highlights the enormous, perhaps insurmountable, challenges facing an independent company with hopes of competing against massive media conglomerates." Yahoo! (AP) 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 4:00 pm
TV Writers Want Extra Pay For Advertising Trying to combat ad-skipping devices like Tivo, TV networks are turning to product placements in the scripts of shows. But now some writers are putting up a fight, demanding more pay in exchange for scripting product plugs into their shows." Wired 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 3:52 pm
BBC Kills "Horrific" Ad After receiving 1,300 complaints, the BBC has pulled a promotional trailer for digital TV - "which some viewers complained was 'horrific' and 'disturbingly psychotic'." BBC 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 3:17 pm
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Going For The Center - Wherever That Is... "So does the U.S. still matter in dance terms? For the moment, it does. Someday, possibly soon, it won’t. The America of the world’s imagination, in dance terms, is New York. That’s where people outside the U.S. still understand that cultural control holds sway. And it remains a place where everybody would love to present their work." ArtsJournal Dance Forum 12/12/05
Posted: 12/12/2005 9:59 pm
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