Friday, December 16
Virtual Economics "Millions of people now spend several hours a week immersed in 'massively multiplayer online role-playing games' (MMORPGs). These are often Tolkienesque fantasy worlds in which players battle monsters, go on quests, and build up their virtual power and wealth. Some synthetic worlds are deliberately escapist; others are designed to be as lifelike and realistic as possible. Many have a strong libertarian bent." But there's another side to this: economics. The Economist 12/14/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 5:33 pm
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Czech Court Awards Nazi-Looted Art To Canadian Family A Czech court has awarded a Canadian family a European art collection assembled by their Jewish grandfather before the Second World War and later confiscated by the Nazis and then the Communists. "The family has been fighting for more than 14 years to gain title to and possession of some of the estimated 140 art works -- including paintings by Gustav Klimt, James Ensor and Oskar Kokoschka -- owned by their grandfather, businessman Oskar Federer. Many of the works are housed in small public galleries in the cities of Ostrava and Pardubice." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 9:12 am
A New Kind Of 21st Century Art Center? Peter Noever, the "globe-trotting head of Vienna's MAK Center" has a plan for a new art center in an old WWII antiaircraft tower in Vienna. "The idea is to build a collection of the 21st century. And to do it on site, and step by step. It will be very slow — 15 to 20 years. You invite one artist, and then see what he has done, and then see what you do next. It is the very opposite of the kind of collection that's offered on the market, which changes as parts are bought and sold." Los Angeles Times 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 8:41 am
Chihuly Sues Glassbowers Over Copyright Glass artist Dale Chihuly is suing two glassblowers, claiming they are copying his designs. "How does an artist go about proving — or disproving — copyright infringement? How do you differentiate between Chihuly's influence on other glass artists and artistic plagiarism? Can he claim exclusive rights to designs that are modeled on things such as Navajo blankets and sea life? And what does it mean for the world of art glass?" Seattle Times 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 8:36 am
New JetBlue Terminal - How To Wreck A Modernist Classic Eero Saarinen's 1962 masterpiece TWA Terminal at JFK airport is a classic. It's now being used by JetBlue, which in only a few years has become the airport's biggest carrier. So now the airline is expanding. "JetBlue's new terminal, unfortunately, shows just how low air travel can go. At $875 million, it's $125 million cheaper than the bare-bones JFK barracks that American Airlines opened last summer -- and looks it." Bloomberg.com 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 7:46 am
What Went Wrong With Our WTC Plans? "Why has it been so difficult to replace the twin towers of the World Trade Center? Four years after the attacks of 9/11—four years of design competitions, planning studies, and public forums—the design that has emerged is an unlovely and unloved fortress of a skyscraper, which seems to inspire no emotion deeper than a kind of resigned chagrin. This was to have been the building of the century: what went wrong?" New Criterion 12/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 5:44 pm
Decommissioning Northern Ireland's War Murals "Over the past 20 years, Belfast has become famous (perhaps infamous) for its paramilitary murals, visual depictions of its "troubled" times. In Catholic republican areas, street paintings celebrated the Irish Republican Army; in Protestant loyalist areas they paid tribute to a host of splintered violent outfits such as the UDA, the UVF, the UFF. Things are starting to change. With the help of generous city government funding, community activists are replacing these symbols of war with advertisements for peace." Christian Science Monitor 12/16/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 3:48 pm
Director: Detroit Historical Museum Won't Close Contray to what the mayor and city say. Bob Bury, executive director and chief executive officer of the Detroit Historical Society, said the society has "adequate funding" to keep the museum open. The mayor had announced closure because of budget needs. Detroit Free Press 12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 3:22 pm
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Met Picks Up new Sponsors For 75th Radio Season The Metropolitan Opera starts its 75th season of radio broadcasts. "Toll Brothers home builders has joined long-term supporters the Annenberg Foundation and the Vincent A. Stabile Foundation to finance the series, which this year includes 20 live broadcasts and a celebration of Mozart's 250th birthday." Boston Globe 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 9:32 am
It Was The Monster Mash... "An outfit calling themselves Dean Gray (ho, ho) had taken Green Day's American Idiot and fused each one of its tracks with other pieces of music, ranging from Bryan Adams to Queen. Then they changed the album's name to American Edit and set it loose on the Internet. This is a mashup, the on-line stepchild of the remix and the latest way to anger a music company. It's true that the concept sounds improbable; when pairing two different songs, the line between mashup and train wreck can be thin indeed. But the Zen of good mashing isn't about pairing random songs; it's about picking up on the similarities between two tracks, and tweaking the songs to have them create more than the sum of their parts." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 8:58 am
Saving The Met's Aural History The Metropolitan Opera has a trove of recordings of its week-by-week performances across seven decades. "The house is pressing forward with a project to preserve, and in many cases locate, nearly 1,400 recordings of its Saturday broadcasts. Met officials said they have completed 403 preservations, with 868 still to go, spending about $1.4 million in an open-ended project that is predicted to cost more than $4 million." The New York Times 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 8:54 am
Artists Call For Leadership Change At ENO Ten promient arts leaders have called for a change of leadership of the English National Opera. "Mr Smith's style of chairmanship, we believe, has been most damaging to this important institution and has brought about a crisis point," it reads. The letter demands an "urgent change of leadership to ensure a better future". The Guardian (UK) 12/16/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 4:30 pm
- So Who Is Martin Smith? Chairman of the English National opera board, "Smith has been the focus of criticism since the last time he sacked an artistic director of ENO, in 2002, when he was accused of having "shafted" former general director Nicholas Payne. While he has support from some upper management at ENO, he is passionately loathed by many staff and artists. The Guardian (UK) 12/16/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 4:12 pm
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I Got My Degree At... Wikiversity? Members of the Wikipedia community are proposing the creation of a Wikiversity. "It's not clear exactly how extensive Wikiversity would be. Some think it should serve only as a repository for educational materials; others think it should also play host to online courses; and still others want it to offer degrees." Chronicle of Higher Education 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 7:23 am
Freeman Says No To Black History Month Actor Morgan Freeman says the concept of a month dedicated to black history is "ridiculous." "You're going to relegate my history to a month?" the 68-year-old actor says in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" to air Sunday"I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."
Yahoo! (AP) 12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 9:56 pm
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Marin Alsop Rebuilds Marin Alsop has some work to do to gain the confidence of her new orchestra. "Ms Alsop has an ambitious, survivor mentality, though, and this has helped her face the humiliating thumbs-down from the Baltimore Symphony players, whom she had guest-conducted seven times. She describes herself as 'forever a New Yorker, a fatalist optimist tinged with cynicism'.” The Economist 12/14/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 5:22 pm
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Goodspeed Puts Theatre Project On Idle After finding it difficult to raise money, Goodspeed Musicals' plan to build a new theatre complex in East Haddam, Connecticut, to complement its work at the historic Goodspeed Opera House, is on the back burner. Yahoo! (Playbill) 12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 3:45 pm
John Denver Show Bombs, Closes The John Denver jukebox show "Rocky Mountain High" is closing. "The musical entertainment using the songs of the late blond-mopped, boyish singer-songwriter is adapted from the John Denver autobiography 'Take Me Home.' It opened Nov. 9. By close, it will have played 12 previews and 61 regular performances. Playbill 12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 3:40 pm
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Literacy Of American College Grads Falls "The average American college graduate's literacy in English declined significantly over the past decade, according to results of a nationwide test released yesterday. When the test was last administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences. But on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated those high-level skills. There were 26.4 million college graduates." The New York Times 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 10:50 am
Atlantic Magazine Says Goodbye To Boston The Atlantic publishes its final issue in Boston, where it has been for 148 years. It now moves to New York. "David Bradley, who owns the Washington-based National Journal Group of publications and bought The Atlantic from Mort Zuckerman in 1999, has built readership up to about 1.5 million, and doubled newsstand sales to close to 60,000. The latest audited circulation is about 405,000, but according to an e-mail from Bradley, the magazine is still losing about $3 million a year." Boston Phoenix 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 10:11 am
When It Comes to Books, Gimmicks Don't Work "Gimmicky books make awful gifts. Why? Because they're so much easier to give than they are to receive. They're so much more gratifying to gift givers than they are to recipients. And the act of follow-through is not often a big part of these transactions. A gift book may be chosen on impulse, but it can confound whoever winds up with it for a long, long time." The New York Times 12/16/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 4:54 pm
Ottakar's Says It Can't Compete UK book chain Ottakar's says it can't compete with big discount chains. "Ottakar's said like-for-like sales since the end of January had fallen 3.4%, with a marked deterioration from the summer with sales falling by 6.7% despite the release of the latest installment in the Harry Potter saga. Shares in the company, which dropped below 400p this month when a proposed £96m takeover by Waterstone's was referred to the competition commission, fell a further 2% to 357.5p." The Guardian (UK) 12/16/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 4:40 pm
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What Did Howard Stern Do To Radio? "Whether he was a force for further vulgarizing the culture or liberating it from its puritanical neuroses depends upon the ear of the listener. But whatever your viewpoint, one thing is clear: In addition to almost single-handedly creating a new species of talk show hosts — involving behavior that morning show newcomers now must either emulate or surpass — Stern also pushed, stamped and shook pop culture." Los Angeles Times 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 8:38 am
Movies Have a Bad Theatre Year The movie theatre business has had a bad year. "Domestic revenues at movie theaters may fall below $9 billion for the first time since 2001 after averaging $9.3 billion over the last three years. Factoring in higher admission prices, the number of tickets sold is expected to finish at about 1.4 billion, the lowest since 1997." Yahoo! (AP) 12/15/05
Posted: 12/15/2005 3:33 pm
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Washington Ballet Cancels More Nutcrackers In Labor Dispute The union has characterized the situation as a lockout by management. But the Washington Ballet calls it a strike. "For them to be actually hurting the very income source that gives us the ability to do everything we want to do for them is incomprehensible to me," said Kay Kendall, president of the ballet's board of directors. Washington Post 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 9:15 am
What American Dance Needs... "After the postmodern multidisciplinary melting pot era, it’s my opinion that the dance world is in need for specializing again: finding new movement techniques, new working ethics, new ways how the art form could communicate to an dance-alienated public who has lost contact with their own bodies. Though both the infrastructure and the financial situation necessary for accomplishing this is within the US unfortunately almost completely absent, the mindset for establishing for such developments is most definitely there. And that’s where it all starts." ArtsJournal Dance Forum 12/16/05
Posted: 12/16/2005 7:28 am
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