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Wednesday, January 18




Ideas

Paper-Thin - Computer Screens You Can Roll Up In just a few years we'll be reading on thin flexible paper-like screens. "The display, which currently has the resolution of a normal computer screen — 100 pixels per square inch — and four levels of gray scale, could help usher in durable, paper-like screens that can be attached to small electronic devices such as mobile phones and then rolled up and tucked away when not in use." Discovery 01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 5:44 pm

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Information Whirlwind 10 January 2006
Sure, they're depressing songs, but can you prove it in court? The Seattle Times. January 9, 2006
The pain felt on both sides The Los Angeles Times, 12/25/05
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Visual Arts

Washington Painting Could Go For $15 Mil "A life-size 1779 portrait of George Washington, projected to sell for as much as $15 million at Christie's International, will be one of the highlights of this week's Americana auctions in New York. Christie's and Sotheby's Holdings Inc. are hoping to bring in $61.5 million during the auctions that begin Friday." Los Angeles Times (Bloomberg) 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 6:46 am

Egyptian Sculptures Find Themselves Unexpectedly Popular Two ancient Egyptian sculptures recently set back-to-back records, selling at auction for $2.25 million and $2.8 million within the space of an hour. The sale prices may have surprised many, but the Texas-based Kimbell Art Museum, which bought the more expensive piece, believes that it is one of the few surviving works of art which can put a face on a notoriously remote civilization. The Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 6:32 am

Calatrava's City Canvas Architect Santiago Calatrava has been using Valencia, Spain as his canvas, building one of Europe's biggest performing arts palaces. "It's a flashy new culture palace all right, designed by one of the world's premier league 'starchitects', Calatrava, and it could well do for Spain's third city what Frank Gehry's Guggenheim did for Bilbao. But there are some key differences. First and foremost, Valencia is Calatrava's home town. He was born there, grew up there, studied there and even published a book on the city's architecture. And although his office is based in Zurich, Calatrava has been building in Valencia for most of his career." The Guardian (UK) 01/18/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 9:30 pm

Looking At Beck's Art What's competing for this year's Beck's Futures prize? Here's a gallery of the nominated work... The Guardian (UK) 01/18/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:52 pm

Britain's Museum Crisis "Since 1993, the acquisitions budgets of the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum have dropped by 90 per cent. The Government says that museums can decide how much of their grant-in-aid they spend on purchases, but this is specious, because they are so cash-strapped that they cannot afford to allocate more to acquisitions." The Telegraph (UK) 01/18/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:48 pm

How New York Became The Center Of The Art World "To be sure, cultural power customarily follows financial power. From this perspective, it is hardly surprising that postwar New York should have assumed the preeminence that Paris had enjoyed in 1900, or Rome in 1600. But what was remarkable was that a country with such a long record of philistine indifference to visual culture could move in a single generation from art’s provincial periphery to its very epicenter." Commentary 01/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:18 pm

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A trip down techno-memory lane Deseret Morning News 01/15/06
Painter scoops 25,000 euros prize BBC News 1/14/06
Missing Close Calls with Big Money Art DC Art News 1/13/06
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Music

Consolidating At Cooperstown The upstate New York-based Glimmerglass Opera will lose its artistic director this year when Paul Kellogg steps down from the position. Rather than replace him, the company has announced that general director Michael MacLeod will assume the duties of artistic director as well. "While MacLeod has no experience with an opera company, Glimmerglass emphasized in a press release that he had worked with such leading singers as Barbara Bonney, Ian Bostridge, Rodney Gilfrey, and Bryn Terfel while leading the City of London Festival" PlaybillArts 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 5:58 am

Embezzlement Alleged At Charlotte Opera Company Opera Carolina says that its former finance director embezzled nearly $50,000 from the company over the course of the 2004-05 season. Mary Lopes, who resigned from her position with the company last fall, is also accused of using a company credit card for personal expenses. "After an interim finance director took over last fall... the company discovered in mid-December that 'the financial records were in disarray.'" Charlotte Observer 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 5:45 am

Reconciling Mozart "Our feeling of disconnection from Mozart the man—what Copland speaks of as our inability to 'seize' him—extends to the works themselves. Except for the greater sophistication that came with age, there is no readily apparent relationship between the expressive qualities of Mozart’s music and the emotional landmarks of his life." Commentary 01/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:15 pm

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Arts Issues

Looking East "Conventional wisdom used to say that emerging economies would make the 'cheap' stuff, while advanced nations would do the complicated creative work. But that notion has never really been true," and as East Asian countries continue to advance their global business reputation, even the so-called creative industries are in danger of seeing their Western dominance fade. BBC 01/16/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 6:16 am

New UK Touring Rules Will Bite Large Groups Hard Major changes are being proposed to the rules governing international touring groups who want to perform in Great Britain. "At present, non-EU touring stars can 'sign in' an army of musicians, bodyguards and manicurists on one temporary work permit... Under changes proposed by the Home Office any person wishing to travel to Britain as part of a touring group will have to make an individual application at a British consulate in their home country." The new permit applications will cost £100 per person, where the group permits now cost only £153. Critics fear that large groups such as orchestras may cross Britain off their schedules rather than jump through the new hoops. The Times (UK) 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 6:08 am

The Barbican's Excellent Year London's Barbican Center has had its best year at the box office in a decade. "'Turnover for 2005 was up 10.25% on the previous year, with box office takings nearly hitting £11 million by the end of December. The centre also enjoyed its most successful Christmas period since 1995." The Stage (UK) 01/17/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 9:52 pm

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People

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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Theatre

London's Olivier Awards Nominees "The National Theatre dominated the new writing categories, with Coram Boy, its recent children's play, Howard Brenton's controversial drama Paul, and Simon Stephens's On the Shore of the Wide Wild World receiving nominations." The Guardian (UK) 01/18/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:57 pm

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Something 'Permanent' LA Daily News 1/16/06
Famed O'Neill program boosts Alliance's playwriting contest Atlanta Journal-Constitution 12/22/05
Listen. Learn. Then lead. Los Angeles Times 1/1/06
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Publishing

The Memoir Problem "No one wants to read an 8,000-page memoir that pores over each waking moment. But now, the controversy surrounding James Frey's bestselling memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," is raising questions about how factual even the most carefully written memoirs are. The memoir is a strange kind of performance. It's halfway between fiction and testimony. 'Anybody in his right mind knows that a memoir is unreliable'." Christian Science Monitor 01/18/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:31 pm

Adolescent Behavior "It has to be more than a coincidence that literary fiction is being flooded with books about adolescents. It's been building for a while, from Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay and Craig Thompson's Blankets to last year's Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. But this year it seems to be out of control, with another book about another awkward pre-teen crossing my doorway every day or so." Bookstandard 01/13/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 5:49 pm

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

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Media

Political, Yes. Trendsetting? Probably Not. Much has been made of Hollywood's recent obsession with "issue" movies, and this week's Golden Globes rewarded mainly serious, even controversial films with a specific (read: left-wing) political bent. "What's easy to forget in all this is the fact that Hollywood - with a lead time of well over a year when it comes to making a major film - generally follows, but does not lead, cultural and political trends." The New York Times 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 7:01 am

Geisha May Be Blocked By Chinese Censors "Memoirs of a Geisha has China censors stumped, with officials and state press saying yesterday the film may be banned due to concerns that it could rouse anti-Japanese sentiments. Several state newspapers reported that the movie... was scheduled for general release on Feb. 19 but that had now been scrapped. The main issue of concern is that two leading actresses who play geishas are Chinese, which could evoke memories of Japanese wartime aggression toward mainland women." The Globe & Mail (AFP) 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 6:42 am

Is Digital Filmmaking Ready For Its Closeup? Do-it-yourself digital video technology was supposed to have brought a new brand of populism to alternative filmmaking by now, but there haven't been many high-profile success stories as yet. Still, this year's edition of the Sundance Festival may well be a hint of the digital video revolution yet to come... Wired 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 6:21 am

A Common Theme Through Movies Celebrated At This Year's Globes? Big Issues. Serious issues. "Movies honored at the Globes offer a peek into the industry 18 months ago, when film executives were on high alert about the war, about the election, about the growing divide in the country. It was way back then that feel-good, the vibe that Hollyw

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Dance

Ever Younger, Ever Stronger The issue of age is omnipresent for ballet companies. Dance careers are so physically demanding that troupes must constantly replenish their supply of dancers, and the result is a near-constant tension between younger dancers and their aging mentors. New York City Ballet is currently in the midst of an "unusually intense replenishment," and John Rockwell says that the results are visible onstage. The New York Times 01/18/06
Posted: 01/18/2006 6:57 am

Flowers Grow Since Hartford Dance Failure Hartford Ballet and Dance Connecticut both collapsed in debt. But "the demise of the Hartford Ballet has allowed smaller troupes, many of whom existed in its shadow, to gain attention, opening the door to experimental works in intimate settings that supporters hope will please experienced dance enthusiasts as well as attract new eyes. 'The idea of a traditional company being a central institution in a city like Hartford may have played itself out'." Hartford Courant 01/15/06
Posted: 01/17/2006 6:26 pm

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