Tuesday, January 17
Reordering The Brain (Relax - It Happens All The Time)
For centuries, scientists held that the brain was a fixed entity, that it was hard-wired for each individual function, and incapable of reorganizing after injury. In the last half-century, however, new technology and cutting-edge experiments have exploded that dogma, revealing not only that the brain does in fact reorganize and adapt, it does so all the time. 'A large part of our brains is devoted to vision-some estimate more than half. A question we are asking is what happens to that part of the brain when there is no input from the eyes'?"
Boston Globe
01/15/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 5:54 pm
Is Appreciation Of Art Built Into Our DNA?
"The existence of a universal aesthetic psychology has been suggested, not only experimentally, but by the fact that the arts travel outside their local contexts so easily. Displays of virtuosity make audiences' hair stand on end, regardless of their specific cultural context. It's no surprise this is a universal aspect of human nature: over thousands of generations, hunter-gatherer bands that exercised dexterity, and encouraged it by admiring it, would have survived better than their less skilful cousins against predators and the rigours of a hostile environment."
The Australian
01/15/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 5:31 pm
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American Says Klimt Paintings Should Remain In Austria
The American woman who won ownership in an Austrian court of five Gustav Klimt paintings that had been looted by Nazis from her family, says she'd like the paintings to remain in Austria. But the Austrian culture minister says that "Austria could not afford to buy back the paintings, citing media reports that Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also called the 'Golden Adele', alone was worth between 70 million and 100 million euros. 70 million euros amounts to the whole budget for all museums in Austria -- all public museums'."
Reuters India
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:49 am
Austrian Court Awards Klimt Paintings To Californian Woman
An Austrian court has ruled that Austria should give back five paintings by Gustav Klimt to a California woman says were stolen from her Jewish family by the Nazis. "The Austrian arbitration court determined the country is legally obligated to give the paintings to Maria Altmann, the heir of the family who owned them before the Nazis took over Austria in 1938, the Austria Press Agency reported."
ABCNews.com
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 5:38 pm
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Denver's New Opera House Gets Acoustic Tweaks
Denver's new Ellie Caulkins Opera House opened last fall. But "because of the tight construction schedule for the Caulkins Opera House and the need to have it ready in time for the 2005 fall season, the paint was barely dry when the hall opened. The first significant tests of its acoustics came during public performances." They've so far proven disappointing, so "tweaks" are being made.
Denver Post
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 8:33 am
Philadelphia Orchestra Adds Colorado To Its Annual Summer Schedule
The Philadelphia Orchestra is adding Vail, Colorado to its list of annual summer residencies. "The orchestra has struck a deal to become a resident orchestra at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival starting in 2007. The deal with the Vail festival, whose artistic director is flutist Eugenia Zukerman, runs three years. The orchestra will play six concerts each summer starting in early July.
Philadelphia Inquirer
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 7:59 am
The Computer That Can Predict Hits
"The computer can go out on the internet and read a bunch of weblogs and record reviews and get a grasp on trends and buzz and hype and that sort of thing. At the same time, it also can listen to the music - do some signal processing to figure out stuff like dominant key and pitch and rhythm and structure. For record company executives, this raises the tantalising possibility of knowing in advance whether their latest pop act will hit the charts at a strong position. Hit prediction is possible.
The Guardian (UK)
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 6:59 pm
Should Ottawa Orchestra Shed Itself Of Unprofessional Zukerman?
Is it time for Ottawa's National Arts Center Orchestra to part ways with music director Pinchas Zukerman, who ditched the orchestra in mid-season? "At his best, Zukerman's a wonderful violinist. We've occasionally heard him at his best, too, but, just as often, he just seems to phone in his performance, apparently bored by the music or the audience."
Ottawa Citizen
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 6:12 pm
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Canada's Culture Debate (Where Is It?)
Why aren't Canadian politicians talking about culture in the current federal election? "Compared to other countries, Canada has failed miserably at supporting its artists. ?England?s national arts council funds in the amount of $24.36 per capita. Ireland is at $17.91 and Norway is at $10.97. Currently, the Canada Council receives $4.73 per Canadian."
CBC
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:33 am
British Lottery Fund To Take Dip
The UK's Heritage Lottery Fund, the cash spigot that has financed many cultural projects, is going to see a big drop in its funding ability. The HLF "will award £330 million in the current financial year, but this will fall to £200 million in 2008, down nearly 40%. There are three reasons for the anticipated drop", including funding for Olympics projects and an accounting change.
The Art Newspaper
01/16/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:27 am
Welsh Arts Support Reorganization Defended
Welsh arts minister Alun Pugh defends his decision to take the country?s six major cultural organisations under government control and not to reappoint Arts Council Wales' chairman. "The reality is I want to see public money invested in the arts reaching all communities. There is a need to reform for the future in order to ensure that we continue as a nation to develop excellent arts, with access for all."
The Stage
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 6:27 pm
Scots To Redo Arts Support
New plans for a major overhaul of Scottish arts support is expected to be announced this week. "The minister is expected to announce her intention to impose a statutory duty on local authorities to provide arts and culture. This would take the form of a "cultural right" for every individual in the country to have arts provided in their area. It is not clear how this would work but it does raise the interesting possibility of a council being taken to court by an individual who felt the local authority was not providing enough culture. One way in which the scheme could work practically would be with the use of "culture vouchers" for schoolchildren."
The Scotsman
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 6:18 pm
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Elliot Forbes, 88
Harvard faculty-member and Beethoven expert "was a great-grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson, combined a Yankee sense of duty with an un-Yankee-like personal warmth. A daily attendee at morning prayers at Harvard's Appleton Chapel, Mr. Forbes was a trustee of the New England Conservatory and board member of the Pro Arte and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (the museum's piano is dedicated in Mr. Forbes's name)."
Boston Globe
01/13/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 8:44 am
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A Way To Get London's Theatre World Mad At You...
Dominic Dromgoole is in his first year running London's Globe Theatre. So he holds a press conference, and launches a series of... colorful... assertions duly reported in the press. Said assertions put Dromgoole at odds with... well, everyone?
The Guardian (UK)
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 6:54 pm
Sir Andrew's Excellent New York Adventure
As "Phantom" becomes the longest-running show on Broadway, surpassing "Cats", Andrew Lloyd Webber goes to New York, keeping a diary along the way...
The Telegraph (UK)
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 6:48 pm
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Wholphin' It Up With A New Magazine
Wholphi is a new magazine. But not a traditional magazine with old-fashioned pages. It comes in the form of a DVD crammed with features. Why might it work? "We're sick and tired of words -- endless words marching one after another in horizontal line after horizontal line in paragraph after paragraph in article after article in magazine after magazine. In other words, we're sick of reading. We long to join the rest of our fellow Americans sitting on the sofa with beer and Doritos, basking in the glow of a TV screen. And now Wholphin enables us to do just that."
Washington Post
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 7:41 am
Frey Flap - Truth In Advertising
The uproar over James Frey's misrepresentations in his best-selling memoir is not "just a case about truth-in-labeling or the misrepresentations of one author: after all, there have been plenty of charges about phony or inflated memoirs in the past, most notably about Lillian Hellman's 1973 book 'Pentimento.' It is a case about how much value contemporary culture places on the very idea of truth."
The New York Times
01/17/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 7:07 pm
Duffy Wins Eliot Poetry Prize
Carol Ann Duffy wins this year's TS Eliot Prize for poetry. The Poetry Book Society, which awards the prize, said: "This year's TS Eliot prize highlights a (some would say) rare moment of agreement between the critics and the booksellers as to what constitutes great poetry."
The Guardian (UK)
01/17/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 7:01 pm
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WB Network In Freefall
The WB network is in dire straits. This season its audience has dropped by eight percent. That follows a drop of nearly 10 percent last season. It's now behind former last-place network UPN, and the network is cutting staff. San Francisco Chronicle (LADN)
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 7:51 am
Talk About Unreality Shows - "The Next Prime Minister"
It's a Canadian TV show in which contestants try to convince former Prime Ministers they have what it takes to run the country. "The contest has already received hundreds of video submissions from Canadians aged 18 to 29. The show, set to be taped in Toronto on Jan. 30 and airing Feb. 4, will have the former PMs picking a winner from the top five finalists. Policy goals are a big criteria in the contest, but how well the contestants sell themselves to the former PMs is said to be the point of the show. The winner gets $50,000 in cash and a six-month paid internship in both the public and private sector." The Globe & Mail (Canada)
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 7:33 am
Globes - About Shared Experience That Really Isn't Anymore
Why did this year's Golden Globes seem so lacklustre? "Despite the hard evidence to the contrary, TV shows and movies still maintain the symbol of the shared experience; it's partly what award shows are for, to honor what we talk about. Except that that equation doesn't so much exist anymore." Los Angeles Times
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 7:24 am
So Goes The Music Video...
Music videos, so much the hot thing in the 1980s era of MTV, have lost much of their influence. "While music videos have declined in value as promotional tools, they have fuelled the profiles of a new school of short-form auteurs, to the point where their works can now be savoured in a more rarefied context than in the frenetic flow on music channels." CBC
01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:38 am
Starlets In Babeland
"The glass ceiling in Hollywood is no secret. Some actresses succeed in breaking through, but they still find it a daunting challenge to escape Hollywood's requisites to satisfy the youth culture." Slate
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 6:42 pm
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SF's New Community Of Dance
ODC/Dance opens up a big new home in San Francisco. "Despite plaudits from dance world luminaries such as Bill T. Jones, the building has yet to attract the same media buzz as the Baryshnikov Arts Center in Manhattan, or the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn -- even though the ODC complex is larger and more expensive than both of those projects. 'The community idea is not glam, and we're a culture that likes the star approach. Ultimately, substance can be attractive too, but it's not sound bites'."
San Francisco Chronicle
01/16/06
Posted: 01/16/2006 7:12 pm
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